jan 1, 1905 - Lochner V. New York

Description:

was a landmark US labor law case in the US Supreme Court, holding that limits to working time violated the Fourteenth Amendment. This decision has since been overturned

A majority of five judges held that a New York law requiring that bakery employee hours had to be under 10 hours a day and 60 hours a week violated the due process clause, which in their view contained a right of "freedom of contract". They said there was "unreasonable, unnecessary and arbitrary interference with the right and liberty of the individual to contract." Four dissenting judges rejected this view, and Oliver Wendell Holmes's dissent in particular became one of the most famous opinions in US legal history.