If widow alone, twenty-five per centum of wages. If widow and one child, forty per centum of wages. If widow and two children, forty-five per centum of wages. If widow and four children, fifty-five per centum of wages. If widow and five children or more, sixty per centum of wages. If widow and father or mother, fifty per centum of wages. If grandparents, grandchildren, or minor, or incapacitated brothers or sisters, twenty-five per centum of wages. Compensation in case of death shall be computed on the basis of the foregoing schedule, but shall be distributed according to the laws of this State providing for the distribution of the personal property of an intestate decedent, unless decedent has in fact left a will. (2) No dependents. Expense of last sickness and burial not exceeding two hundred dollars. In computing compensation to orphans or other children, only those under sixteen years of age shall be included, and only during the period in which they are under that age, at which time payment on account of such child shall cease. The compensation in case of death shall be subject to a maximum compensation of ten dollars per week and a minimum of five dollars per week: Provided, That if at the time of injury the employee receives wages of less than five dollars per week, then the compensation shall be the full amount of such wages per week. This compensation shall be paid during three hundred weeks. Compensation under this schedule shall not apply to alien dependents not residents of the United States. 13. No compensation shall be allowed for the first two weeks after injury received, except as provided by paragraph fourteen, nor in any case unless the employer has actual knowledge of the injury or is notified thereof within the period specified in paragraph fifteen. 14. During the first two weeks after the injury the employer shall furnish reasonable medical and hospital services and medicines, as and when needed, not to exceed one hundred dollars in value, unless the employee refuses to allow them to be furnished by the employer. 15. Unless the employer shall have actual knowledge of the occurrence of the injury, or unless the employee, or some one on his behalf, or some of the dependents, or some one on their behalf, shall give notice thereof to the employer within fourteen days of the occurrence of the injury, then no compensation shall be due until such notice is given or knowledge obtained. If the notice is given, or the knowledge obtained within thirty days from the occurrence of the injury, no want, failure, or inaccuracy of a notice shall be a bar tó obtaining compensation, unless the employer shall show that he was prejudiced by such want, defect or inaccuracy, and then only to the extent of such prejudice. If the notice is given, or the knowledge obtained within ninety days, and if the employee, or other beneficiary, shall show that his failure to give prior notice was due to his mistake, inadvertence, ignorance of fact or law, or inability, or to the fraud, misrepresentation or deceit of another person, or to any other reasonable cause or excuse, then compensation may be allowed, unless, and then to the extent only that the employer shall show that he was prejudiced by failure to receive such notice. Unless knowledge be obtained, or notice given, within ninety days after the occurrence of the injury, no compensation shall be allowed. 16. The notice referred to may be served personally upon the employer, or upon any agent of the employer upon whom a summons may be served in a civil action, or by sending it through the mail to the employer at the last known residence or business place thereof within the State, and shall be substantially in the following form: To (name of employer): You are hereby notified that a personal injury was received by (name of employee injured), who was in your employ at (place) while engaged as (nature of employment), on or about the (—) day of (- -), nineteen hundred and (—————), and that compensation will be claimed therefor. Signed, -). but no variation from this form shall be material if the notice is sufficient to advise the employer that a certain employee, by name, received an injury in the course of his employment on or about a specified time, at or near a certain place. Notice served at the office of, or on the person who was the employer's immediate superior, shall be a compliance with this act. 17. After an injury, the employee, if so requested by his employer, must submit himself for examination at some reasonable time and place within the State, and as often as may be reasonably requested, to a physician or physicians authorized to practice under the laws of this State. If the employee requests, he shall be entitled to have a physician or physicians of his own selection present to participate in such examination. The refusal of the employee to submit to such examination shall deprive him of the right to compensation during the continuance of such refusal. When a right to compensation is thus suspended no compensation shall be payable in respect of the period of suspension. 18. In case of a dispute over, or failure to agree upon, a claim for compensation between employer and employee, or the dependents of the employee, either party may submit the claim, both as to questions of fact, the nature and effect of the injuries, and the amount of compensation therefor according to the schedule herein provided, to the judge of the court of common pleas of such county as would have jurisdiction in a civil case, or where there is more than one judge of said court, then to either or any of said judges of such court, which judge is hereby authorized to hear and determine such disputes in a summary manner, and his decision as to all questions of fact shall be conclusive and binding. 