ABSTRACT
In Lochner v. New York, 198 US 45, the US Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional a state law limiting bakers' work hours. For several generations of legal observers, Lochner symbolized the dangers of an activist Supreme Court. To progressives and New Dealers, it epitomized a laissez-faire Court's apparent desire to void economic regulations that did not comport with its members' ideological inclinations. Lochner presented a challenge to a New York law, passed in 1895 with unanimous support in both chambers of the legislature, limiting bakers to ten- hour days and sixty-hour weeks. Lochner had been convicted of coercing or allowing one of his employees to work more than sixty hours in one week. Lochner ultimately left a huge imprint on the country's political and legal terrain, despite the minimal reaction that initially followed the ruling. Reformers faced an uphill battle against a Supreme Court that had greatly circumscribed the permissible uses of the state's police power.
