Putnam's Handy Law Book for the Layman

by Albert Sidney Bolles

By the Federal act an employee must be "employed by the United States to be entitled to its benefits." Thus, a plate printer in the bureau of engraving and printing who is paid by the piece, and who bonds himself and hires and pays his own help, also the owner of a power boat chartered to the government and operated by the owner in its service, are contractors, and not federal employees. A workman, therefore, who is employed by a government contractor is not an employee of the government. On the other hand, one who is employed and carried on the pay rolls of the reclamation service, though working for the contractor, is employed by the government, likewise, a workman employed in the forest service who is working with others for county supervisors who, in turn, are executing a contract with the government.

As public officers are not employees within the meaning of the compensation acts, they may be distinguished from others who are employees. Unless the statute says so, a policeman is not an employee of the city which he serves, but an officer holding a public trust. On the other hand, a night policeman or marshal is an employee by the Wisconsin law. Firemen and deputy sheriffs on a fee basis are officers rather than employees.

The compensation acts secure compensation not only for injured workmen, but should they die, to their dependents. Who then is a dependent? "Dependency," says Honnold, "does not depend on an answer to the question whether the alleged dependents could support themselves without the earnings of the person who is no longer living, but whether they were in fact supported in whole or in part by such earnings intentionally by him. Occasional gifts do not prove dependency, yet purely voluntary contributions may establish dependency. Voluntary contributions of money, support or service by a brother to a sister or by a sister to a brother are not complete evidence of the dependency of either. Compensation cannot be awarded to dependents who do not belong to the classes of relatives mentioned in the statutes."

The phrase, actual dependents, means dependents in fact whether they are wholly or partially dependent. Partial dependency, giving a right to compensation may exist though the contributions are at irregular intervals and of irregular amounts, and the dependent has other means of supporting himself. An employee contributed all of his earnings to his mother who was partially dependent on him for support. Five other children contributed to the family fund. It was held that the mother was entitled to a weekly compensation equal to one half of the weekly compensation of her deceased son. A dependent who is an alien living in a foreign country is not debarred from receiving compensation. By some of the acts such compensation to nonresidents is limited to a father or mother.

Children who are entitled to compensation as dependents include stepchildren, illegitimate children, children adopted by the workman, also posthumous, legitimate and illegitimate.

The federal act provides that if the injured artisan or laborer die within the year after his injury "leaving a widow, or a child or children under sixteen years of age, or a dependent parent, they shall be entitled to compensation." The word parent, while including both parents, does not include a stepfather or a stepmother, or a foster parent who has not been legally adopted. The question of dependence is one of fact; contributions by the deceased tend to establish this, but are not conclusive. The word child or children used in the act is not limited to a child or children born in wedlock, but includes illegitimate offspring, and children legally adopted. If an injured workman dies before he has made application for or received compensation, it may be paid from the date of the injury to the date of his death, as well as for the remainder of the year to his widow or family.

The earnings of a workman are the basis for computing the amount of compensation he is to receive for an injury. These include anything that he receives for his labor that possesses a money value. In the way of illustrating more clearly what he may receive the outline of a section of the Massachusetts Act may be given. It provides what the workman may receive when his injury is partial from the insurance association which has become liable therefor. A weekly compensation equal to one half the difference between his average weekly wages before the injury and the average weekly wages which he is able to earn thereafter; but not more than ten dollars a week, nor for a longer period than three hundred weeks from the date of the injury. Formerly, when injured, he received as compensation a sum fixed by agreement between himself and his employer; and if they could not agree, as often happened, then he sued his employer and the court decided the amount the employer must pay. These suits were often costly, long contested, and if the employee won his counsel often took such a large share as to leave a disappointing amount to the employee. On the other hand, many an employee magnified his injury, juries were usually sympathetic, especially if the employer was a corporation, and from the general dissatisfaction has been created the new system.

Having stated in the most general way what the law provides for a workman who has been injured, there remains the statement of what is done when the workman dies from his accident. The Arizona law illustrates this as well as any other. When he dies within six months thereafter and leaves a widow, and a minor child or children dependent on his earnings for support and education, then the employer must pay to the personal representative of the deceased workman for the benefit of the widow and children a sum equal to twenty-four hundred times one half of the daily wages or earnings of the deceased, not exceeding in any case more than four thousand dollars. If the employer has insured the lives of his employees in an insurance company, for which the acts quite generally provide, then of course payment of the benefits are paid by the company to those who are entitled to them.

Some of the compensation acts provide compensation for both total and partial incapacity resulting from injuries which do not prove fatal. Thus the Connecticut act provides that loss of sight, the loss or paralysis of certain physical members, and incurable imbecility or insanity, resulting from the accident shall be "considered as causing total incapacity." For these and all other injuries resulting in total incapacity to work, there must be paid to the injured employee weekly, while incapacitated, compensation equal to half of his earnings at the time of the injury, for a maximum and minimum period. Another section provides that in cases resulting in partial incapacity there must be paid to the injured employee a weekly compensation during his incapacity, equal to half the difference between his average weekly earnings before the injury and the amount he is able to earn thereafter with a maximum and minimum limitation of the amount within a limited period.