Bunting v. Oregon
Headline: Upheld Oregon’s ten-hour workday for mills and factories, allowing limited overtime at time-and-a-half and letting the state enforce health-based labor limits on employers.
Holding: The Court upheld Oregon’s law limiting work in mills and factories to ten hours per day, treating it as a valid health-based hours regulation and allowing limited overtime at one and one-half pay.
- Allows states to limit factory work to ten hours per day.
- Requires overtime pay at one-and-one-half times regular wage for limited extra hours.
- Employers can be criminally fined for violating the hours law.
Summary
Background
A mill owner, a flouring mill corporation, was indicted for employing a worker for thirteen hours in one day without paying overtime under an Oregon law that forbade employment in mills, factories, and manufacturing establishments for more than ten hours a day. The owner argued the law was really a wage law that took property without due process and violated the Fourteenth Amendment. He was convicted, fined, and the state supreme court upheld the law, leading to this review by the United States Supreme Court.
Reasoning
The Court focused on whether the statute was a regulation of hours for health purposes or an improper wage law. The law expressly said it aimed to protect workers’ health by limiting daily hours, and the Court accepted that legislative judgment. The Court also explained the overtime clause—permitting up to three extra hours at time-and-a-half—did not convert the law into a disguised wage scheme but acted as a legislative device to limit abuses and help enforcement. Giving deference to the legislature’s health and safety judgment, the Court held the classification and limits were within the State’s police power and valid under the Fourteenth Amendment.
Real world impact
The decision lets Oregon continue to enforce a ten-hour limit in mills and similar workplaces, requires higher pay for limited overtime when used, and supports state power to set health-based labor rules. Employers who violate the hours law may be criminally punished and fined.
Dissents or concurrances
Three Justices dissented (the Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Van Devanter, and Mr. Justice McReynolds), but their reasons are not stated in the excerpt provided.
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