Face masks just the latest of public safety battles

By Katherine Snow Smith
Legal Examiner
Aug. 13, 2020

Excerpt

At the turn of the 20th century, there was a big debate over worker safety laws limiting how many hours someone could work in a day, according to Lou Virelli, who teaches Constitutional Law at Stetson University College of Law in Florida.

In the name of product and employee safety, governments mandated a workday shorter than 10 hours. 

“The argument was from employers and employees. The employees said, ‘If I want to work those longer hours, I should be able to,’” Virelli said. “In 1905 the Supreme Court said ‘it is your right to decide what your workday should look like and we will not allow the legislature to limit your choices.’ ” 

Then, 30 years later, the Supreme Court took another look at the issue and said the legislatures can infringe on the hours a person works. This was during the New Deal and views on workers’ rights had changed, he said. 

Virelli stressed that the current mask debate has nothing to do with the Constitution. 

“People involve the Constitution more often than it applies. If you don’t like your mask, you can complain that they are not a good idea, but you don’t have a constitutional right not to wear one,” he said. 

The general consensus is it’s a free country and therefore the government can’t tell citizens what to do. 

“Since the invention of laws, we have been limiting people’s choices,” Virelli said. “A large part of what law does is it protects, but then it invariably infringes on other people’s limits.”

This article was originally published on the Legal Examiner website on Aug. 13, 2020, with the headline, “Face masks just the latest of public safety battles.”

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Post date: Aug. 27, 2020

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