Lochner v. New York

-The general right to make a contract in relation-to his business is part of the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, and this includes the right to purchase and sell labor, except as controlled by the State mn the legitimate exercise of its police power.

Liberty of contract relating to labor includes both parties to it; the one has ' as much right to purchase as the other to sell labor.

There is no reasonable ground, on the score of health, for mterfermg.with the liberty of the person or the right of free" contract, by determining the hours of labor, in the occupation of a baker. Nor can a law limiting such hours be justified as a health law to safeguard the public health, or the health of the individuals folfowing that occupation.

Section 110 of the labor law of the State of New York, providing that no employds shall be required or permitted to work m bakeries more than sixty hours in a week, or ten hours a day, is not a legitimate exercise of the police power of the State, but an unreasonable, unnecessary and arbitrary interference with the right and liberty of the individual to contract, in relation to labor, and as such it is in conflict with, and void under, the Federal Constitution.