This is a habeas corpus case originating in the supreme court of New York. Relator was indicted in the county court of Kings county and sent to jail to await trial upon the charge that as manager of a laundry he failed to obey the mandatory order of the state industrial commissioner prescribing minimum wages for women employees.
The relator's petition for the writ avers that the statute, chapter 584 of the Laws of 1933 adding article 19 to the Labor Law N.Y. (Consol.Law, c. 31), under which the commissioner made the order, in so far as it purports to authorize him to fix women's wages, is repugnant to the due process clause, article 1, § 6, of the Constitution of the State and the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The application for the writ is grounded upon the claim that the state statute is substantially identical with the minimum wage law enacted by Congress for the District of Columbia, 40 Stat. 960, which in 1923 was condemned by this court as repugnant to the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment. Adkins v. Children's Hospital, 261 U.S. 525, 43 S.Ct. 394, 67 L.Ed. 785, 24 A.L.R. 1238.
The warden's return, without disclosing the commissioner's order, the prescribed wages, the findings essential to his jurisdiction to establish them, things done in pursuance of the act, or the allegations of the indictment, merely shows that under an order of the county court he was detaining relator for trial. The case was submitted on petition and return. The court dismissed the writ. People ex rel. Tipaldo v. Morehead, 156 Misc. 522, 282 N.Y.S. 576. Relator took the case to the Court of Appeals. It held the act repugnant to the due process clauses of the State and Federal Constitutions. 270 N.Y. 233, 200 N.E. 799. The remittitur directed that the order appealed from be reversed, the writ sustained, and the prisoner discharged; it certified that the federal constitutional question was presented and necessarily passed on. The supreme court entered judgment as directed. We granted a writ of certiorari. Morehead v. People of State of New York ex rel. Tipaldo, 297 U.S. 702, 56 S.Ct. 670, 80 L.Ed. 991.
The act extends to women and minors in any 'occupation' which 'shall mean an industry, trade or business or branch thereof or class of work therein in which women or minors are gainfully employed, but shall not include domestic service in the home of the employer or labor on a farm.' Section 551(6). It is not an emergency law. It does not regulate hours or any conditions affecting safety or protection of employees. It relates only to wages of adult women and minors. As the record is barren of details in respect of investigation, findings, amounts being paid women workers in laundries or elsewhere prior to the order, or of things done to ascertain the minimum prescribed, we must take it as granted that, if the state is permitted as against emp oyers and their women employees to establish and enforce minimum wages, that power has been validly exerted. It is to be assumed that the rates have been fairly made in accordance with the procedure prescribed by the act and in full compliance with the defined standards. If, consistently with the due process clause, the state may not enter upon regulation of the sort undertaken by the challenged enactment, then plainly it cannot by diligence to insure the establishment of just minima create power to enter that field. Cf. St. Joseph Stock Yards Co. v. United States, 298 U.S. 38, 56 S.Ct. 720, 80 L.Ed. --; Baltimore & Ohio R.R. v. United States, 298 U.S. 349, 56 S.Ct. 797, 80 L.Ed. --.
The Adkins Case, unless distinguishable, requires affirmance of the judgment below. The petition for the writ sought review upon the ground that this case is distinguishable from that one. No application has been made for reconsideration of the constitutional question there decided. The validity of the principles upon which that decision rests is not challenged. This court confines itself to the ground upon which the writ was asked or granted. Alice State Bank v. Houston Pasture Co., 247 U.S. 240, 242, 38 S.Ct. 496, 62 L.Ed. 1096; Clark v. Williard, 294 U.S. 211, 216, 55 S.Ct. 356, 79 L.Ed. 865, 98 A.L.R. 347. Here the review granted was no broader than that sought by the petitioner. Johnson v. Manhattan Ry. Co., 289 U.S. 479, 494, 53 S.Ct. 721, 77 L.Ed. 1331. He is not entitled and does not ask to be heard upon the question whether the Adkins Case should be overruled. He maintains that it may be distinguished on the ground that the statutes are vitally dissimilar.