The Oyez Project: 1907 Term Decisions

Adair v. United States (No. 293)

Did the law violate the right of employers and employees to enter into contracts with each other as protected by the Fifth Amendment which prevents government from depriving an individual of liberty or property without due process of law?

The Court found that the statute violated the Constitution and was not a legitimate exercise of congressional authority to regulate interstate commerce. Justice Harlan argued that it is important to preserve the balance of freedoms which exists between employers and employees: "The right of a person to sell his labor upon such terms as he deems proper is, in essence, the same as the right of the purchaser of labor to prescribe the conditions upon which he will accept such labor from the person offering to sell it." The law violated the liberties of both employers and employees since it compelled them to accept certain conditions in the purchasing and selling of labor.

Muller v. Oregon (No. 107)

Does the Oregon law violate a woman's freedom of contract implicit in the liberty protected by due process of the Fourteenth Amendment?

There was no constitutional violation. The factory and laundry owners claimed that there was no reasonable connection between the law and public health, safety, or welfare. In a famous brief in defense of the Oregon law, attorney Louis Brandeis elaborately detailed expert reports on the harmful physical, economic and social effects of long working hours on women. Brewer's opinion was based on the proposition that physical and social differences between the sexes warranted a different rule respecting labor contracts. Theretofore, gender was not a basis for such distinctions. Brewer's opinion conveyed the accepted wisdom of the day: that women were unequal and inferior to men.

Twining v. New Jersey (No. 10)

Does comment upon a defendant's failure to testify violate the Fourteenth Amendment?

Neither the Privileges and Immunities Clause nor the Due Process Clause embraces the right against self-incrimination found in the Fifth Amendment. Moody rested the Court's opinion on the historical record, which led him to the view that the right against self-incrimination was not fundamental.