Workmen's Compensation Act

“ I give way to New York, because we like to follow New York, but I cannot say that of the other States of the nation. Personally, I would like to see the workmen get all they possibly can get, but we cannot impose too many restrictions on the employers, and if we recommend in the different States the taking away of practically all the defenses of the employer under the employers' liability act, and at the same time recommend the workmen's compensation act, the whole thing will fall through and we will get nothing. I believe we ought to go easy and get something that we can put through. ”

“ The great object of the Workmen's Compensation Act is to shift the burden of such economic waste from the employer to the industry, in order that it may ultimately be borne by the consumer as a part of the necessary cost of construction and production. Thus we are asking the master to assume a greater financial responsibility for injuries to his servant under this new theory than he has assumed heretofore. This can be taken care of by the increased price he charges for his work and this in turn will ultimately pass the added burden to the community at large. ”

“ The Workmen’s Compensation Act 1906 greatly extended the classes of employers liable for accidents to their servants, and the number of companies devoting themselves to accidents and workmen’s compensation has greatly increased, while practically every fire insurance office has taken up the business. ”

“ We need not rest our decision, however, solely upon the absence of any provision or construction of the Illinois Workmen's Compensation Act forbidding an employee from seeking alternative or additional relief under the laws of another state. ”

“ Take away all opposition before you have your hearing, because the minute you start opposition you begin the death of the bill. It is a slow illness, but it means death. If we can bring about something that will not be too radical, that will not be too harsh on the employers, we will get something for the workmen.
I believe, as Mr. Mitchell said, that the workman ought to have his right under the common law, but failing in that he should not be allowed to go to the compensation act. ”

“ The statesman desired and intended a scheme for the benefit of employer and workman based on peace and conciliation, but the lawyers have been too many for him, and to-day the Workmen’s Compensation Act litigation is little better than a wild-cat legal gamble. To diagnose whether an accident arises out of or in the course of a workman’s employment you want a legal mind combining the subtlety of a Jesuit with the discrimination of a laboratory professor. ”

“ If a persistent majority of the people of New York State want a workmen's compensation act, they should have it. But, in order to obtain it, they should not be driven to pass an amendment to their State Constitution, which may have effects which they do not anticipate or desire. ”

“ The fact that the common law remedy is not used now, from a lawyer's standpoint, at least, would force the employer and the employe, if he was going to bring an action, into a more or less unfamiliar proceeding under the old common law, and as between an unfamiliar common law procedure and a perfectly plain compensation act, it would seem that the natural course for both the employe and the employer would be to take the certain compensation act. ”

“ I know that large employers in general are in favor of a fair compensation act, but I do not think they are in favor of double liability, because they will never know where they are. The laboring man quite properly wants to have a fair compensation act and wants a fair amount, but if he elects to go to common law, he should take that chance. ”

“ Now, if the workingmen of Great Britain recover a larger amount under the Workingmen's Compensation Act than they do under the liability laws, is it not likely that they would do the same thing in the United States? In other words, has not the right of the workingman of Great Britain to proceed under the liability laws simply been a temptation to him to sue in the hope, and the false hope, as it turns out, that he might recover a larger amount than he would under the compensation act ”

“ The Washington compensation act established a state fund for the compensation of workmen injured in hazardous employment, and the fund was maintained by compulsory contributions from employers in such industries. While classes of industries were established, each class was made liable for the accidents occurring in that class. The Court described the law as so operating that 'the enforced contributions of the employer are to be made whether injuries have befallen his own employees or not ”

“ Is there any reason why, when we have tried to make that provision for the inevitable result of industry, we should refuse to punish those rare cases of misconduct which mean that men have grossly trifled with the safety of their employes? I am not quite clear that there is any good reason. I am confident that an examination of the British decisions, since they put the first compensation act upon the statute books in 1907, would show that there have been very few cases, indeed, in which the employers have been held liable, where they ought not to have been actually punished for misconduct. ”

