Day-Brite Lighting v. Missouri/Opinion of the Court

Missouri has a statute, Mo.Rev.Stat., 1949, § 129.060, V.A.M.S., first enacted in 1897, which was designed to end the coercion of employees by employers in the exercise of the franchise. It provides that an employee may absent himself from his employment for four hours between the opining and closing of the polls without penalty, and that any employer who among other things deducts wages for that absence is guilty of a misdemeanor.

Appellant is a Missouri corporation doing business in St. Louis. November 5, 1946, was a day for general elections in Missouri, the polls being open from 6 A.M. to 7 P.M. One Grotemeyer, an employee of appellant, was on a shift that worked from 8 A.M. to 4:30 P.M. each day, with thirty minutes for lunch. His rate of pay was $1.60 an hour. He requested four hours from the scheduled work day to vote on November 5, 1946. That request was refused; but Grotemeyer and all other employees on his shift were allowed to leave at 3 P.M. that day, which gave them four consecutive hours to vote before the polls closed.

Grotemeyer left his work at 3 P.M. in order to vote and did not return to work that day. He was not paid for the hour and a half between 3 P.M. and 4:30 P.M. Appellant was found guilty and fined for penalizing Grotemeyer in violation of the statute. The judgment was affirmed by the Missouri Supreme Court, 362 Mo. 299, 240 S.W.2d 886, over the objection that the statute violated the Due Process and the Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Contract Clause of Art. I, § 10.

The liberty of contract argument pressed on us is reminiscent of the philosophy of Lochner v. State of New York, 198 U.S. 45, 25 S.Ct. 539, 49 L.Ed. 937, which invalidated a New York law prescribing maximum hours for work in bakeries; Coppage v. State of Kansas, 236 U.S. 1, 35 S.Ct. 240, 59 L.Ed. 441, which struck down a Kansas statute outlawing 'yellow dog' contracts; Adkins v. Children's Hospital of District of Columbia, 261 U.S. 525, 43 S.Ct. 394, 67 L.Ed. 785, which held unconstitutional a federal statute fixing minimum wage standards for women in the District of Columbia, and others of that vintage. Our recent decisions make plain that we do not sit as a super-legislature to weigh the wisdom of legislation nor to decide whether the policy which it expresses offends the public welfare. The legislative power has limits, as Tot v. United States, 319 U.S. 463, 63 S.Ct. 1241, 87 L.Ed. 1519, holds. But the state legislatures hve constitutional authority to experiment with new techniques; they are entitled to their own standard of the public welfare; they may within extremely broad limits control practices in the business-labor field, so long as specific constitutional prohibitions are not violated and so long as conflicts with valid and controlling federal laws are avoided. That is the essence of West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, 300 U.S. 379, 57 S.Ct. 578, 81 L.Ed. 703; Nebbia v. People of State of New York, 291 U.S. 502, 54 S.Ct. 505, 78 L.Ed. 940; Olsen v. State of Nebraska, ex rel. Western Reference & Bond Ass'n, 313 U.S. 236, 61 S.Ct. 862, 85 L.Ed. 1305; Lincoln Federal Labor Union No. 19129, A.F. of L. v. Northwestern Iron & Metal Co., 335 U.S. 525, 69 S.Ct. 251, 93 L.Ed. 212; and California State Auto. Ass'n v. Maloney, 341 U.S. 105, 71 S.Ct. 601, 95 L.Ed. 788.

West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, supra, overruling Adkins v. Children's Hospital, supra, held constitutional a state law fixing minimum wages for women. The present statutes contains in form a minimum wage requirement. There is a difference in the purpose of the legislation. Here it is not the protection of the health and morals of the citizen. Missouri by this legislation has sought to safeguard the right of suffrage by taking from employers the incentive and power to use thier leverage over employees to influence the vote. But the police power is not confined to a narrow category; it extends, as stated in Noble State Bank v. Haskell, 219 U.S. 104, 111, 31 S.Ct. 186, 188, 55 L.Ed. 112, to all the great public needs. The protection of the right of suffrage under our scheme of things is basic and fundamental.

The only semblance of substance in the constitutional objection to Missouri's law is that the employer must pay wages for a period in which the employee performs no services. Of course many forms of regulation reduce the net return of the enterprise; yet that gives rise to no constitutional infirmity. See Queenside Hills Co. v. Saxl, 328 U.S. 80, 66 S.Ct. 850, 90 L.Ed. 1096; California Auto. Ass'n v. Maloney, supra. Most regulations of business necessarily impose financial burdens on the enterprise for which no compensation is paid. Those are part of the costs of our civilization. Extreme cases are conjured up where an employer is required to pay wages for a period that has no relation to the legitimate end. Those cases can await decision as and when they arise. The present law has no such infirmity. It is designed to eliminate any penalty for exercising the right of suffrage and to remove a practical obstacle to getting out the vote. The public welfare is a broad and inclusive concept. The moral, social, economic, and physical well-being of the community is one part of it; the political well-being, another. The police power which is adequate to fix the financial burden for one is adequate for the other. The judgment of the legislature that time out for voting should cost the employee nothing may be a debatable one. It is indeed conceded by the opposition to be such. But if our recent cases mean anything, they leave debatable issues as respects business, economic, and social affairs to legislative decision. We could strike down this law only if we returned to the philosophy of the Lochner, Coppage, and Adkins cases.

The classification of voters so as to free employees from the domination of employers is an attempt to deal with an evil to which the one group has been exposed. The need for that classification is a matter for legislative judgment, American Federation of Labor v. American Sash & Door Co., 335 U.S. 538, 69 S.Ct. 258, 93 L.Ed. 222, and does not amount to a denial of equal protection under the laws.

Affirmed.