Just compensation

“ The Just Compensation Clause is self actuating, requiring that compensation be paid whenever governmental action results in a taking of private property regardless of whether the underlying authority for the action contemplated a taking or authorized the payment of compensation. ”

“ Even if we suppose that strike benefits are made to compensate in a sense for the loss of wages, the principle of payments in compensation does not apply because the thing compensated for, the wages, had they been received, would have been included in gross income. ”

“ One sees that compensation is a principle of optimism. Whatever may be advanced by the many makers of systems, this law is manifest amongst all peoples as in all individuals, including those who, whilst ceaselessly regretting their ill-fortune, yet taste, relatively, a little of the sweetness of compensation if only in their own prudence and courage.{188}
The law of compensation is certainly the most consoling that we can desire, and to it all human morality is allied. ”

“ Provision is universally made in workmen's compensation acts for compensation not only to disabled employees but to the dependents of those whose injuries are fatal. And the two kinds of payment are 'always regarded as component parts of a single system of rights and liabilities arising out of' the relation of employer and employee. ”

“ If the land was bought with the produce of the labour and abstinence of themselves or their ancestors, compensation is due to them on that ground; even if otherwise, it is still due on the ground of prescription. Nor can it ever be necessary for accomplishing an object by which the community altogether will gain, that a particular portion of the community should be immolated. When the property is of a kind to which peculiar affections attach themselves, the compensation ought to exceed a bare pecuniary equivalent. ”

“ The Workmen’s Compensation Act is a practical business machine of a complicated character, and it is scarcely a sensible thing that the men who have to keep it going should work under the theoretical direction of men who have never seen it working. ”

“ If this arrangement were regular and frequent or if it had the earmarks of a sham device as a cloak for remuneration, there would be room for fact-finders to conclude that it was evasive. But isolated engagements of the kind here in question have no rational connection with compensation 'for services' rendered. ”

“ Though the principle that compensation should be made, or relief given, is of universal application, the great diversity of conditions in the different sections of the United States may, in a wise application of the principle, call for differences between states in the amount and method of compensation, the periods in which payment shall be made, and the methods and means by which the funds shall be raised and distributed. ”

“ They naturally do not want a law which will cause employers to jump back and forth from the compensation features to the negligence features and vice versa, and experiment, but rather one which will induce all to come permanently under the compensation features or to stay out permanently. ”

“ Thus, where work is done by an employee, with the employer's consent, a labor organization's demand that the employee be compensated for time spent in doing the disputed work does not become an unfair labor practice. The transaction simply does not fall within the kind of featherbedding defined in the statute. In the absence of proof to the contrary, the employee's compensation reflects his entire relationship with his employer. ”

“ The ascertainment of compensation is a judicial function, and no power exists in any other department of the government to declare what the compensation shall be or to prescribe any binding rule in that regard. ”

“ Human labor, through all its forms, from the sharpening of a stake to the construction of a city or an epic, is one immense illustration of the perfect compensation of the universe. The absolute balance of Give and Take, the doctrine that every thing has its price, — and if that price is not paid, not that thing but something else is obtained, and that it is impossible to get any thing without its price, — is not less sublime in the columns of a leger than in the budgets of states, in the laws of light and darkness, in all the action and reaction of nature. ”

“ Compensation for work, or for a contract to work, is Wages whether the contract be in consequence of the worker’s ability or regardless of it. All compensation for service units, from lowest grades of ability to highest, is in Economic terminology and analysis, not Rent for Land but Wages for Labor. ”

“ The gain is apparent; the tax is certain. But there is no tax on the knowledge that the compensation exists, and that it is not desirable to dig up treasure. Herein I rejoice with a serene eternal peace. I contract the boundaries of possible mischief. I learn the wisdom of St. Bernard: “Nothing can work me damage except myself; the harm that I sustain, I carry about with me, and never am a real sufferer but by my own fault.” ¶ In the nature of the soul is the compensation for the inequalities of condition. The radical tragedy of nature seems to be the40 distinction of More and Less. ”

“ There can be no doubt that a certain compensation does take place in this way; and it is the existence of that compensation, which alone renders society tolerable under such circumstances. But the benefit accruing is no adequate set-off, if society be viewed as a whole, to the evil incurred. ”

“ In other and plainer words, compensation is to be arbitrarily given, and its proportion to the property acquired is apparently to be determined not by its value or by fairness and equity, but by the will of those who may be in power. ”

“ It is an ill wind that blows nobody good, says the comfortable proverb. Which would appear to be but another manner of declaring that the law of compensation works permanently in human affairs. All quantities, material and immaterial alike, are, of necessity, stable ”

“ A proper compensation law would merely distribute over the entire industry the shock of accident or disease, instead of limiting it to the unfortunate individual on whom, through no fault of his, it happened to fall. ”

“ If better laws or better wages attract better workmen, then there is a compensation to an employer even though his wage-scale be higher or his cost greater than prevails in a competitive industry in another State. The best workmen are attracted to those industries and to those localities where conditions of employment are most satisfactory, and I dare say that every employer will agree that the best workman is to him the cheapest workman even though his wages be higher.... ”

“ That is to say, as shown by these decisions, the compensation to dependents is merely a part of the general scheme of compensation provided by these acts for the loss resulting from the impairment or destruction of the earning power of an employee caused by an industrial accident, which in case of his death is paid to those whom he had supported by his earnings and who have suffered direct loss through the destruction of his earning power. ”

