208 U.S. 161 (1908), Supreme Court of the United States
Adair v. United States is a canonical Lochner-era decision in which the Supreme Court struck down a federal statute designed to protect union organizing among railroad workers.
Does Congress, consistent with the Commerce Clause and the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause, have authority to criminalize the discharge of an interstate railroad employee because of union membership under Section 10 of the Erdman Act?
Under the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause, the liberty of contract includes an employer's right to hire and discharge employees and an employee's reciprocal right to accept or decline employment on mutually agreed terms. Congress's Commerce Clause power does not extend to regulating matters that bear only an indirect or remote relation to interstate commerce, such as compelling employers to retain or not discriminate against employees based solely on union membership. A federal statute that interferes with these rights and does not directly regulate interstate commerce exceeds congressional authority and violates due process.
No. Section 10 of the Erdman Act is unconstitutional. It exceeds Congress's Commerce Clause power and violates the Fifth Amendment's protection of liberty of contract by forbidding railroad employers from discharging employees because of union membership. The conviction was reversed.
Adair epitomizes the Lochner-era use of substantive due process to protect freedom of contract and imposes a narrow, direct-effects view of the Commerce Clause. It constrained federal efforts to protect collective labor activity for decades, pairing with Coppage v. Kansas (1915) and Hitchman Coal & Coke Co. v. Mitchell (1917) to entrench employer prerogatives such as the use of "yellow-dog" contracts. Although not formally overruled by name, Adair's doctrinal pillars were dismantled by West Coast Hotel v. Parrish (repudiating the liberty-of-contract approach to wage and hour laws) and NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel (expanding Congress's commerce power to reach labor relations with substantial effects on interstate commerce). Statutorily, the Railway Labor Act (1926, as amended) and the National Labor Relations Act (1935) established enduring federal protections for collective bargaining, rendering Adair's holding a historical artifact rather than a current barrier to labor regulation.