Employment Law Legends, Episode 1 – Employment Law Reborn: West Coast Hotel v. Parrish

For over eighty years, courts have accepted that Congress and the states have the power to regulate the terms and conditions of the employment relationship. But before this consensus developed, Elsie Parrish, a hotel chambermaid, and President Franklin Roosevelt joined forces to challenge the Supreme Court of the United States. This pilot episode examines West Coast Hotel v. Parrish, President Roosevelt’s doomed court-packing plan, the Constitutional Revolution of 1937, and the beginning of modern employment law in the United States.