men v. New York, 179 U. S. 552, 563, 45 sioner on the question of dependency is conL. ed. 314, 321, 21 Sup. Ct. Rep. 212. clusive, and ought not to be disturbed by the superior court.

In both cases the finding of the commis- | Mich. 150 N. W. 897.

Wheeler, J., delivered the opinion of in the consideration of many of the questhe court: tions likely to arise under any compensation act contractual in character.

The reservation raises three questions for decision: (1) Whether recovery under the Since the injury for which compensation compensation act may be had for the in- is sought occurred in the navigable waters jury resulting in the death of these de- of New Jersey, the respondent insists that cedents; (2) whether the claimants, or the admiralty court has exclusive juriseither of them, were entitled to compensa-diction. Maritime torts, contracts, and tion under the act; and (3) what judgment should be rendered by the superior court.

Before proceeding to the discussion, it is well to restate the position before the superior court of appeals from the finding and award of a compensation commissioner. The compensation commissioner is an executive officer engaged in administrative duties. The superior court cannot, on appeal, retry the facts. It inquires into the facts merely to determine whether "the finding and award . . appealed from are unauthorized in law, irregular or informal, or based upon a misconception of the law, or of the powers or duty of the administrative tribunal, or are so unreasonable as to justify judicial interference." If it so finds, it will set aside the award; otherwise it will dismiss the appeal. Hotel Bond Co's Appeal, 89 Conn. 143, 93 Atl. 245.

claims are cognizable in admiralty. Torts depend on locality; contracts and claims, upon their character. As to in rem actions, the jurisdiction of the admiralty court is exclusive. As to personal actions, it is not.

The clause in the judiciary act of 1789, now § 256, chap. 231, act March 3, 1911 (the Judicial Code of the United States), "saving to suitors in all cases the right of a common-law remedy, where the common law is competent to give it" [36 Stat. at L. 1161, Comp. Stat. 1913, § 1233], was inserted in order to make clear that the grant of judicial power to the United States in all cases of admiralty did not deprive the suitor of his commonlaw remedies. The common-law remedies do not mean remedies in the common-law courts. They embrace all methods of enforcing rights and redressing injuries The accident resulting in the death of known to the common or statutory law. Hodges and Marsdale, for which compensa- Our state courts have, from the beginning, tion is claimed under our compensation act, enforced remedies to redress torts and susoccurred in the waters of Raritan bay;tain rights arising under contracts, and whether on the high seas or within the their jurisdiction so to do has been from navigable waters of New Jersey, the record the earliest time an established judicial does not distinctly specify. The parties on fact. The Hine v. Trevor, 4 Wall. 555, 567, the argument have agreed that it occurred 18 L. ed. 451, 455. in the navigable waters of New Jersey, and we shall so assume. The decedents and the respondent were citizens of Connecticut. The contracts of employment between them were made in Connecticut, to be performed partly within and partly without the state. The parties to each contract had accepted the provisions of part B of our workmen's compensation act. As a consequence, the act became a part of these contracts, part consideration of which was the promise of the employer to pay the compensation for injury provided by the act, and the promise of the employee to accept such compensation in full for all rights and claims arising out of injuries sustained in the course of his employment. The relation arising between these employers and employees was that of contract. Recovery was not dependent upon the fault of the employer, but upon the terms of the contract made. Acceptance of the act, whether made expressly or impliedly, as permitted by the act, made its provisions a part of these contracts of employment. The significance of the contract relation is foundational in the consideration of these cases, as, indeed, it must be

The jurisdiction of the state courts over torts occurring on that part of the sea not under the control of a state is admitted. Martin v. Hunter, 1 Wheat. 304, 337, 4 L. ed. 97, 105. And likewise for a similar reason the jurisdiction of the state courts over torts occurring in the navigable waters of the state is established. The Hamilton (Old Dominion S. S. Co. v. Gilmore) 207 U. S. 398, 403, 52 L. ed. 264, 269, 28 Sup. Ct. Rep. 133. If this proceeding were one to secure a recovery for a tort, the place of the injury would determine the right of recovery. Pendar v. H. & B. American Mach. Co. 35 R. I. 321, ante, 428, 87 Atl. 1, 4 N. C. C. A. 600. The attempt in this proceeding is to secure, through a procedure prescribed by statute, recovery of compensation for injury under a contract authorized by statute.

