People Ex Rel. Tipaldo v. Morehead

The appellant is the manager of a laundry establishment operating in the borough of Brooklyn. Together with three other individuals he was indicted by the grand jury of Kings county for the violation of the Minimum Wage Law for Women (Laws of 1933, ch. 584, in effect April 29, 1933). He was charged with the crime of paying to an adult woman employee a wage less than that promulgated by the Industrial Commissioner as the mandatory minimum wage applicable to such a woman engaged in that employment, in violation of section 565, subdivision 2, of the Labor Law (Cons. Laws, ch. 31). By this habeas corpus proceeding the relator seeks to test the legality of his arrest and imprisonment, raising as the only question before the court the constitutionality of the statute, for the violation of which he has been held for trial. His contention is that the law contravenes the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, and article I, section 6, of the Constitution of the State of New York, both of which provisions are the same in this particular.

Chapter 584 of the Laws of 1933, thus attacked, is entitled, "An Act to amend the labor law, in relation to the determination and establishment of minimum fair wage standards for women and minors, with provision for the imposition of penalties for the violation thereof." The applicability of the law as to minors is not questioned. The act provides the machinery for determining the minimum wage to be paid women in "an industry, trade or business or branch thereof or class of work therein in which women or minors are gainfully employed, but shall not include domestic service in the home of the employer or labor on a farm." (Labor Law, § 551, subd. 6.) The act defines "an oppressive and unreasonable wage" (§ 551, subd. 7) to be a wage which is both less than the fair and reasonable value of the services rendered and less than sufficient to meet the minimum cost of living necessary for health. "A fair wage" (subd. 8) shall mean a wage fairly and reasonably commensurate with the value of the service or class of service rendered. In establishing the fair minimum wage the Commissioner and the wage board may take into account (1) all relevant circumstances affecting the value of the service or class of service rendered; (2) may be guided by like considerations as would guide a court in a suit for the reasonable value of service rendered where services are rendered at the request of an employer without contract as to the amount of the wage to be paid; and (3) may consider the wages paid in the State for work of like or comparable character by employers who voluntarily maintain minimum fair wage standards.

Section 552 reads as follows: "It is hereby declared to be against public policy for any employer to employ any woman or minor in an occupation in this state at an oppressive and unreasonable wage as defined in section five hundred and fifty-one of the article and any contract, agreement or understanding for or in relation to such employment shall be null and void."

The rest of the act provides for the establishment of a wage board, for hearings, for the determination of the minimum wage, and for the directory order of the Commissioner regarding the payment thereof.

Section 565, subdivision 2, for violation of which the relator has been indicted and imprisoned, reads as follows: "Any employer or the officer or agent of any corporation who pays or agrees to pay to any woman or minor employee less than the rates applicable to such woman or minor under a mandatory minimum fair wage order shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction be punished by a fine of not less than fifty nor more than two hundred dollars or by imprisonment of not less than ten nor more than ninety days or by both such fine and imprisonment, * * *."

We do not see wherein this act differs materially from the act of Congress ruled upon in Adkins v. Children's Hospital (261 U.S. 525), wherein it was held that the Minimum Wage Act of September 19, 1918, chapter 174 (40 U.S. Stat. 960), was an unconstitutional interference with liberty of contract. The interpretation of the Federal Constitution by the United States Supreme Court is binding upon us; we are in duty bound to follow its decisions unless they are inapplicable. We find no material difference between the act of Congress and this act of the New York State Legislature. The act of Congress, it is said, was to protect women from conditions resulting from wages which were inadequate to maintain decent standards of living. The Attorney-General's brief states it in these words: "The purpose of the statute in the Adkins case was to guarantee a wage based solely upon the necessities of the workers. The statute did not provide for the wages to have any relationship to earning power; was applicable to all vocations and not to the character of the work. * * * As contrasted with this statute, the New York Minimum Wage Law provides a definite standard for wages paid. It provides that the worker is to be paid at least the value of the services rendered."

This is a difference in phraseology and not in principle. The New York act, as above stated, prohibits an oppressive and unreasonable wage, which means both less than the fair and reasonable value of the services rendered and less than sufficient to meet the minimum cost of living necessary for health. The act of Congress had one standard, the living wage; this State act has added another, reasonable value. The minimum wage must include both. What was vague before has not been made any clearer. One of the elements, therefore, in fixing the fair wage is the very matter which was the basis of the congressional act. Forcing the payment of wages at a reasonable value does not make inapplicable the principle and ruling of the Adkins case.

The distinctions between this case and the Adkins case are differences in details, methods and time; the exercise of legislative power to fix wages in any employment is the same. We should follow the law as given, and not speculate as to the changes which have come or are supposed to have come to economic conditions in the last decade which may move the Supreme Court to a further consideration of its ruling. The Adkins case has not been lightly passed over nor its rulings forgotten. It was cited and followed in Wolff Packing Co. v. Court of IndustrialRelations (262 U.S. 522); Murphy v. Sardell (269 U.S. 530);Tyson Brother v. Banton (273 U.S. 418); Donham v.West-Nelson Mfg. Co. (273 U.S. 657); Ribnik v. McBride (277 U.S. 350), and Near v. Minnesota (283 U.S. 697).

When minimum wage laws somewhat similar to our own have been challenged since the Adkins case the courts have felt bound by that decision to declare them unconstitutional without re-examination of the principles involved in these particular statutes. (Topeka Laundry Co. v. Court of IndustrialRelations, 119 Kan. 12; Folding Furniture Works, Inc., v.Industrial Commission, 300 Fed. Rep. 991; Stevenson v. St.Clair, 161 Minn. 444; cf. Holcombe v. Creamer,231 Mass. 99.)

The order below should be reversed, the writ sustained, and the prisoner discharged, as chapter 584 of the Laws of 1933, under which he is held, is unconstitutional according to Adkins v.Children's Hospital (261 U.S. 525).