Commonwealth vs. Hunt presented at court in 1842, was an American legal case in which the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that the common-law doctrine of criminal conspiracy did not apply to labour unions. Until then, workers’ attempts to establish closed shops had been subject to prosecution. Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw asserted, however, that trade unions were legal and that they had the right to strike or take other steps of peaceful coercion to raise wages and ban non-union workers. As well as the case stemmed from a demand by the Boston Journeymen Bootmakers’ Society that an employer fire one of its members who had disobeyed the society’s rules. The employers, fearing a strike, complied, but the dismissed employee complained to the district attorney, who then drew an indictment charging the society with conspiracy. The Boston Municipal Court found the union guilty. Justice Shaw, hearing the case on appeal, altered the traditional criteria for conspiracy by holding that the mere act of combining for some purpose was not illegal. Only those combinations intended “to accomplish some criminal or unlawful purpose, or to accomplish some purpose, not in itself criminal or unlawful, by criminal or unlawful means” could be prosecuted. Shaw, in effect, legalized the American labour union movement by this decision.
The Norris-LaGuardia Act of 1932 and the Wagner Act of 1935 recognized labor's right to organize unions, but unions were not fully recognized as legal until later on. Though judges throughout the decade would become more anti-union, Commonwealth v. Hunt served as a legitimizer for trade unions. When the time to vote presented itself commonwealth recived 23% of the votes while hunt recieved 77% of the votes from a total of 101. votes. As any child might see the clear winner was Hunt.