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appear in the New York statute. "But the interest of the public is not confined to these. One of the grounds of its concern with the continued life and earning power of the individual is its interest in the prevention of pauperism, with its concomitants of vice and crime, and, in our opinion, laws regulating the responsibility of employers for the injury or death of employees arising out of the employment bear so close a relation to the protection of the lives and safety of those concerned that they properly may be regarded as coming within the category of police regulations."

Objections were also raised to the Washington statute as coming between the employer and the employee in the matter of the labor contract. The court held, however, that the police power of the State carries with it a wide range of judgment and discretion as to the matters that are of sufficiently general importance to be brought under State control and administration. The public welfare is sufficient warrant for the exercise of such powers as are made use of in the compensation law to regulate the conditions of contract, no less with reference to those who are disabled or who are dependents of those fatally injured in the industrial occupations necessary to the development of the resources of the State than for the support by a system of pensions of disabled soldiers and the widows and dependents of those killed in war. The fact that the compensation system is not confined to those who are left without means of support is not an objection to its validity, since to make such limitations would be to discriminate against the thrifty in favor of the improvident.

The New York statute requires a guarantee of the payment of compensation in one of three ways: By State insurance, by insurance with an authorized insurance corporation or association, or by a deposit of securities. Assuming that the power to require a deposit of securities will be exercised by the commission with due discretion, these provisions were held by the court to lie within the power of the State in aid of the effectual working of the system of compulsory compensation contemplated by the act.

PARTICULAR PROVISIONS OF THE LAWS.

The questions discussed under the foregoing heads are much broader in their implications than those remaining for consideration. The undefinable but often used term "police power" may be said to cover practically all that has been noted under the various heads. Assuming the validity of these different forms of its exercise, various details of the laws may be considered in the light of some of the later decisions and rulings that have come to hand.

INJURIES COMPENSATED.

Accidents. While most of the State courts and boards continue to emphasize the idea of accident as a definite occurrence in point of time and of effect, it is noteworthy that the Legislatures of California and Hawaii specifically include occupational diseases, while courts of Massachusetts and the United States Employees Compensation Commission construe the acts administered by them as applicable to injuries of this class.

Recent decisions on the subject of sunstroke or heatstroke are in line with those noted in Bulletin No. 203, the rule being that where these effects arise from labor conditions they are compensable, the Pennsylvania board ruling that such physical changes are produced in the tissues of the body as to be personal violence to its structure. The Supreme Court of Minnesota likewise (State ex rel. Rau v. District Court of Ramsey County, 164 N. W. 916) awarded compensation in a case of death due to sunstroke as for "a violent injury produced by an external power," where a workman was employed at street labor, exposed to the direct rays of the sun, in an atmosphere rendered excessively humid on account of the sand in the street being wet. The Supreme Court of Nebraska also allowed compensation where death followed a heatstroke, the employee in question being engaged in cleaning and oiling motors in a building of sheet iron with tarred roofing and insufficient ventilation, while the air was heavy with dust and particles of matter produced in the manufacture of mattresses, etc. "A stronger man might have lived, but it is enough that the industry brought about this man's death." The matter of violence was disregarded, the unexpected quality of the event being held sufficient to classify it as an accident within the meaning of the act. (Young v. Western Furniture & Mfv. Co., 164 N. W. 712.) The same principle is applied by the Supreme Court of Minnesota in a case in which a workman's thumb was frozen while he was cutting and handling timber in the snow. It was held on authority that freezing is a personal injury within the meaning of compensation acts, and is an accident in so far as it is an unexpected and unforeseen event, producing at the time injury to the physical structure of the body. Whether it also meets the requirement of happening "suddenly and violently" was said to be a more difficult question, but the court, one justice dissenting, concluded "that a fair construction of the statutory definition does not exclude freezing, and we hold that it is a personal injury caused by accident within the meaning of the act." (State ex rel. Virginia & Rainy Lake Co. v. District Court of St. Louis County, 164 N. W. 585). Another case before the same court turned more directly upon the question of whether or not the injury arose out of the employment,

the circumstances being the employment of a janitor who was working both at keeping up the fires in a building and cleaning off the sidewalk, the weather being very cold. The two duties alternated, and the employee could divide his time as he chose. The court below found that the injury was sustained in the course of his employment, and arose out of it, but decided that the freezing was not an accident. Subsequently the supreme court made the ruling as to accidental injury noted above, and on the appeal in this case held to that ruling, reversing the court below in this respect, but affirming that the injury arose out of the employment on account of the nature of the work in which the employee was engaged, thus clearing the way for an award in the injured man's favor. (State ex rel. Nelson v. District Court of Ramsey Co., 164 N. W. 917.) Somewhat analogous to the foregoing was the case of a workman employed for several hours flushing hot pulp from the cellar or basement of a paper mill by the use of hot water, and who, becoming wet with steam and perspiration, suffered from chill when going out to dinner, nephritis and disability resulting; the disease in this case was held by the Appellate Court of Indiana to be an injury by accident within the meaning of the law of that State. (United Paperboard Co. v. Lewis, 117 N. E. 276.)

