Darby Lumber Company, United States v. 312 U.S. 100 (1941)

• Author: Robert L. Stern
• Pages: 743-744

Page 743

This decision held the FAIR LABOR STANDARDS ACT of 1938 to be a valid exercise of federal power under the COMMERCE CLAUSE. That was no surprise after the 1937 decisions upholding the WAGNER (NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS) ACT and after the retirement of the four Justices who had voted consistently for a narrow interpretation of the commerce clause. The opinion of Justice HARLAN FISKE STONE was nevertheless of great significance. For instead of speaking in terms of such nonconstitutional concepts as "direct" and "indirect," it returned to basic constitutional principles as to the scope of the power of Congress.

The commerce clause itself precluded states with high labor standards from protecting their wage levels by forbidding the entry of goods produced elsewhere at lower wages. This meant that in the absence of federal legislative action, states with the lowest labor standards could drive the standards down throughout the country. In 1916 Congress first sought to meet this problem by barring the interstate transportation of goods produced by children. Although that statute was clearly a regulation of INTERSTATE COMMERCE the Supreme Court held it unconstitutional by a vote of 5?4 in HAMMER V. DAGENHART (1918) because the purpose of the act was to control what occurred during the course of intrastate PRODUCTION. Five years later, in ADKINS V. CHILDREN ' S HOSPITAL (1923), the Court ruled, 6?3, that the DUE PROCESS clause forbade the fixing of minimum wages by either federal or state governments.

The downward spiral of prices and wages during the Great Depression of the 1930s forced employers seeking to survive to reduce wages to incredibly low levels. Congress sought to deal with this problem by requiring the codes of fair competition under the NATIONAL INDUSTRIAL RECOVERY ACT to prescribe MAXIMUM HOURS AND MINIMUM WAGES. SCHECHTER POULTRY CORP. V. UNITED STATES (1935), holding the NRA unconstitutional, brought this program to a halt, and CARTER V. CARTER COAL COMPANY (1936), holding that Congress lacked power to regulate labor conditions and relations in the coal industry, seemed to create an insurmountable impediment. Unpredictably, this lasted for only a year, when Carter was in substance overruled in the WAGNER ACT CASES (1937) and Adkins was overruled in WEST COAST HOTEL CO. V. PARRISH (1937). The result was passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act in June 1938.

That statute prescribed a minimum wage of...