Adair v. United States
Adair v. United States, 208 U.S. 161 (1908), was a US labor law case of the United States Supreme Court which declared that bans on "yellow-dog" contracts (that forbade workers from joining labor unions) were unconstitutional. The decision reaffirmed the doctrine of freedom of contract which was first recognized by the Court in Allgeyer v. Louisiana (1897). For this reason, Adair is often seen as defining what has come to be known as the Lochner era, a period in American legal history in which the Supreme Court tended to invalidate legislation aimed at regulating business.
| Adair v. United States | |
|---|---|
Supreme Court of the United States | |
| Argued October 29, 1907 Decided January 27, 1908 | |
| Full case name | William Adair, Plff. in Err. v. United States |
| Citations | 208 U.S. 161 (more) 28 S. Ct. 277; 52 L. Ed. 436; 1908 U.S. LEXIS 1431 |
| Case history | |
| Prior | Error to the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Kentucky |
| Holding | |
| Section 10 of the Erdman Act which prohibited railroad companies from demanding that a worker not join a union as a condition for employment was unconstitutional because it infringed on the right to liberty of contract under the Fifth Amendment and exceeded Congress' powers under the Commerce Clause. | |
| Court membership | |
| |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Harlan, joined by Fuller, Brewer, White, Peckham, Day |
| Dissent | McKenna |
| Dissent | Holmes |
| Moody took no part in the consideration or decision of the case. | |
| Laws applied | |
| U.S. Const. amend. V U.S. Const. art. I sec. 8 clause 3 | |
In earlier cases, the Court had struck down state legislation limiting the freedom of contract by using the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which only applied to the states. In Adair the doctrine was expanded to include federal legislation by way of the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment.