Which U.S. Supreme Court case upheld Congress’s power to regulate child labor through the Fair Labor Standards Act?

United States v. Darby Lumber Co. upheld Congress’s power to regulate child labor and wages through the Fair Labor Standards Act.

The Supreme Court decided the case in 1941. Darby Lumber challenged the FLSA, arguing that federal regulation of wages and working conditions exceeded Congress’s authority under the Commerce Clause and violated the Tenth Amendment.

The Court unanimously rejected those arguments. It held that Congress could regulate interstate commerce and could prohibit the shipment of goods produced under labor conditions that Congress had lawfully regulated. The decision also rejected the idea that the Tenth Amendment independently limited otherwise valid federal powers.

Darby reversed the approach taken in Hammer v. Dagenhart, a 1918 case that had struck down an earlier federal child-labor law. The later ruling became an important foundation for modern federal labor regulation, including the FLSA’s minimum-wage and child-labor provisions.