Muller v. Oregon
Headline: Oregon law limiting women to ten-hour laundry workdays upheld, allowing states to restrict women’s working hours and affecting employers and female laundry workers.
Holding: The Court affirmed that a state law limiting women to ten hours in a laundry is a valid exercise of the state's authority to protect women's health, so the employer's conviction was upheld.
- Allows states to set shorter workdays for women in laundries and similar workplaces.
- Employers can be fined or criminally punished for making women work over ten hours.
- Women gain legal protection limiting long workdays for health and maternal concerns.
Summary
Background
An Oregon law made it a crime for employers to have women work more than ten hours in a day in factories, mechanical establishments, or laundries. A Portland laundry owner was convicted after an overseer required a woman employee to work over ten hours, and the Oregon Supreme Court affirmed his conviction. The owner argued the law violated federal protections for making contracts, treated people unequally, and was not a valid public-safety rule.
Reasoning
The Court considered whether the state could limit women’s working hours despite the general right to make contracts. It noted an earlier decision that struck down a similar hours limit for men in a bakery, but explained women differ from men in physical constitution and maternal functions. The opinion relied on medical reports and a long history of protective legislation to conclude that special rules for women could be justified to protect health and the future well-being of families. For those reasons, the Court held the ten-hour limit for women working in laundries did not violate the federal Constitution.
Real world impact
The ruling means states may uphold laws that set shorter workdays for women in laundries and similar workplaces for health and maternal reasons. Employers in those businesses face fines or criminal penalties if they require women to work beyond the limit. The decision is confined to laws like the one at issue and to the role of women in the kinds of work described, not necessarily to every workplace or regulation.
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