§ 287. Freedom of contract not infringed by the socalled Ohio "run-of-mine" or "anti-screen" law. In Rail and River Coal Co. v. Yaple, 236 U. S. 338, the Court said: "The objection that the law is unconstitutional as unduly abridging the freedom of contract in prescribing the particular method of compensation to be paid by employers to miners for the production of coal was made in the case of McLean v. Arkansas, 211 U. S. 539, in which this court sustained a law of the state of Arkansas, requiring coal mined to be paid for according to the runof-mine system according to its weight when brought out of the mine in cars. In that case the constitutional objections founded upon the right of contract which are made here, were considered and disposed of. This court has so often affirmed the right of the state, in the exercise of its police power, to place reasonable restraints like that here involved, upon the freedom of contract, that we need only refer to some of the cases in passing. Schmidinger v. Chicago, 226 U. S. 578; Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co. v. McGuire, 219 U. S. 549, and cases therein cited and reviewed."

§ 288. Freedom of contract not infringed by certain statutes regulating the employment of women. In Miller v. Wilson, 236 U. S. 373, it was held that the California statute of 1911, forbidding the employment of women in certain designated establishments for more than eight hours in one day, or forty-eight hours in one week, does not, when applied to women employed in hotels, conflict with the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, as an infringement of the freedom of contract guaranteed therein. The Court said: "As the liberty of contract guaranteed by the Constitution is freedom from arbitrary restraint,-not immunity from reasonable regulation to safeguard the public interest,-the question is whether the restrictions of the statute have reasonable relation to a proper purpose. Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co. v. McGuire, 219 U. S. 549; Erie R. Co. v. Williams,

233 U. S. 685; Coppage v. Kansas, 236 U. S. 1, 18. Upon this point, the recent decisions of this court upholding other statutes limiting the hours of labor of women must be regarded as decisive." It was likewise held in Bosley v. McLaughlin, 236 U. S. 385, that the freedom of contract guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment was not infringed by the California statute of 1911, as amended in 1913, forbidding a graduate woman pharmacist employed in a hospital to work more than eight hours in one day, or forty-eight hours in one week; and forbidding women student nurses in a hospital training school to work more than eight hours in one day, or forty-eight hours in one week. It was also held that the freedom of contract in question was not impaired through the extension by the California statute of 1913 of the prohibitions of the statute of 1911 to women employed in hospitals, such as matrons, seamstresses, bookkeepers, office assistants, and persons engaged in household work.

§ 289. Freedom of contract not infringed by Florida statute imposing special license taxes on merchants using profit sharing coupons and trading stamps. In Rast v. Van Deman and Lewis, 240 U. S. 342, the Court said: "Having disposed of the other contentions of complainants, we are brought to a consideration of the question whether the statute of Florida offends the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. In other words, does the statute interfere with the business liberty of complainants? Is it an illegal meddling with a lawful calling and a deprivation of freedom of contract? This is the contention, and it is attempted to be supported by the assertion that the schemes detailed in the bill are but a method of advertising and, as such mere allurements to customers, not detrimental in any way to the public health and morals, nor obstructive of the public welfare; but are a means of enterprise, mere incidents of the business of complainants and as beneficial to their customers as to them. These con

tentions have the support of a number of cases. They are opposed by others, not nearly so numerous as the supporting cases but marking a change of opinion. Both sets of cases indicate by the statutes passed upon a persistent legislative effort against the schemes under review or some form of them, beginning in 1880 and repeated from time to time until the statute in controversy was passed in 1913. In such differences between judicial and legislative opinion where should the choice be? Complainants allege that the license tax which the statute imposes is of prohibitory character and assert that they are exercising inviolable rights and privileges which the excess of the tax prevents in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment; they contend that hence the statute is invalid. It is not certain from the allegations of the bill that the tax is of the asserted character, but granting it to be so we have shown that the business schemes described in the bill are not protected from regulation or prohibition by the Constitution of the United States. Lawton v. Steele, 152 U. S. 133; Booth v. Illinois, 184 U. S. 425; Otis v. Parker, 187 U. S. 606; see also, Dobbins v. Los Angeles, 195 U. S. 223, 238; Murphy v. California, 225 U. S. 623; Postal Telegraph Co. v. Charleston, 153 U. S. 692, 699; McCray v. United States, 195 U. S. 27; Kehrer v. Stewart, 197 U. S. 60; Hammond Packing Co. v. Montana, 233 U. S. 331."

