This entry contains information applicable to United States law only. Laws that prohibit the conduct of business on Sundays.
Also known as blue laws, Sabbath laws, and uniform day of rest laws, Sunday closing laws have a long and contentious history in the United States, although many of the laws either have been repealed or are routinely ignored. Although originally enacted for religious purposes, Sunday closing laws historically have had another purpose: to provide workers with a common day of rest while providing some protection to small shopkeepers from wealthy competitors able to pay workers on Sundays. The secular purpose of Sunday closing laws has taken on increasing significance in courtroom battles over their legality.
As early as the 1790s, ministers complained about travel, business, and dining out on Sundays. In the early nineteenth century, Sabbatarians, who favored a rigid observance of the Sabbath, vigorously promoted their views, but Sunday activities increased. Sunday newspapers, rarely seen before the Civil War, became the norm after the war in rapidly expanding cities. Restaurants, inns, and resorts were often open on Sundays, and commercial transportation was readily available. Moreover, exemptions for "necessary labor" commonly found their way into Sunday closing laws in the latter half of the nineteenth century. For example, drug stores typically were allowed to operate because they served the health and welfare of the general populace.
Prosecutions against retail businesses typically resulted in convictions, but a court decision from 1888, Bucher v. Cheshire R.R. Co., 125 U.S. 555, 8 S. Ct. 974, 31 L. Ed. 795, illustrated how convoluted attitudes toward Sunday closing laws had become. A passenger sued a railroad for injuries sustained during a Sunday train wreck. The railroad was operating in violation of the Sabbath law. Instead of holding the railroad liable, the trial court barred the passenger from compensation, ruling that passengers traveling on Sunday in violation of the law did so at their own risk.
Often joined by unions, Sabbatarians embarked on a national campaign during the late 1880s and early 1890s to denominate Sunday as the common day of rest. Although unsuccessful, this alliance served to further secularize the rationale for Sunday closing laws. Ironically, businesses offering entertainment and leisure flourished because closing laws provided workers with more leisure time.
In the early twentieth century, some states, mainly in the West, followed California's example from 1883 and repealed their Sunday closing laws. Hard times in the late 1920s and 1930s spurred renewed support for closing laws as some retailers embraced the laws in an effort to thwart competitors. Although major courtroom battles still loomed, by the 1940s and 1950s, demands by U.S. consumers caused the number of Sunday closing laws to decline.
By the mid-twentieth century, Sunday closing laws were largely nonexistent in the far western United States but remained a hotly debated issue in the northeastern and mid-Atlantic states due to a combination of business competition and religious practices. As in the past, the laws and their exemptions caused inconsistent results. New York's law, for example, made it illegal to sell uncooked meat on Sunday, although a restaurant could sell cooked meat.
A quartet of Sunday closing law cases from 1961 established the legality, albeit not the popularity, of Sunday closing laws. In the mid-1950s, Gallagher v. Crown Kosher Super Market of Massachusetts, 366 U.S. 617, 81 S. Ct. 1122, 6 L. Ed. 2d 536, a Massachusetts case, began its slow march to the Supreme Court. A market that closed for its owner's Jewish Sabbath on Saturday reopened on Sunday in violation of the law. The market generated about one-third of its gross weekly sales on Sunday. Pennsylvania's Two Guys from Harrison-Allentown, Inc. v. McGinley, 366 U.S. 582, 81 S. Ct. 1135, 6 L. Ed. 2d 551, began when a discount chain opened a new store with the intention of operating on Sundays, knowing that local authorities had not enforced the Sunday closing law for years. Although the store violated the law for business reasons, it eventually argued that the Sunday closing laws established one religion in preference over others. These two cases, along with McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420, 81 S. Ct. 1101, 6 L. Ed. 2d 393, and Braunfeld v. Brown, 366 U.S. 599, 81 S. Ct. 1144, 6 L. Ed. 2d 563, resulted in similar and complementary rulings that the Sunday closing laws were valid. The Supreme Court recognized the religious origins of the laws but determined that the present purpose of the laws was not religious and that the laws were not invalid because they worked an economic disadvantage to some religious sects.
The Supreme Court has adhered to its view that Sunday closing laws are secular in nature. In Thornton v. Caldor, Inc., 472 U.S. 703, 105 S. Ct. 2914, 86 L. Ed. 2d 557 (1985), the Court agreed with the Connecticut Supreme Court that a statute granting employees the absolute right not to work on their chosen Sabbath violated the First Amendment Establishment Clause. Because the challenged statute expressly referred to a "Sabbath," it failed to show a secular purpose. Moreover, only those workers who observed a Sabbath could avail themselves of the law.
Sunday closing laws still exist in some states and localities, but numerous exemptions and little interest in enforcement means that the general public is rarely inconvenienced. Nevertheless, challenges to the laws still occur. The methods used to challenge the laws vary as much as the outcome of these cases. Because arguments based on establishment of religion or free exercise grounds are usually unsuccessful, modern litigants have turned to arguments focusing on equal protection claims or arguments that the laws are arbitrary or vague, violate the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, or create an unlawful monopoly.
