Lochner v. New York (1905) is the namesake case of the “Lochner Era,” in which the Court struck down many state and federal regulations on working conditions. In this case, the Supreme Court ruled that a New York law limiting the number of hours a baker could work violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s guaranteed “liberty of contract.”

New York passed the Bakeshop Act in 1895 to improve sanitation and limit bakery employees to a sixty-hour work week. Bakery owner Joseph Lochner ran afoul of the law when his employee worked longer hours than legally permitted. After appeals to New York courts, Lochner took his case to the Supreme Court, which found that the Bakeshop Act infringed on his right to enter into a contract with his worker. In a 5-4 decision overturning the law, the Court recognized a “freedom of contract,” finding the act outside the police powers of the state. By the 1930s the Court began to reject “substantive due process” for economic regulations, but it became the basis for protecting personal rights like privacy in the 1960s.