In reliance upon Ribnik v. McBride, 277 U.S. 350, 48 S.Ct. 545, 72 L.Ed. 913, 56 A.L.R. 1327, the Supreme Court of Nebraska held, one judge di senting, that a statute of that state fixing the maximum compensation which a private employment agency might collect from an applicant for employment was unconstitutional under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. State ex rel. Western Reference & Bond Ass'n v. Kinney, 138 Neb. 574, 293 N.W. 393. The case is here on a petition for certiorari which we granted because of the importance of the constitutional question which was raised.
The action is for a peremptory writ of mandamus ordering petitioner, Secretary of Labor of Nebraska, to issue a license to the relator to operate a private employment agency for the year commencing May 1, 1940. The license was withheld because of relator's refusal to limit its maximum compensation, as provided by the statute, to ten per cent of the first month's salary or wages of the person for whom employment was obtained. The petition in mandamus challenged the constitutionality of those provisions of the act. The answer sought to sustain them by alleging that the business of a private employment agency is 'vitally affected with a public interest' and subject to such regulation under the police power of the state. The relator's motion for judgment on the pleadings was sustained and it was ordered that a peremptory writ of mandamus should issue.
We disagree with the Supreme Court of Nebraska. The statutory provisions in question do not violate the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.