ADAIR V. THE UNITED STATES

(1908), case in which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld "yellow dog" contracts forbidding workers from joining labour unions. William Adair of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad fired O.B. Coppage for belonging to a labour union, an action in direct violation of the Erdman Act of 1898, which prohibited railroads engaged in interstate commerce from requiring workers to refrain from union membership as a condition of employment. In 1908 the Supreme Court decided in a 6 to 2 vote that the Erdman Act was unconstitutional. The court held that the act represented an unreasonable violation of the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment, which guaranteed freedom of contract and property rights; moreover, according to the majority, Congress' constitutional authority over interstate commerce did not extend to matters of union membership.