19. In case of death, where no executor or administrator is qualified, the said judge shall, by order, direct payment to be made to such person as would be appointed administrator of the estate of such decedent upon like terms as to bond for the proper application of compensation payments as are required of administrators. 20. Procedure in case of dispute shall be as follows: Either party may present a petition to said judge setting forth the names and residences of the parties and the facts relating to employment at the time of injury, the injury in its extent and character, the amount of wages received at the time of injury, the knowledge of the employer or notice of the occurrence of said injury, and such other facts as may be necessary and proper for the information of the said judge, and shall state the matter or matters in dispute and the contention of the petitioner with reference thereto. This petition shall be verified by the oath or affirmation of the petitioner. Upon the presentation of such petition the same shall be filed with the clerk of the court of common pleas, and the judge shall fix a time and place for the hearing thereof, not less than three weeks after the date of the filing of said petition. A copy of said petition shall be served as summons in a civil action and may be served within four days thereafter upon the adverse party. Within seven days after the service of such notice the adverse party shall file an answer to said petition, which shall admit or deny the substantial averments of the petition, and shall state the contention of the defendant with reference to the matters in dispute as disclosed by the petition. The answer shall be verified in like manner as required for a petition. At the time fixed for hearing or any adjournment thereof the said judge shall hear such witnesses as may be presented by each party, and in a summary manner decide the merits of the controversy. This determination shall be filed in writing with the clerk of the common pleas court, and judgment shall be entered thereon in the same manner as in causes tried in the court of common pleas, and shall contain a statement of facts as determined by said judge. Subsequent proceedings thereon shall only be for the recovery of moneys thereby determined to be due: Provided, That nothing herein contained shall be construed as limiting the jurisdiction of the supreme court to review questions of law by certiorari. Costs may be awarded by said judge in his discretion, and when so awarded the same costs shall be allowed, taxed and collected as are allowed, taxed and collected for like services in the common pleas court. 21. The amounts payable periodically as compensation may be commuted to one or more lump sum payments by the judge of the court of common pleas having jusisdiction as set forth in the preceding paragraph, upon the application of either party, in his discretion, provided the same be in the interest of justice. Unless so approved, no compensation payments shall be commuted. An agreement of award of compensation may be modified at any time by a subsequent agreement, or at any time after one year from the time when the same became operative it may be reviewed upon the application of either party on the ground that the incapacity of the injured employee has subsequently increased or diminished. In such case the provisions of paragraph seventeen with reference to medical examination shall apply. 22. The right of compensation granted by this act shall have the same preference against the assets of the employer as is now or may hereafter be allowed by law for a claim for unpaid wages for labor. Claims or payments due under this act shall not be assignable, and shall be exempt from all claims of creditors and from levy, execution or attachment. SECTION III.-General provisions. 23. For the purposes of this act, willful negligence shall consist of (1) deliberate act or deliberate failure to act, or (2) such conduct as evidences reckless indifference to safety, or (3) intoxication, operating as the proximate cause of injury. Wherever in this act the singular is used the plural shall be included; where the masculine gender is used, the feminine and neuter shall be included. Employer is declared to be synonymous with master and includes natural persons, partnerships and corporations; employee is synonymous with servant and includes all natural persons who perform service for another for financial consideration, exclusive of casual employments. Amputation between the elbow and the wrist shall be considered as the equivalent of the loss of a hand, and amputation between the knee and the ankle shall be considered as the equivalent of the loss of a foot. 24. In case for any reason any paragraph or any provision of this act shall be questioned in any court and shall be held to be unconstitutional or invalid, the same shall not be held to affect any other paragraph or provision of this act, except that Sections I and II are hereby declared to be inseparable, and if either section be declared void or inoperative in an essential part, so that the whole of such section must fall, the other section shall fall with it and not stand alone. Section I of this act shall not apply in cases where Section II becomes operative in accordance with the provisions thereof, but shall apply in all other cases, and in such cases shall be in extension of the common law. 25. Every right of action for negligence, or to recover damages for injuries resulting in death, existing before this act shall take effect, is continued, and nothing in this act contained shall be construed as affecting any such right of action, nor shall the failure to give the notice provided for in Section II, paragraph fifteen of this act, be a bar to the maintenance of a suit upon any right or action existing before this act shall take effect. 