Three States Defend Sunday Laws Before U.S. Supreme Court

Pennsylvania and Maryland defended today their Sunday closing laws before the United States Supreme Court, which has been asked to rule on the constitutionality of such laws. Massachusetts defended its Sunday law yesterday in the hearings which were concluded this afternoon.

The high court ruling, when it is issued, is expected to affect such laws, which curtail Sunday work and business, in about 35 states and a great number of countries and municipalities.

The Pennsylvania and Maryland cases came to the Supreme Court on appeals against lower court decisions in those states upholding such laws. The test of the Massachusetts law was on the basis of a Massachusetts court ruling outlawing that state’s Sunday law and an appeal against that ruling.

Lower courts in both Pennsylvania and Maryland have upheld the Blue Laws but the plaintiffs appealed the decision. The defense of the closing laws was today similar in line to arguments brought before the court yesterday by the attorney for the State of Massachusetts, and are based mainly on the contention that even though these laws originally were prompted by religious tradition, they have in the passage of time, come to constitute a system of economic and social legislation.

Against this argument, opponents of the Sunday laws contend that they violate the barrier between Church and State, favoring certain religions over there. This, however, is not the only argument against the Blue Laws.

Justices Hugo Black and John M. Harlan yesterday asked Boston attorney Herbert Ehrmann, president of the American Jewish Committee, who represents the Crown Kosher Supermarket in its case against the Police Commissioner of Springfield Mass. whether there would be any point in the court’s deciding the case on the grounds that the law included religious overtones in its language. It was noted that if the law were invalidated on that ground, the state could pass a new law in different language but still of the same substance.

Mr. Ehrmann replied that even a purported day-of-rest law which would designate Sunday as the day without exempting those who worshiped on other days, would discriminate against them in violation of the constitution.

A number of amicus briefs were filed by various organizations. While the National Retail Merchants Association and the Retail Clerks International Association of the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations, filed their briefs in favor of the Sunday Laws, the following argued in opposition to it: The American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League of the B’nai B’rith the American Civil Liberties Union and the Seventh Day Adventists.