West Coast Hotel v. Parrish

           Elsie Parrish worked on and off as a chambermaid in a Washington state hotel for a wage of 25 cents per hour. When she was discharged she asked for back pay of $216.19, the difference between what she had received and what she would've gotten had she not been discharged. Back pay is a payment for work done in the past that was withheld at the time, or for work that could have been done had the worker not been prevented from doing so. The hotel offered her $17 but she refused to settle. Parrish along with her husband, sued the hotel for the difference between what she was paid, and the $14.50 per week of 48 hours established as a minimum wage. The trial court, ruled for the defendant. The Washington Supreme Court, taking the case on a direct appeal, reversed the trial court and was in favor of Parrish. The hotel appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Hotel where Parrish worked     

Elsie Parrish

        At the time President Franklin Roosevelt was trying to put into play his New Deal plan and he put a lot of judges into the Supreme Court that were in favor of Lochner v. New York. Lochner v. New York was a case that ruled that legally there could not be a maximum amount of working hours for bakers. Shortly after Roosevelt proposed a court reform bill to weaken the votes of the older, anti-New Deal justices. In the historical record however, it showed that Roberts (a justice) had voted in favor of Washington State's minimum wage just two days after oral arguments concluded, and that the court was divided, 4–4, at this time only because a pro-New Deal Justice Harlan Fiske Stone was absent due to an illness. The Court reversed the decision in the Washington State Court and ordered West Coast Hotel to pay Parrish's damages. The 5-4 decision resulted in the Supreme Court determining that minimum wage for women was constitutional. Negotiations between employers and employees often favored employers due to the economy, the Supreme Court felt that women were especially at a disadvantage. Roosevelt's announcement of his "court-packing scheme" came after the Supreme Court decision in West Coast Hotel v. Parrish. Because of this there is some controversy over whether or not related politics played a role in the unexpected change in vote by Justice Owen Josephus Roberts.

Sources: 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Coast_Hotel_Co._v._Parrish
https://ballotpedia.org/West_Coast_Hotel_Co._v._Parrish