The contract in question may be assumed to be a maritime one. That would give the admiralty court the right to take jurisdiction over it. It could not take from our courts jurisdiction over a contract made in Connecticut by citizens of Connecticut, nor prevent its enforcement wherever it is oper

ative by the procedure of the state of its We come, then, to the next question,origin. This contract is to be interpreted whether our compensation act provides for and enforced by the application of the same compensation for injuries received outside principles accorded any contract. A conour state, and arising out of and in the tract for work to be done, or services to be course of the employment. The respondent performed, or goods to be delivered, in a insists that our act has no extraterritorial jurisdiction other than the place of con- effect. That is not the precise question to tract, is as enforceable in the state where be determined, but, rather, whether our act the contract was made as in that where it provides for compensation arising out of a was to be performed, unless the contract be contract of employment authorized by our against the law or the public policy of that act, for injuries suffered without our jurisjurisdiction, or its legal machinery is in-diction. If our act authorizes such a conappropriate or inadequate to its enforce-tract, recovery may be had; otherwise not. ment. Plainly, this proceeding is a per- Unless the intention to have a statute sonal action, and not one in rem. The operate beyond the limits of a state is clearadmiralty court has not exclusive jurisdic-ly expressed or reasonably to be inferred tion. Knapp, S. & Co. Co. v. McCaffrey, from the language of the act, or from its 177 U. S. 638, 643, 648, 44 L. ed. 921, 924, purpose, subject-matter, or history, the pre926, 20 Sup. Ct. Rep. 824; Schoonmaker v. sumption is that the statute is intended to Gilmore, 102 U. S. 118, 26 L. ed. 95; Leon have no extraterritorial effect. A like prev. Galceran, 11 Wall. 185, 20 L. ed. 74; sumption should control the operation of a The Belfast, 7 Wall. 624, 19 L. ed. 266; contract based upon a statutory authority. The Hine v. Trevor, 4 Wall. 555, 567, 568, 18 L. ed. 451, 455; Manchester v. Massachusetts, 139 U. S. 240, 262, 35 L. ed. 159, 166, 11 Sup. Ct. Rep. 559.

Again, it is insisted that an action for the injury in question is given in the admiralty court, and hence, under § 40 of the compensation act, it does not apply to this case. By this section the liability must have occurred in interstate or foreign commerce. There is nothing in the record to indicate whether the injury occurred while the employee was engaged in interstate or foreign commerce. If this be disregarded, it is still manifest this section has no application. The laws of the United States do not provide for compensation such as this contract gives, nor for a recovery for death or injury not predicated upon fault. Congress has not as yet legislated in regard to injuries occurring in interstate commerce by water; the state therefore may. Stoll v. Pacific Coast S. S. Co. (D. C.) 205 Fed. 169.

We find no clearly expressed intention in our act that the contract authorized should operate without the state. If found in the act, it must be found as an inference reasonably to be inferred from the language of the act, read in the light of its purpose, subject-matter, and history. In our search for such an intention it is all important that we do not forget the remedial character of the act, and that we construe its provisions broadly and liberally "in order to effectuate its purpose." Hotel Bond Co's Appeal, 89 Conn. 143, 93 Atl. 245–247.

The remedy provided by our compensation act is substitutionary in character, furnishing what was purposed to be a more humanitarian and economical system as a substitute for one deemed wasteful to industrial enterprises and commerce, and unfair to employees. Its intent was to afford its protection to all Connecticut employers and employees who might voluntarily choose to make its provision, for compensation for injury a part of their contracts of employ

to employment, and purposed to charge its cost in the case of every injury not caused by the wilful and serious misconduct or intoxication of the injured employee to the industry in which it occurred. It intended that the employee should know what compensation he or his dependents would receive in the event of injury, and that payment should be made speedily by a procedure at once simple and inexpensive. It intended that the employer should know his liability in this regard, and so might include it among the items charged to operation. If our act intends its contracts of

