Adkins v. Children’s Hospital

261 U.S. 525 (1923)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

A statute was passed that allowed a Board to determine the minimum wages for women and children in the District of Columbia. Children’s (P) is a corporation maintaining a hospital for children in the District. It employs a large number of women with whom it had agreed upon rates of wages and compensation satisfactory to such employees, but which in some instances was less than the minimum wage fixed by an order of the board made in pursuance of the act. The instant suit was brought by P in the Supreme Court of the District to restrain the board from enforcing or attempting to enforce its order on the ground that it violated the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment. In the second case, the appellee, a woman twenty-one years of age, was employed by the Congress Hall Hotel Company as an elevator operator, at a salary of $35 per month and two meals a day. She was very happy with the arrangement. The Hotel Company was obliged to dispense with her services by reason of the order of the board and on account of the penalties prescribed by the act. The wages received by her were the best she was able to obtain for any work she was capable of performing, and the enforcement of the order, she alleges, deprived her of such employment and wages. She also alleged she could not secure any other position at which she could make a living, with as good physical and moral surroundings, and earn as good wages, and that she was desirous of continuing and would continue the employment but for the order of the board. An injunction was prayed as in the other case. The Supreme Court of the District denied the injunction and dismissed the bill in each case. The Court of Appeals, by a majority, first affirmed and subsequently reversed the trial court. Appeals to the Court of Appeals followed, and the decrees of the trial court were affirmed.