CHAPTER XIII

PROPERTY RIGHTS AS PROTECTED BY DUE PROCESS

LIMITATIONS AND REMEDIES

§ 290. Statutes of limitation regarded as rules of procedure. As statutes of limitation are generally regarded as rules of procedure affecting not the right but the remedy (Fullerton v. Bank of United States, 1 Pet. 604; Townsend v. Jamison, 9 How. 407; Barrett v. Holmes, 102 U. S. 651; Michigan Ins. Co. v. Eldred, 130 U. S. 693; Hill v. Merchants' Mut. Ins. Co., 134 U. S. 515; McCullough v. Virginia, 172 U. S. 102), they are not unconstitutional either as denying due process of law or as impairing the obligation of contracts when a reasonable time, the nature and circumstances of the case being taken into account, is allowed for the bringing of the action after the passage of the statute and before the bar takes effect. In Terry v. Anderson, 95 U. S. 628, the Court said: "The parties to a contract have no more a vested interest in a particular limitation which has been fixed, than they have in an unrestricted right to sue. They have no more a vested interest in the time for the commencement of an action then they have in the form of the action to be commenced; and as to the forms of action or modes of remedy, it is well settled that the Legislature may change them at its discretion provided adequate means of enforcing the right remain. . . . In all such cases, the question is one of reasonableness, and we have, therefore, only to consider whether the time allowed in this statute is, under all the circumstances, reasonable. Of that the Legislature is primarily the judge; and we can not overrule the decision of that department of the government, unless a palpable error has been committed." The sub

ject of limitations is within the control of the legislature as a part of the lex fori; and it may increase or diminish the period of limitation for existing causes of action. Great Western Tel. Co. v. Purdy, 162 U. S. 329; Davis v. Mills, 194 U. S. 451. Unless some special feature is obnoxious to constitutional objections, general and special laws of limitation are recognized and sustained as founded on sound policy. Nash v. Fletcher, 44 Miss. 609; Preston v. Louisville, 84 Ky. 118; Saloy v. Woods, 40 La. Ann. 585; Perry v. Turner, 55 Mo. 418; Smith v. Cleveland, 17 Wis. 556; Madden v. Lancaster County, 65 Fed. 188.

§ 291. The constitutional limitation of reasonableness. Every state exercising the power to pass statutes of limitation must do so subject to the fundamental condition that a reasonable time shall be allowed for the exercise of the right of action, whether existing or prospective, after it comes within the prospective or present operation of the statute and before the bar becomes effective. Gwin v. Brown, 21 App. Cas. (D. C.) 295; Central Bank v. Solomon, 20 Ga. 408; Norris v. Tripp, 111 Iowa 115; Auld v. Butcher, 2 Kan. 135; MacNichol v. Spence, 83 Me. 87; Gilbert v. Ackerman, 159 N. Y. 118; Culbeth v. Downing, 121 N. C. 205; Osborne v. Lindstrom, 9 N. D. 1; Peterson v. Delaware, 9 Kulp 552; Stoddard v. Owings, 42 S. C. 88; Sohn v. Waterson, 17 Wall. 596; Pereles v. Watertown, 19 Fed. Cas. No. 10,980, 6 Biss. 79; Society for Propagation of Gospel v. Wheeler, 22 Fed. Cas. No. 13,156, 2 Gall 105; Lamb v. Powder River Live Stock Co., 132 Fed. 434. The period of limitation fixed by the legislature is always subject to judicial review and will be declared unreasonable, and as such unconstitutional, where it is so manifestly inadequate as to amount to a denial of justice. Gwin v. Brown, 21 App. Cas. (D. C.) 295; Osborne v. Lindstrom, 9 N. D. 1; Pereles v. Watertown, 19 Fed. Cas. No. 10,980, 6 Biss. 79; Williams v. Port Chester, 72 N. Y. App. Div. 505, 76 N. Y. Supp. 631; Lam