Presumably § 40 and similar provisions in other compensation acts have reference | ment. It assumed that accident is incident to the Federal employers' liability act. Where the injury arises from a cause not covered by the Federal act, this section does not apply. To come within the Federal act there must be interstate traffic, interstate employment, and negligence. Though the first two conditions be present in this proceeding, the latter is not. Note to 6 Negligence and Compensation Cases, anno. p. 920. It is not claimed, nor do we see how it could be with success, that a state may not provide that contracts of employment entered into within its bounds may include compensation for injury arising out of and in the course of the employ-employment to include compensation for ment in another jurisdiction.

injuries occurring only within our juris

available. Here is no limitation to injuries received within the state. We, through comity, enforce actions for injuries received outside the state when not against our law or public policy. The natural construction of this language makes it include every action, wherever it originates.

diction, it manifestly defeats its own ends. | sonal injury," certain defenses shall not be In that case the employer may not charge to the industry the compensation for injuries occurring without the state, and the employee or his dependents may not collect the same. Neither employer nor employee can know what portion of this period of employment will be subject to the provisions of the act, and no provision for in- Section 1, pt. B, recites that when emsurance of this liability will be practically ployer and employee have accepted part B, possible, since it may not ordinarily be the employer shall not be liable to any acknown what part of the service will be in tion for damages for personal injury susand what part out of the state, or in what tained by his employee in the course of his jurisdiction the service will be performed, employment, but the employer shall pay in industries and commercial enterprises compensation on account of such injury, as engaged in intrastate and interstate em- provided by the act. Do not the words "any ployment. The state boundary is not the action" mean what they say? And have limit of very many businesses. To subject we any more right to insert after them them to the laws of the many jurisdictions "within the state" than "within or within which they may be engaged will be es-out the state?" In this section the acceptpecially burdensome to them, and involve ance of the act is, by its express terms, a them probably in greater expense and liability and far greater difficulties than under the old system. Equally hard will it prove to the employee since he must pursue his remedy in the state of the accident, or the Federal court applying that state's law, and thus he may be brought under any one of many different compensation acts, with whose provisions he cannot hope to be familiar, some acts contractual in character, some compulsory, some optional, and some ex delicto, and he may find he has forfeited the benefit of the foreign act through failure to comply with its provisions. A reading of the several acts now in force convinces us that these difficulties are not imaginative, but imminent actualities.

renunciation and waiver of all rights and claims arising out of injuries sustained in the course of the employment, except as specified. It seems to us plain that the rights and claims waived are not merely those arising in Connecticut, but anywhere.

In § 8, pt. B, compensation is required to be paid for "any injury" which incapaci tates for more than two weeks. There is no warrant for construing “any injury” to consist of one arising within the state.

By 20 every employer who has accepted part B "shall keep a record of such injuries sustained by his employees in the course of their employment . . and send each week to the commissioner such report of said injuries as the commissioner shall require." It cannot be that the record intended was solely of the in

ously it was intended to embrace all injuries occurring to such employees everywhere; any other construction would do violence to the ordinary meaning of the word used and to the manifest purpose in keeping the record.

Similarly the notice of injury of § 21, and the voluntary agreement of § 22, relate to every injury, and not merely those occurring within the state.

Is it reasonable to infer that our legislature, inaugurating a new system, based upon humanitarian and economical consid-juries happening within the state. Obvierations, should intentionally frustrate the object of the new system, and cast a multitude of employers and employees into a maelstrom of trouble, uncertainty, and liability? On the other hand, is it not reasonable to infer that the legislature, having bottomed the right to compensation upon contract, deemed unimportant the place of injury, since it must be presumed to have known that the contract, and not the place of injury, would govern the recovery. Such Under § 29 any employer may enter into a construction of the act would lift in a substitute system of compensation with superable burdens from industry and com- his employees in lieu of the compensation merce and workmen, and give to each his of the act. The legislature had the uncourse and the ascertained fruits of the doubted power to make the substitute syscontract of his will. Whether the contract | tem apply to injuries without as well as shall include injuries in a jurisdiction those within the state. Is it likely that the other than where the contract was made is legislature intended a substitute system apdetermined by the expressions or implica-plicable to employees when employed withtions of each act.