“ Here again, however, Congress made clear its purpose to permit state compensation protection whenever possible by making the federal law applicable only 'if recovery for the disability or death through workmen's compensation proceedings may not validly be provided by State law.'
Harbor workers and longshoremen employed 'in whole or in part, upon the navigable waters' are clearly protected by this Federal Act; but, employees such as decedent here occupy that shadowy area within which, at some undefined and undefinable point, state laws can validly provide compensation. ”

“ There are provisions invalidating agreements by employees to waive the right to compensation, prohibiting any assignment, release, or commutation of claims for compensation or benefits except as provided by the act, exempting them from the claims of creditors, and requiring that the compensation and benefits shall be paid only to employees or their dependents. Provision is made for the establishment of a Workmen's Compensation Commission [2] with administrative and judicial functions, including authority to pass upon claims to compensation on notice to the parties interested. ”

“ But we are told that, under the New York Court of Appeals' decision, § 113 of the state Workmen's Compensation Law may translate the mere payment and acceptance of a single interlocutory compensation award into an irrevocable agreement by employer and employee to forsake their federal rights and submit their controversy to the state Board, a tribunal not only without jurisdiction but whose rules of liability clash with the uniform scheme intended by Congress in the Federal Employers' Liability Act. ”

“ That the mere fact that an injury happens to an employment, that in and of itself makes that employment dangerous, any more than every industry is dangerous.
Chairman Mercer: It has got to occur within the employment; that is, it has got to be a result of the employment to make it dangerous.
Senator Blaine: In the first place, is it possible to conceive of any employment where there is not a hazard growing out of the employment? If that is true, why not say that every employer shall compensate under the terms of the act, regardless of whether he is engaged in a hazardous occupation or not. ”

“ If we pass a compensation law so that every injury is surely compensated, what resulted in Great Britain is what I should expect to find in this country if we do not weaken these defenses; that is, that after a compensation act is passed, the disposition of courts and juries will shift to the other side; namely, that instead of aiming to stretch the theory of employers' liability and negligence to the utmost limit in order to give verdict, they will tighten them by establishing new precedents until it will be nearly impossible to get a verdict for the negligence of the employer. ”

“ No compensation is payable where an accident is caused through a person’s own gross carelessness, and where an accident has been contributed to by a criminal act or intentional wrongdoing the compensation may be refused or only partially allowed. With these exceptions, compensation for injury is payable in case of injury so long as the injured is unfit to work; in case of total incapacity an allowance is made equal to two-thirds of the injured person’s annual earnings, in case of partial incapacity, in proportion to the degree that his wage-earning capacity has been affected. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But when you strike the competitive [78] industries between States, when Massachusetts or any other State does pass a compensation act, we do not know what it will do until it is tried, and it may be a serious burden upon the manufacturers. We are in danger of placing that particular industry in such a position that it cannot compete with industries in surrounding States. ”

“ The double liability is somewhat debatable. Under our plan we take away certain defenses. If we take away those defenses from the employer, and leave the employe the right to sue at common law, and also the right to compensation under the act in the event of failure to win his suit, I think we are doing something unfair toward the employer and something that the employe does not want. I do not believe that in Wisconsin the Federation of Labor would demand that sort of a measure. ”

“ Any payments, not being wages, made by the employer in respect of the injury must also be taken into account. The weekly payment may from time to time be reviewed at the request of either party, upon evidence of a change in the circumstances since the award was made, and after six months may be redeemed by the employer by payment of a lump sum. A workman is within the act although at the time of the injury he has been in the employment for less than two weeks, and although there are no actual earnings from the same employer upon which a weekly average can be computed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The greatest amount of prevention and the largest amount of care exercised by employers anywhere in the world is in those countries which have compulsory or obligatory insurance laws. The reason is very simple: nearly every employer does not think that a [70] catastrophe, due to his negligence, will ever happen. But when you hold him under a compensation act for every accident, big or little, negligent or not, and accidents are happening every day, and there is a good deal of money being paid more or less continually, he will be much more careful. ”