West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish

The Court upheld a Washington State minimum wage law for women, abandoning the liberty of contract doctrine of the Lochner era.

Overview

Elsie Parrish, a chambermaid at a hotel in Wenatchee, Washington, sued for the difference between her pay and the state minimum wage for women. Chief Justice Hughes, writing for a 5-4 majority in March 1937, upheld the law and expressly overruled Adkins v. Children's Hospital, declaring that the Constitution does not speak of freedom of contract and that regulation in the public interest satisfies due process. Justice Owen Roberts's vote with the majority was popularly called the switch in time that saved nine, though the case had been decided in conference before Roosevelt announced his court-packing plan. The ruling marked the end of the Lochner era.