People v. Friedman

Sam Friedman was an Orthodox Jew who owned a small kosher-meat and grocery retail store in the Lower East Side of New York City, then an almost completely Jewish neighborhood. He kept his store closed from sundown on Friday until Sunday morning, when he opened for business for a few hours. He was summoned to court for violating the State's Sunday closing law, and at the trial his attorney challenged the constitutionality of the law on the ground that it violated the 1st amendment, which forbids laws respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting its free exercise, as well as the 14th amendment, which forbids denial of the equal protection of the laws.

Friedman's argument was that, by compelling merchants to keep their stores closed on the Christian Sabbath (Sunday), New York breached the principle of separation of Church and State, and that accordingly, the law was unconstitutional in its entirety. He further argued that, by requiring Sabbatarians (Saturday Sabbath-keepers) to close their stores on Sunday, the State was in fact coercing them to keep their stores open on Saturday instead, because Sabbatarian shopkeepers could not stay in business if their stores were closed two days a week while non-Sabbatarian competitors kept theirs closed only one day a week. Thus, Friedman called the Sunday closing law unconstitutional because it forced him to be closed two days a week, because of his religious convictions, while forcing other shops to be closed only one day a week.

Friedman went on to point out that the State's closing law was a "crazy quilt" of inclusions and exclusions that were clearly arbitrary: it was permissible to sell bread and magazines but not meat or books on Sunday. Also, the statute was notorious because of the unequal way in which it was enforced among the merchants to whom it was applicable. This, said Friedman, violated the 14th amendment regarding equal protection under law.

None of these arguments moved the State Court to sympathy. When Friedman appealed to the Supreme Court in 1951, the Court simply dismissed his appeal without even bothering to write an opinion setting forth its reasons for rejecting it. When, ten years later, the Supreme Court was forced to consider other Sunday closing cases (Mc Gowan v. Maryland, Two Guys from Harrison-Allentown, Inc. v. McGinley, Gallagher v. Crown Kosher Super Market, and Braunfeld v. Brown), the Court was faced with the same constitutional issues as in the Friedman case. This time, the Court did write out its opinions regarding the constitutionality of Sunday closing laws.

The Court stated that, while Sunday closing laws did have their roots in the establishment of religious mandates, at the present time, Sunday closing laws have lost their religious essence and are justifiable as health or welfare measures, to assure that people enjoy one day of rest out of every seven. "The intention of Sunday closing laws today is not to establish any particular day of worship," the Court stated, "but is to establish fair and reasonable working hours for laborers." By forcing businesses to close one day a week, the State is able to enforce that laborers will be given at least one day a week off. And, because the day off has to be enforceable, it must be the same day each week and not just any arbitrary day of the employer's choosing.