Home > Great American Court Cases > Holden v. Hardy

Legal Citation: 169 U.S. 366 (1898)

Plaintiff
Holden

Defendant
Hardy

Plaintiff's Claim
That a Utah state law limiting mine and smelter workers to an eight-hour day was unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment, because it deprived both employers and their workers of their right to make contracts and so denies them the equal protection of the law.

Chief Lawyer for Plaintiff
Jeremiah M. Wilson

Chief Defense Lawyer
Charles J. Pearce

Justices for the Court
Henry Billings Brown (writing for the Court), Melville Weston Fuller, Horace Gray, John Marshall Harlan I, Joseph McKenna, George Shiras, Jr., Edward Douglass White

Justices Dissenting
David Josiah Brewer, Rufus Wheeler Peckham

Place
Washington, D.C.

Date of Decision
28 February 1898

Decision
That...