Selected Court Cases in United States History Commonwealth v. Hunt (1842) 1 In the 1790s workers began forming unions to bargain collectively with employers for higher wages and other benefits. Employers generally resisted these efforts. This decision, handed down by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, strengthened the union movement by ruling that workers had the right to form a union and that doing so did not constitute a criminal conspiracy against their employer. Muller v. Oregon (1908) 2 In the early 1900s, Progressive reformers in Oregon overcame business apposition and helped to pass a law protecting working women. The law prohibited businesses from requiring women to work for more than ten hours a day. The U.S. Supreme Court supported these Progressive reformers by declaring that the law was constitutional. Schenck v. United States (1919) 3 After the United States entered World War I, Congress passed the Espionage Act of 1917 to punish antiwar behavior and ben antiwar materials from the mail, It also passed the Sedition Act of 1918, which outlawed speech, writing, and behavior that the government deemed dangerous to the war effort. Charles Schenck was convicted of mailing antiwar pamphlets that urged men to seek repeal of the Conscription Act. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld his conviction, ruling that the First Amendment's right to free speech did not include speech that was "a clear and present danger to the safety of the country."