The Supreme Court of Minnesota took a diverse view from that adopted by the Wisconsin courts in Vennen v. New Dells Lumber Co. (see Bul. 203, p. 206), in a case involving typhoid fever infection. The cases are identical in that the employer's responsibility was claimed to be due to the quality of the drinking water supplied by him for his employees; but while the Wisconsin court awarded benefits, that of Minnesota decided that under the definition of an accident appearing in the law of that State, i. e., "an unexpected or unforseen event, happening suddenly and violently, with or without human fault, and producing at the time injury to the physical structure of the body," the happening in question could not be construed as an accident. The period required for the development of the infection afforded the chief ground for holding that the definition excluded the case from compensation. (State ex rel. Faribault Woolen Mills Co. v. District Court of Rice County, 164 N. W. 810.) Somewhat similar to the foregoing was the position taken by a commissioner of the State of Connecticut, who denied compensation where the cumulative effect of an acid dip used for four days led to pus formation, the amputation of a finger at the second joint, and the partial loss of use of another finger, the refusal being based on the ground that the condition was "not due to an injury which can be located in point of time and place."

On like grounds the Supreme Court of Michigan denied the claim for compensation in a case where there was an infection from an

untraced source, which might have gained access to the system through cracks in the skin of the hands due to the nature of the employment, the court saying that there was no sufficient evidence of an accident in the course of employment to sustain an award. (Jermer v. Imperial Furniture Co., 166 N. W. 943.) But where a tannery employee suffered an infection of the throat, due, as the board held, to inhaling dust from dry hides in a work place where the ventilation was poor, the same court upheld the award on the ground of an accidental contact with a septic germ or germs, taken up by the respiratory organs and thus carried into the system-said to be an unusual occurrence, but one shown by the evidence to be probable in the case at hand. (Dove v. Alpena Hide & Leather Co., 164 N. W. 253.) An award was also approved by this court where an undertaker's assistant died from a streptococcus infection after cleaning his employer's instruments after the embalming of the body of a person who had died of such an infection, the employee having apparently cut himself slightly while cleaning the instruments. (Bloess v. Dolph, 161 N. W. 885.)

Suffocation by the accidental inhalation of illuminating gas at a gas plant was also held to be a compensable injury under the Michigan law. (Holnagle v. Lansing Fuel & Gas Co., 166 N. W. 843.)

Occupational diseases.-The line of reasoning followed by the courts which rejected claims based on disability due to disease of any kind would lead also to the rejection of claims based on the so-called industrial or occupational diseases. Attention has already been called to the fact that there is apparent in legislation something of a tendency in favor of the inclusion of occupational diseases as entitled to consideration in a system undertaking to provide against the untoward consequences of industrial activities. The United States employees' compensation act authorizes compensation "for the disability or death of an employee resulting from a personal injury sustained while in the performance of his duty," excluding cases of willful misconduct, etc. The commission administering the law took the view that the term "personal injury" as used in the act covers "not only accidents as ordinarily defined, but also any bodily injury or disease due to the performance of duties and causing incapacity for work," citing as precedents the interpretation of the act of 1908 by the Solicitor of the Department of Labor (Bul. 203, pp. 198, 199), and of the Massachusetts Industrial Accident Board and Supreme Court. Compensation was allowed by this commission, in pursuance of this construction, in 23 cases of lead poisoning, 16 cases of dermatitis from fulminate of mercury, dermatitis from machine oil, rheumatism due to the dampness of the dirt flcor on which the employee was compelled to stand, apoplexy due to overexertion in a position involving unusual strain, etc. A number of claims where

similar diseases were under consideration were rejected on account of the failure to establish a causal connection.

Lead poisoning is so typically a disease of occupation that the attitude of a court or commission on a case of this malady is determinative of the construction of the local law on the entire subject; so that the ruling of the commissioner of industries of Vermont that lead poisoning is not compensable under the law of that State (Bennett case, 1918) must be taken as a guide for the interpretation of the law in that field. It was said that, though the injury arose out of and in the course of employment, it was not accidental, and therefore not within the act. The Superior Court of Rhode Island based its judgment somewhat differently, though with the same practical result, when it denied a claim for compensation for neuritis developed in the hand of a workman engaged in punching holes in rubber balls, subjecting his hand to great strain, and furthermore receiving a wrench by the accidental twisting of a ball in a specific instance, the claim being overruled simply on the ground that it was for an occupational disease, and was for that reason not within the act.

The law of California is not limited to injuries due to external, violent, or accidental means, so that loss of sight due to poisoning by wood alcohol used by a sign writer using an air brush was held to be compensable (Fidelity & Casualty Co. v. Industrial Commission, 171 Pac. 429); and the industrial commission of the State awarded benefits in the case of a traffic policeman who developed flat feet or broken arches as the result of constant standing on the hard pavement, as being an injury due to the nature of the employ

ment.

As already intimated, the law of Massachusetts is construed to embrace occupational diseases, but the supreme court of the State reversed an award for neurosis caused by a bad posture of a cigarmaker while at his work, saying that nothing appeared to show a necessary connection between the work and the posture, so that the induced neurosis could not be regarded as an injury arising out of the employment. (In re Maggalet, 116 N. E. 972.)

The Pennsylvania law limits its benefits to injuries due to "violence to the physical structure of the body," and claims rejected under such definition are noted in Bulletin 203, page 201. The State board held, however, that "the involuntary inhalation of gas is an accidental injury," in an instance where the claimant was made sick from inhaling fumes caused by an explosion in the workroom, and compensation was allowed. (Baith case, 1917.)

Disfigurement.-While an accident may produce results falling short of actual physical disability, a resultant disfigurement may de

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