Section 1, pt. A, of our act, recites that, "in an action to recover damages for per

in the state, and inapplicable when employed elsewhere? How could the employer engaged in intrastate and interstate em

ployment take advantage of the substitute | to the county of the contract, the terms of system? If the agreement of this charac- the act will be reasonably satisfied. The ter had to be confined to the injuries received in the state, neither employer nor employee would enter into it. Practically the provision for a substitute system would be in part nugatory.

Certain sections of the act are referred to as indicating that the act has relation exclusively to intrastate injuries. Thus, § 7, which requires the employer to furnish medical and surgical aid, and § 23, which requires the injured employee to submit himself to examination by a reputable physician, are said necessarily to refer to Connecticut practitioners. We see no prac. tical reason why these sections may not refer to the practitioner without the state as well as within it. Unless this limitation be read in the section, the language used does not express the limitation.

precise question we are considering has been the subject of discussion in two cases. One under the New Jersey act, a contractual optional act very similar to our own, where the trial court, in Deeny v. Wright & C. Lighterage Co. 36 N. J. L. J. 121, construed the contract under the New Jersey act as we construe these contracts. The other under the Massachusetts act, where the supreme judicial court construed their act as confined to accidents within the state. Gould's Case, 215 Mass. 480, 102 N. E. 693, Ann. Cas. 1914D, 372, 4 N. C. C. A. 60. We must accept the construction accorded the Massachusetts act by its supreme judicial court. It may be well, however, to point out that the court does not state that its act is contractual in character. That, as we have indicated, is of final importance in the conclusion we reach concerning ou own act. Then, too, under the Massachusetts act, the employee is merely the beneficiary under a contract between the employer and the insurer; with us the employer and employee enter into a contract relation. In its reference to and comment upon certain sections of their act the court says that it must be found within the act from “unequivocal language," or "plain and unmisSection 22 provides that the voluntary takable words," that the act was intended agreement, and § 26, that the awards of to relate to injuries without the commonthe commissioners, shall be filed in the of wealth. We have adopted a broader rule fice of the clerk of the superior court for We read our act in the light of the purpose, the county "in which the injury occurred." subject-matter, and history of the act to These provisions lend force to the respond- determine whether it expressly or by reaent's claim. But provisions of this charac-sonable inference intended to include in its ter should not be held to be mandatory, and thus permitted to defeat a primary purpose of the act. If the voluntary agreement and the award be filed in the place of the agreement or contract, this will be as close a compliance with these provisions as the act admits of in cases of injuries occurring without the state.

Under § 17 each commissioner has jurisdiction of all claims and questions arising in his district; hence it is urged no commissioner has jurisdiction of the cases at bar. We think the claims and questions relating to these cases may reasonably be said to arise in the place of domicil of the injured, if in the state, which in these cases is the place of the contracts, and the place from which the respondent hails.

The provision in § 27, that an appeal from the finding and award may be had "to the superior court for the county in which the injury was sustained," gives a stronger color to the respondent's claim than any other section of the act.

In legislative acts inaugurating a new system not infrequently are found contradictory provisions, and it becomes the duty of the court to reconcile them so far as it

contract injuries without our jurisdiction. This is our ordinary rule in the interpretation of statutes. The Massachusetts court states that "the subject of personal injuries received by a workman in the course of his employment is within the control of the sovereign power where the injury occurs."

And it argues that, if the act had intended employers and employees from different states to carry their domiciliary personalinjury law with them into other jurisdictions, it would have expressed its intent in unambiguous words. This argument concerns a proceeding to enforce an ex delicto claim, not one for compensation by way of contract. It is also argued that, if an act is given extraterritorial force, similar effect must be given to like laws of other states. It does this whenever it is possible If contracts of employment cover compenin such way as to sustain the act and carry sation for injuries outside the state, recovout its purposes. This we believe to be our ery for these will be governed by the usual present duty. In a sense the injury may be rules for the construction and enforcement said to have been sustained in the place of of all contracts. We should give similar the contract, and if appeal is taken, in effect to contracts of like character to those cases of injury occurring without the state, I before us, though made under a compensa

can.