“ The word 'compensation,' in section 4527, distinctly indicates that payment of a sum equal to one month's wages was intended to constitute the remedy for invasion of the seaman's right through breach of his contract of employment in the circumstances specified. 'Damages consist in compensation for loss sustained. * * * By the general system of our law, for every invasion of right there is a remedy, and that remedy is compensation. This compensation is furnished in the damages which are awarded.' Sedgwick's Damages (9th Ed.) ”

“ How far these points of inferiority of faculties are compensated, and by what means they might be compensated still more completely, to the civilized man as an individual being, is a question belonging to a different inquiry from the present. But to civilized human beings collectively considered, the compensation is ample. ”

“ The compensation to workmen for accident seems at first sight a righteous charge upon capital for the benefit of those who are injured in their business. The immediate effect upon character is to save the careless, thoughtless, and incompetent from the results of their faults ”

“ While they cover the whole subject, the committee urged an especially strong educational campaign for the recognition of three essential principles in compensation legislation, viz.: that a good workmen’s compensation law must encourage accident prevention; assure compensation, preferably by compulsory insurance, and cover all wage-workers. ”

“ To "receive salary as compensation" is to receive periodic payments as compensation. And in the context of the present statute it must reasonably be thought that to "receive contribution to or supplementation of salary as compensation" is to receive contribution to or supplementation of periodic payments, in the sense that the contribution or supplementation itself must be periodic. ”

“ It should not be cast aside on the presupposition that full faith and credit need not be given to a sister-state workmen's compensation statute if the law of the forum happens to be more favorable to the claimant. ”

“ The last consideration has been too often lost sight of in the allowances heretofore made. The compensation which may suffice for the decent maintenance of a worthy and capable officer in a position of onerous and representative trust at a post readily accessible, and where the necessaries of life are abundant and cheap, may prove an inadequate pittance in distant lands, where the better part of a year's pay is consumed in reaching the post of duty, and where the comforts of ordinary civilized existence can only be obtained with difficulty and at exorbitant cost. ”

“ In order to avoid a similar double payment, we think that any overtime premium paid, even if for work during the first forty hours of the workweek, may be credited against any obligation to pay statutory excess compensation. ”

“ Compensation to collectors of the customs from the organization of the government to the present time has been chiefly derived from certain enumerated fees, commissions, and allowances, to which is added a prescribed sum, called salary, much less than a reasonable compensation for the service required of the officer. ”

“ And be it further enacted, that the faith of the United States be and the same is hereby pledged for the payment of just compensation to all persons who shall, on the said ---- day of ----, hold such claims to service or labor ”

“ One who knows or who has reason to believe that compensation is expected for goods or services tendered to him ought not to accept them unless he intends to pay for them. If he does his act of acceptance will be regarded as a promise of payment, and can be enforced. But if one accepts goods or services without knowledge or reason to believe that compensation will be expected, what then? ”

“ Malthus has in his mind a scale of compensation such as is drawn out by Adam Smith in the tenth chapter of the first book of the Wealth of Nations. [585] Disagreeableness, difficulty, inconstancy, responsibility, risk of failure, are so many disabilities, for each of which a compensation must be made to the workman in the scale of his wages, as adding in effect so many more hours’ labour; and each higher class of workman must be 258paid the unit of common labourer’s wages, with the compensations superadded. ”

“ The law of compensation is inexorable in its demand that you have to pay for what you get and that you can't get worth-while things by worthless plans.
You must exercise enough to balance things, to clear the system, to preserve your strength ”

“ Most regulations of business necessarily impose financial burdens on the enterprise for which no compensation is paid. Those are part of the costs of our civilization. Extreme cases are conjured up where an employer is required to pay wages for a period that has no relation to the legitimate end. ”

“ That cannot be said to be an unreasonable classification, as it provides for those cases where there are no persons entitled to compensation under the act, and thus the immediate employer and his insurer are relieved of the obligation to pay compensation. ”

“ The mutual insurance portion of the workmen's compensation is that which makes it really powerful and in the end, economical and just. Every state in this country adopting a workmen's compensation law will have to provide some such arrangement before thoroughly good results can be obtained. ”

“ Depend upon it, the grand law of compensation which we recognise throughout universal nature extends to the artificial conditions of daily life, and regulates the action and adjusts the inequalities of our social state. ”

“ The Compensation Act establishes a scheme for compensation of an injured employee by the employer, and for the payment of benefits to a specified class of his dependents when the injury causes death. Where some person other than the employer is liable for damages for the injury, compensation is governed by section 33. ”

“ Compensation in such a case is usually enforced by a libel in rem, but where the parties rendering the salvage service are employed and sent out by the owners or insurers, the persons employed may proceed in personam against their employers for compensation, even though they were unsuccessful, unless they contracted that their right to compensation should depend upon their success, as in the ordinary case of salvage service, without being antecedently employed. ”

“ If some State will take the lead and adopt a comprehensive system of compensation, and put it up to the courts and have decisions rendered, we would then know just what we could do. In any event, gentlemen, I believe that the workingmen will not be at all satisfied either with the suggestion sometimes made of a contribution on their part or with any law that removes from the employer the incentive to prevent accidents. ”