legal Definition of Adkins v. Children's Hospital
261 U.S. 525 (1923), invalidated a board established by Congress to set minimum wages for women workers in the District of Columbia. The court ruled in a 5–3 vote that the law authorizing the Wage Board infringed upon Fifth Amendment guarantees of life, liberty, and property, including employers' and employees' right to contract in whatever manner they pleased. The effects of Adkins were reversed in West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish.
