Which U.S. Supreme Court case held that a state minimum-wage law for women could violate freedom of contract in 1923?

Adkins v. Children’s Hospital held in 1923 that the District of Columbia’s minimum-wage law for women and children violated the constitutional freedom of contract recognized by the Court at that time.

The decision followed the Court’s earlier use of substantive due process to review economic regulations. A majority reasoned that adults generally had a constitutional liberty to negotiate employment terms, even when lawmakers viewed minimum wages as protective.

The ruling was later overturned by West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish in 1937. West Coast Hotel upheld a state minimum-wage law and marked a major change in the Supreme Court’s approach to economic regulation.

Adkins is therefore a historical case, not the current rule governing U.S. minimum-wage laws. Modern federal and state wage statutes operate under constitutional principles developed after the shift in 1937.