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Shaw Ruling

When: March 1842
Where: Boston
Part of: Massachusetts Supreme Court legalizes strikes and unions (Commonwealth v. Hunt)

Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw ruled in March 1842 that labor combinations were legal if organized for legal purposes and means.

Shaw held that unions were not inherently illegal conspiracies. The ruling established that trade unions were not necessarily criminal if they did not advocate violence or illegal activities. This decision overturned the prior conviction based on common law conspiracy.

Sources

Commonwealth v. Hunt Wikipedia, revision of 2026-05-02
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-04

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.