26. All acts or parts of acts inconsistent with the provisions of this act are hereby repealed. 27. This act shall take effect on the fourth day of July next succeeding its passage and approval. NEW YORK. [The compensation law of New York (elective) was printed in Bulletin No. 90, pp. 709–712, and in Bulletin No. 91, pp. 1091–1095.] WASHINGTON. ACT OF MARCH 14, 1911. SECTION 1. The common-law system governing the remedy of workmen against employers for injuries received in hazardous work is inconsistent with modern industrial conditions. In practice it proves to be economically unwise and unfair. Its administration has produced the result that little of the cost of the employer has reached the workman and that little only at large expense to the public. The remedy of the workman has been uncertain, slow and inadequate. Injuries in such works, formerly occasional, have become frequent and inevitable. The welfare of the State depends upon its industries, and even more upon the welfare of its wageworker. The State of Washington, therefore, exercising herein its police and sovereign power, declares that all phases of the premises are withdrawn from private controversy, and sure and certain relief for workmen, injured in extra hazardous work, and their families and dependents is hereby provided regardless of questions of fault and to the exclusion of every other remedy, proceeding or compensation, except as otherwise provided in this act; and to that end all civil actions and civil causes of action for such personal injuries and all jurisdiction of the courts of the State over such causes are hereby abolished, except as in this act provided. SEC. 2. There is a hazard in all employment, but certain employments have come to be, and to be recognized as being inherently constantly dangerous. This act is intended to apply to all such inherently hazardous works and occupations, and it is the purpose to embrace all of them, which are within the legislative jurisdiction of the State, in the following enumeration, and they are intended to be embraced within the term "extra hazardous" wherever used in this act, to-wit: Factories, mills and workshops where machinery is used; printing, electrotyping, photo-engraving and stereotyping plants where machinery is used; foundries, blast furnaces, mines, wells, gas works, waterworks, reduction works, breweries, elevators, wharves, docks, dredges, smelters, powder works; laundries operated by power; quarries; engineering works; logging, lumbering and shipbuilding operations; logging, street and interurban railroads; buildings being constructed, repaired, moved or demolished; telegraph, telephone, electric light or power plants or lines, steam heating or power plants, steamboats, tugs, ferries and railroads. If there be or arise any extra hazardous occupation or work other than those hereinabove enumerated, it shall come under this act, and its rate of contribution to the accident fund hereinafter established, shall be, until fixed by legislation, determined by the department hereinafter created, upon the basis of the relation which the risk involved bears to the risks classified in section 4. SEC. 3. In the sense of this act words employed mean as here stated, to wit: Factories mean undertakings in which the business of working at commodities is carried on with power-driven machinery, either in manufacture, repair or change, and shall include the premises, yard and plant of the concern. Workshop means any plant, yard, premises, room or place wherein power-driven machinery is employed and manual labor is exercised by way of trade for gain or otherwise in or incidental to the process of making, altering, repairing, printing or ornamenting, finishing or adapting for sale or otherwise any article or part of article, machine or thing, over which premises, room or place the employer of the person working therein has the right of access or control. Mill means any plant, premises, room or place where machinery is used, any process of machinery, changing, altering or repairing any article or commodity for sale or otherwise, together with the yards and premises which are a part of the plant, including elevators, warehouses and bunkers. Mine means any mine where coal, clay, ore, mineral, gypsum or rock is dug or mined underground. Quarry means an open cut from which coal is mined, or clay, ore, mineral, gypsum, sand, gravel or rock is cut or taken for manufacturing, building or construction. Engineering work means any work of construction, improvement or alteration or repair of buildings, structures, streets, highways, sewers, street railways, railroads, logging roads, interurban railroads, harbors, docks, canals; electric, steam or water power