Lochner era

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The Lochner era is a period in from roughly 1890 to 1937 in which the United States Supreme Court tended to strike down economic regulations designed to improve working conditions, increase wages, or limit working hours in favor of laissez-faire economic policy. In the eponymous 1905 case of Lochner v. New York, the Court struck down a New York State law limiting the number of hours bakers could work on the grounds that it violated bakers' "right to contract," a right supossedly implicit in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This doctrine, known as Substantive Due Process, defined the Court during the Lochner era.

Other representative cases include Hammer v. Dagenhart (1918), where the court struck down legislation aimed at reducing child labor in factories where children under 14 worked; as well as Adkins v. Children's Hospital (1923), where the court struck down federal legislation that established a minimum wage level for women in D.C.. See also Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Co..

The era is considered to have ended with the overturning of Adkins v. Children's Hospital in the 1937 case of West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish.

Since that period the Lochner era is considered by both liberals and conservatives alike to be a regrettable period in U.S. jurisprudence, each for different reasons. Liberal-minded people considered it a shameful time for workers' rights and conservatives use it as an example of inappropriate judicial activism.

However, many libertarians view Lochner and its progeny as laudable cases for their recognition of individual liberty. Supporters of Lochner also point out the inconsistency of subsequent cases in the post-West Coast Hotel era. For example, Griswold v. Connecticut established a right of married couples to purchase contraceptives, but after West Coast Hotel, individuals do not have the right to sell contraceptives.

"Lochnerizing" has developed into a verb used in the legal community to denote judicial activism.^{[[Citing sources citation needed]]}

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