Employers' Liability Act

“ The question of whether employees shall rely on state compensation or on the Federal Employers' Liability Act is a pure question of legislative policy, concerning which apparently even the labor organizations most interested have been divided. ”

“ The Employers’ Liability Act of 1880 gave certain workmen limited rights of action in special cases. It was a prudent conservative measure brought in by a Liberal Government, and, of course, it was predicted that it would ruin every industry in the country. It must have cost industry a big bill in lawyer’s fees. Every case under the Act was fiercely litigated, and might go from the County Court through two Courts of Appeal to the House of Lords. ”

“ The Act is based upon and incorporates by reference the Federal Employers' Liability Act, 45 U.S.C.A. § 51 et seq., which also requires uniform interpretation. Second Employers Liability Cases (Mondou v. New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Co.) ”

“ There is no reason why a preference should be given, in these respects, to actions instituted under the Federal Employers' Liability Act, over others founded on other federal statutes, over contract cases, or admiralty cases, where a failure properly to rule on the facts is asserted to have wrought injury to one of the parties. ”

“ Collision of New York's statute with the Federal Employers' Liability Act is the crux of appellant's constitutional contentions. All agree that the injured employee, had he pursued his federal remedy, would have met the 'interstate commerce' requirements of that Act. ”

“ The Employers Liability Act of 1880 has remedied the most obvious hardships consequent on the decisions, but only by way of particular exceptions, so that the law as a whole, if more just than it was, is much more intricate, and does not appear to rest on any intelligible principle. ”

“ The power of equity to restrain the prosecution of unconscionable suits has been part of the very fabric of the state courts as we have known them in our whole history. And nothing in the Federal Employers' Liability Act, its language, its history, or its policy, warrants a denial of this power to the states. ”

“ Among other proposals in the report was one that employers should be held responsible for accidents to their work people, a suggestion that has only recently been fully carried into effect by the passing of the Employers' Liability Act (1898) . ”

“ The common law of America in this matter is the same as the common law of England. The failure of Priestley, the Lincoln butcher boy, settled the law of America as completely as it did the law of this country. And though different Legislatures have endeavoured in different ways to remedy the [Pg 95] grievances of employers, the judges have made this not only difficult, but in some cases impossible. In 1906 Congress, with the approval of the President, passed a carefully and well-considered “Employers’ Liability Act” relating to common carriers in the district of Columbia. ”

“ That was based on what is now known to be the crudest and most unsatisfactory of all principles—principles which are bound to be local and unsatisfactory and which do not cover the situation, and which give the workmen practically no remedy except before the court. That is the stage which this country has reached if it has reached any stage at all. Few of our States have reached a point where they have anything like a satisfactory Employers' Liability Act. That is the initial stage when the child first commences to walk. Germany went far beyond that. ”

“ We conclude that the provision of section 6 of the Employers' Liability Act relating to the time of commencing the action, is a material provision of the statutes 'modifying or extending the common law right or remedy in cases of personal injuries to railway employees' which was adopted by and incorporated in the Merchant Marine Act. ”

“ Thus employers were given every reason to believe they could buy their insurance and make other business arrangements on the basis of the limited Compensation Act liability.' (Footnote omitted.)
Congress, then, deliberately gave employers certain 'counterbalancing advantages' in exchange for imposing on them absolute liability. If these advantages are to be discarded as purely 'superficial,' then the true purpose of the statute was apparently to give an additional remedy to employees while not requiring them to relinquish any existing remedies as part of the bargain. ”

“ But with the development of the The act of 1880. factory system, and the ever-growing expansion of the scale on which all industries were conducted, it became increasingly difficult to bring home individual responsibility to the employer. As industry passed largely into the control of corporations, difficulty became almost impossibility. The employer was not liable to a servant for the negligence of a fellow-servant, and therefore, in most cases of injury, was not liable at all. ”

“ All employers are treated alike, and so are all employees; and if there be some difference as between employer and employee respecting the inducements that are held out for accepting the compensation features of the act, it goes no further than to say that, if neither party is willing to accept them, the employer's liability shall not be subject to either of the several defenses referred to. ”

“ Their employees may, nevertheless, elect to claim compensation, and if it is awarded, an action to recover the amount may be maintained against the employer. Such an action may also be maintained against a self-insuring employer who fails to pay an award.
Should an employer who is subject to the Act fail to pay premiums, or otherwise omit to comply, means are provided to fix civil liability upon him, even to the extent of the appointment of a receiver of his business. ”

“ Of what value would a compensation law be to the workman in the State of Illinois particularly, where we have no employers' liability law, if the gate were left open for the insurance company or the mutual benefit company, or if the employer could bring in the old common law doctrine of contributory negligence, assumption of risk, and so forth? What would prevent the employer or the insurance company, if we did not repeal those laws, from bringing those in and keeping the workingman out of his compensation under a compensation law? ”

“ The full rigor of the common law, which has worked out so unfairly for the workingman in modern machine production, has been modified in about twenty-seven states by statutes defining more exactly the duties of the employer, and repealing the fellow-servant doctrine in regard to railway employes and in a few states in regard to all mechanical industries. With these exceptions, however, the law of employers’ liability has not been changed, and compensation for industrial accidents must be sought by injured employes through a suit for damages against the employer. ”

“ No language in § 5 or elsewhere in the statute purports to restrict the phrases "any employee of the Government," as respondents urge, to reach only employees not protected from liability by another statute. When Congress wanted to limit the scope of immunity available under the Liability Reform Act, it did so expressly, as it did in preserving employee liability for Bivens actions and for actions brought under a federal statute authorizing recovery against the individual employee. ”

“ Continued application of workforce and labor protection remedies despite unauthorized employment– An employer may not deny an employee back pay or any other remedy provided under any Federal, State, or local law relating to workplace rights, and a court may not prohibit an employee from pursuing other causes of action giving rise to liability, except any reinstatement remedy prohibited by Federal law, on account of the employee’s status as an unauthorized alien, either during or after the period of employment by the employer. ”

“ The proposition that an employee in a 'twilight zone' (where it is doubtful whether the federal or a state act applies) can recover under either act, not only controverts the words of the statute but also imposes an unauthorized burden on the employer. Besides being subjected to a liability which the statute forbids, he is compelled, in order to protect himself in the large number of cases in which the Court apparently would allow recovery under either act, to comply with both. ”

“ The statute has a limited application, being confined to the relation of master and servant, and the method of determining the questions of fact, which arise in the routine of making compensation awards to employees under the act, is necessary to its effective enforcement. The act itself, where it applies, establishes the measure of the employer's liability, thus leaving open for determination the questions of fact as to the circumstances, nature, extent, and consequences of the injuries sustained by the employee for which compensation is to be made in accordance with the prescribed standards. ”