Schmidinger v. City of Chicago
Headline: Chicago ordinance requiring standard loaf weights and labeling is upheld, allowing the city to fine bakers who sell undersized bread and protecting consumers who buy single loaves from short weights.
Holding: The Court held that Chicago’s ordinance setting standard loaf weights, required labels, and scales is a valid exercise of local police power and does not violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process protection, so penalties may be enforced.
- Allows Chicago to fine bakers selling undersized loaves under ordinance.
- Requires bakers to use labels and keep scales so buyers can check loaf weight.
- Limits freedom of contract where local consumer protection justifies regulation.
Summary
Background
A Chicago baker was sued by the City for selling loaves that did not match weights required by a city ordinance passed January 6, 1908. The law set a standard loaf at one pound and allowed only certain fractional or multiple sizes, required a weight label and business name on each loaf, required scales to be kept and used on request, and imposed fines of $10–$100 per offense. At trial the baker initially won, but the Illinois Supreme Court later affirmed penalties, and the case reached this Court on a writ of error.
Reasoning
The central question was whether the city ordinance unreasonably invaded individual rights protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, including freedom of contract. The Court explained that cities may regulate trades for public welfare under their police power and may set weights and measures to prevent fraud. The record showed many bakers, widespread sale of five-cent loaves that weighed about fourteen ounces, and practical baking factors like shrinkage and varying dough weights. The Court accepted the Illinois court’s interpretation that the ordinance aimed to prevent short weights, not to fix prices, and found the regulation neither arbitrary nor a forbidden deprivation of due process.
Real world impact
The ruling lets Chicago enforce the loaf-weight, labeling, and scale requirements and collect fines for violations, which protects small-quantity buyers from receiving short loaves. It confirms that local legislatures have leeway to set standards for common goods and that freedom of contract yields to reasonable public-welfare regulations.
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