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 purposes. 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. Note by board.-Employer includes owner, contractor, sub contractor, agent, municipality, see Sec. 17. Residence outside the State immaterial. This act has no application where the United States is the employer. (Opinion Attorney General, Sept. 20, 1911.) 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. Note by board. Not in course of employment: Employer injured going to supper down log chute; employé left moving work train to enter saloon, injured attempting to regain train with bottles of beer; telephone lineman falling on wet steps going to lunch. Any individual employer or any member or officer of any corporate employer who shall be carried upon the payroll at a salary or wage not less than the average salary or wage named in such payroll 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. Note by board. Such person, including partners and stockholders, may elect to come under the act. 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, halfsister, 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. Note by board.-Includes a step-child. 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. Note by board. Recent medical texts indicating that hernia (rupture) ordinarily develops gradually, rarely as a result of accident, the department rules that a workman in order to be entitled to indemnity for hernia must clearly prove: (1) The hernia is of recent origin; (2) It must have been accompanied by pain; (3) It must have been immediately preceded by some accidental strain in the course of hazardous employment; (4) There must be conclusive proof that it did not exist prior to the date of the alleged injury. In case the individual elects to be operated on, the above facts being established, one month total disability only will be allowed for recovery with compensation not to exceed 60% of wages in addition to the scale lump sum. In case he does not elect to be operated upon, and the hernia becomes strangulated in the future, the results from said strangulation will not be indemnified. Sec. 4. Schedule of contribution.-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 payroll for that year,* towit: (the same being deemed the most accurate method of equitable distribution of burden in proportion to relative hazard): Construction Work. Tunnels; bridges; trestles; sub-aqueous 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-Electric light or power plants or systems; telegraph or telephone systems; pile driving; steam railroads_-----Steeples, towers or grain elevators, not metal framed; drydocks without excavation; jetties; breakwaters; chimneys; marine railways; water-works or systems; electric railways with rock work or blasting; blasting; erecting fireproof doors or shutters______ .065 .080 .050 .050 Steam heating plants; tanks, water towers or windmills, not metal frames-- .040 Shaft sinking .060 *Act amended before passage requiring payment each month after Dec. 31, 1911, if funds on hand are deemed insufficient. Concrete buildings; freight or passenger elevators; fireproofing of buildings; galvanized iron or tin works; gas works, or systems; marble, stone or brick work; road making with blasting; roof work; safe moving; slate work; outside plumbing work; metal smokestacks or chimneys .050 Excavations not otherwise specified; blast furnaces... Street or other grading; cable or electric street railways without blasting; advertising signs; ornamental metal work in buildings---- .040 .035 Ship or boat building or wrecking with scaffolds; floating docks .045 Carpenter work not otherwise specified___. Drilling wells; installing electrical apparatus or fire alarm .035 .030 .020 The absence of power driven machinery does not exempt occupations named in this subdivision, nor the small number of employés engaged, nor the short time required to accomplish the work. Operation (including repair work) of (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 Electric light or power plants; interurban electric railroads not using third rail system; quarries‒‒‒‒‒ Street railways, all employés; telegraph or telephone systems; stone crushing; blasting furnaces; smelters; coal mines; gas works; steamboats; tugs; ferries_____ Mines, other than coal; steam heating or power plants----Grain elevators; laundries; waterworks; paper or pulp mills; garbage works--- .050 .040 .030 .025 .020 |