plants; telegraph and telephone plants and lines; electric light or power lines, and includes any other works for the construction, alteration or repair of which machinery driven by mechanical power is used. Except when otherwise expressly stated, employer means any person, body of persons, corporate or otherwise, and the legal personal representatives of a deceased employer, all while engaged in this State in any extra hazardous work. Workman means every person in this State, who, after September 30, 1911, is engaged in the employment of an employer carrying on or conducting any of the industries scheduled or classified in section 4, whether by way of manual labor or otherwise, and whether upon the premises or at the plant or, he being in the course of his employment, away from the plant of his employer: Provided, however, That if the injury to a workman occurring away from the plant of his employer is due to the negligence or wrong of another not in the same employ, the injured workman, or if death result from the injury, his widow, children, or dependents, as the case may be, shall elect whether to take under this act or seek a remedy against such other, such election to be in advance of any suit under this section; and if he take under this act, the cause of action against such other shall be assigned to the State for the benefit of the accident fund; if the other choice is made, the accident fund shall contribute only the deficiency, if any, between the amount of recovery against such third person actually collected, and the compensation provided or estimated by this act for such case. Any such cause of action assigned to the State may be prosecuted, or compromised by the department, in its discretion. Any compromise by the workman of any such suit, which would leave a deficiency to be made good out of the accident fund, may be made only with the written approval of the department. Any individual employer or any member or officer of any corporate employer who shall be carried upon the pay roll at a salary or wage not less than the average salary or wage named in such pay roll and who shall be injured, shall be entitled to the benefit of this act as and under the same circumstances as and subject to the same obligations as a workman. Dependent means any of the following-named relatives of a workman whose death results from any injury and who leaves surviving no widow, widower, or child under the age of sixteen years, viz.: invalid child over the age of sixteen years, daughter, between sixteen and eighteen years of age, father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, step-father, step-mother, grandson, granddaughter, step-son, step-daughter, brother, sister, half-sister, half-brother, niece, nephew, who, at the time of the accident, are dependent, in whole or in part, for their support upon the earnings of the workman. Except where otherwise provided by treaty, aliens, other than father or mother, not residing within the United States at the time of the accident, are not included. Beneficiary means a husband, wife, child or dependent of a workman, in whom shall vest a right to receive payment under this act. Invalid means one who is physically or mentally incapacitated from earning. The word "child," as used in this act, includes a posthumous child, a child legally adopted prior to the injury, and an illegitimate child legitimated prior to the injury. The words injury or injured, as used in this act, refer only to an injury resulting from some fortuitous event as distinguished from the contraction of disease. SEC. 4. Insomuch as industry should bear the greater portion of the burden of the cost of its accidents, each employer shall, prior to January 15th of each year, pay into the State treasury, in accordance with the following schedule, a sum equal to a percentage of his total pay roll for that year, to wit: (the same being deemed the most accurate method of equitable distribution of burden in proportion to relative hazard): CONSTRUCTION WORK. Tunnels; bridges; trestles; subaqueous works; ditches and canals (other than irrigation without blasting); dock excavation; fire escapes; sewers; house moving; house wrecking........... Iron, or steel frame structures or parts of structures. .065 Electric light or power plants or systems; telegraph or telephone systems; pile driving; steam railroads... .080 Steeples, towers or grain elevators, not metal framed; dry-docks without exca- Steam heating plants; tanks, water towers or windmills, not metal frames. .050 .050 .040 .060 Concrete buildings; freight or passenger elevators; fireproofing of buildings; Street or other grading; cable or electric street railways without blasting; adver- Installation of steam boilers or engines; placing wire in conduits; installing Drilling wells; installing electrical apparatus or fire alarm systems in buildings; house heating or ventilating systems; glass setting; building hot houses; lathing; paper hanging; plastering; inside plumbing; wooden stair building; road making. OPERATION (INCLUDING REPAIR WORK) OF .030 .020 (All combinations of material take the higher rate when not otherwise provided). Logging railroads; railroads; dredges; interurban electric railroads using third rail system; dry or floating docks... .050 Street railways, all employees; telegraph or telephone systems; stone crushing; Electric light or power plants; interurban electric railroads not using third-rail system; quarries... |