As a usual rule, these acts provide that the employees of a subcontractor are to be considered as the employees of the contractor also, for the purpose of claiming compensation for injuries under the act. (See §§ 259, 260.)

Notice of Accident-Time Limits. In order to obtain the benefits of bringing suit under the act, the employee must give his employer a notice-usually it must be written-of the time, place, and cause of the accident. The employee may either serve the notice personally or send it by mail to the employer's last known address. This notice must be given within a certain limited time after the happening of the accident. The time varies in the different acts, and there is generally some provision allowing the employee a certain extension of time in case of mental or physical incapacity, so that he may send the notice after the incapacity has been removed. The action must be brought within a certain time from the happening of the accident, generally varying from one to two years.

Death of Employee-Cause of Action. In case of the employee's death from his injuries, these laws give a cause of action to his personal representative, i.e., executor or administrator, or to his surviving relatives, to recover damages for the injury these relatives have suffered by his death. In such a case, the executor or administrator is allowed a certain period of time after his appointment in which to give to the employer the notice mentioned above.

This right of action in case of death is distinct from the right of the employee to sue for injuries. The employee may recover damages for his injuries; his representatives may recover only damages caused to them by his death. But, as a sort of additional penalty to the employer, the state of Massachusetts allows the surviving relatives to recover damages for conscious suffering endured by the employee before his death.

In order to take advantage of these acts, the rules as to the notice and the time within which the action may be brought must be strictly observed. If, through failure to comply with them, the new right of action under the act is lost, the employee still has his old action at common law for the injury which he has suffered, provided that it has not become outlawed also by lapse of time; the employee would, of course, stand a much better chance of recovering if he sued under the act. His relatives in case of his death have only the action given them by the statute. If they fail to take advantage of this action, their remedy is gone.

Some of these acts have been superseded by the workmen's compensation act discussed in the next section. In other states, as in New York, the workmen's compensation act applies only to certain employments, leaving the rest to come under the employers' liability act.

The Federal Employers' Liability Act. This act applies to all the railroads engaged in the business of interstate commerce throughout the country. It also applies to all railroads in the possession of the United States, such as those of the Philippines and Porto Rico, and in the District of Columbia. Where the railroads are engaged in both interstate and intrastate commerce (that is, both commerce which crosses the state lines and that which is carried on wholly within the state), in order to take advantage of the law's provisions the employee must, of course, himself have been assisting in the business of interstate commerce at the time the accident occurred.

However, a railroad company in contributing to an employees' accident fund may lawfully make the condition that if the employee accepts any benefit under the fund, he thereby gives up his right to bring suit. He does not make his choice as to whether he will accept the benefit or will bring suit, until after the injury has taken place.

Notes:

$280.

I.

In attempting to claim damages under any employers' liability act, if it is proposed to bring an action, consult a reputable lawyer, who will be able to attend to all the necessary formalities and to secure for the injured employee his proper rights whether by suit or by compromise of the claim.

If you intend to sue, do not accept any benefits from insurance funds connected with the company without first consulting a lawyer.

Workmen's Compensation Acts

With all the protections and safeguards that can be devised by science and required by law to protect the employee, there will always be certain occupations which in their very nature are dangerous to life and limb. Such are mining, building, railroading, working in atmospheres clouded by fine dust or gas fumes, etc. In the past, the loss of life and health in these industries reached alarming proportions. It has been reduced somewhat by the modern tendency to require safeguards, but the fact remains that these industries are all the time "scrapping" humanity.

Since employees injured in these occupations seldom earn wages large enough to permit them to provide for the future, the burden of taking care of them and of their dependents has fallen in a large measure on the community. It seemed more just to make the industries which caused the injuries pay the expenses than to let the burden fall on the employee or on the community as a whole.

In consequence, both here and abroad there has grown up in recent years a system known as workmen's compensation.

It is part of good bookkeeping to carry a depreciation
account to cover the wear and tear on mechanical machinery
in a manufacturing business as a part of the cost of the
product. The time has come when provision must be made
for the wear and tear on the human machinery engaged in
the industry which is quite as much a part of the cost of
production as is the wear and tear on the plant.
We are
accordingly getting Workmen's Compensation Laws to pro-
tect the laborer to a slight extent against accident and to
provide for his family in case of death in the course of his
employment.*

The essential feature of this system is that there is established a scale of compensation for different kinds of injuries, by which payments are usually made at regular intervals extending over some period of time. The payment must be made, as a general rule, regardless of who was to blame for the accident, except where the employee wilfully and intentionally brought the injury on himself, or where it came about as the direct result of his intoxication.

§ 281. Modern Statutory Law

In New York State, the compensation law enumerates some forty groups of hazardous employments. The scope of the law is widened by including, as the last group:

All other employments not hereinbefore enumerated carried on by any person, firm or corporation in which there are engaged or employed four or more workmen or operatives regularly, in the same business or in or about the same establishment, either upon the premises or at the plant or away from the plant of the employer, under any contract of hire, express or implied, oral or written, except farm laborers and domestic servants.

In addition, it is provided that any employer not coming under the provisions of the law, or having some employees who do not, may choose to accept the law of his own accord.

Samuel Untermeyer.

As in effect July 1, 1919.

In other states, it applies to all occupations, or to all occupations with a few exceptions, such as farming or domestic service. In New Jersey the act applies to all classes of employees, including farm hands and domestic servants.

The injury must be one arising out of the employment. For instance, in a New Jersey case a workman named Hully slipped on a concrete floor while dodging away from a fellowworkman who was trying to knock his hat off. This was held not to come under the compensation act.

If the employee is injured on his way to or from work, while on his employer's premises, it is considered injury in the course of his employment and entitles him to compensation.

An injury received while he was disobeying orders would not entitle him to compensation. A man named Reimers who had been forbidden by his employer to make use of an automobile, took it out and was injured in consequence. He was not allowed compensation."

An injury caused by a third person to an employee in the regular course of his work entitles him to compensation from his employer as does any other injury in the course of the employment. For instance, in one case a superintendent was shot by a man who had been annoying a woman employee and whom he had ordered off the premises. The superintendent was entitled to compensation.

§ 282. Schedules of Compensation

Each act contains its own schedule of compensation. Most of them follow the same general scheme. The following is the New York schedule of compensation for injuries:

I.

Permanent total disability shall entitle the employee to receive two-thirds of his weekly wage, while he lives.

2. Temporary total disability shall entitle the employee

Reimers v. Proctor Pub. Co., 85 N. J. L. 441.