WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION ACTS. Acts regulating this subject have been passed in Arizona, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minne sota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Texas, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. Congress has passed acts re lating to the Canal Zone, government mann facturing establishments, arsenals, navy yards, the construction of river and harbor, and fortification work, hazardous employ ment on construction work in the reclama tion of arid lands, also such employment un der the bureau of mines, the forestry service, and in the lighthouse service.
A Uniform Act has been prepared by the Commissioners on Uniform Laws, but not passed in any state.
Legislation providing for stated benefits payable without suit or proof of, negligence,, was first enacted in the United States in the form of a co-operative insurance law of Maryland in 1902. This law was of restrict ed application and was declared unconstitutional, as depriving parties of the right of trial by jury and conferring on an executive officer judicial or at least quasi-judicial func tions. The legislation, antedating what may be called the commission period, is of limited application, either locally or as to the classes of employees affected; and there appears to have been but little regard to actuarial re quirements in its enactment. Later most of the laws were drawn up by a commission, and after their enactment were administered by a commission.
While all the laws under consideration are compensation laws, in that they provide for fixed awards in case of industrial accidents, proof of negligence and legal actions being dispensed with, some of them go beyond the simple determination of the right to com pensation, and provide insurance systems, either under state supervision or otherwise. While, therefore, the laws are all classifiable as compensation laws, they may be distin guished for convenience as compensation laws and insurance laws.
A question, second only in importance to the right of the workman to compensation for industrial accidents, is the security of payments. Under some of the acts, the pro•
vision is made that the employer must give satisfactory evidence of his solvency, or must give bond for the payment of any sums for which he may become liable, or must insure his responsibility in some approved company.
The establishment of a state fund involves a considerable departure from the experience of the past in this country, and the question of its advisability is warmly discussed.
There is wide variety in the scope of the laws and of the test adopted for the inclu sion or exclusion of industries. In most cases, domestic and agricultural labor is ex cluded, while in some only extra-hazardous employments are concerned (which, however, cover the great majority of employments).
Under the acts, methods are usually pre scribed for, the expression by employers and workmen of their preference as to the accept ance or rejection of the compensation system. Thifs rages from each workman filing a written rejection to a presumed acceptance in the absence of formal rejection.
Under the elective system in most of the states, it is made an inducenient, which has been Criticized as coercive, that where em ployers refuse to come within the provisions of the compensation law, the customary de fenses to actions for injuries shall not be allowed them. In some cases where the law applies only to employers having in excess of a certain number of employees, the abro gation of these defenses does not affect em ployers of a small number of employees. The same is true also in cases in which the em ployee rejects the compensation system and sues an employer who has accepted such a system.
The bringing of suits for damages seems not absolutely forbidden in any state, though after electing to accept compensation, or failing to give notice of a rejection of the system, as the case may be, the employee may not sue unless the employer was guilty of serious or wilful misconduct or failed to comply with the safety laws.