Hammer v. Dagenhart

Congress passed the Keating-Owen Act in 1916, barring interstate sale of goods made with child labor, in response to concerns about labor conditions. Dagenhart (plaintiff) sued on behalf of himself and his two minor sons, who worked in a North Carolina cotton mill, against Hammer (defendant), a U.S. attorney, arguing the Act unconstitutionally exceeded Congress's Commerce Clause power. The district court agreed that Congress had acted unconstitutionally by trying to regulate a purely local matter, and both sides appealed to the Supreme Court.