Proceedings, Third National Conference Workmen's Compensation for Industrial Accidents

by National Conference on Workmen's Compensation for Industrial Accidents

Chairman Mercer: Connecticut had a Commission that reported, I believe, last year. Is there anyone present from Connecticut?

Prof. Henry W. Farnam (Connecticut): I am from Connecticut, but I do not think there is very much to be said. I was not a member of that Commission, although I have read their report. It is rather negative, very cautious.

Chairman Mercer: Is there any other State Commission represented? We cannot tell nowadays whether we will have a Commission the next day or not, and there may have been two or three appointed since this convention was called. If not, I will tell you briefly how we have studied the question in Minnesota.

Minnesota.

Chairman Mercer: We have not pursued the same theory exactly in Minnesota that has been pursued in any other State. We did not commence as most of the States have commenced. The commencement of the study of this question in Minnesota was originated in the Minnesota State Bar Association. At their annual meeting in Duluth, in the summer of 1908, a paper was read having reference to the then unfortunate conditions at common law, and asking that something be done in the way, or along the line, of or on, some compensatory plan. Somebody made a motion that a committee be appointed to draft a bill and to report it back to the next Legislature. Some of them were afraid to have that done for fear the committee might draft a bill that would not be rational, that would not be fair, and that it might go through the Legislature as a bar association measure.

I was sitting in the front row, and I moved that the matter be referred to the Committee on Jurisprudence and Law Reform, knowing that I was not on that committee and could not be on it under the then circumstances. The motion passed and then the convention became frightened for fear that it had placed too much power in the committee and resolved to have that committee report to a special meeting of the bar association which would be called in St. Paul, in January, so that they might go over the recommendations that were to be made before they would be presented to the Legislature. Up to the 20th of October absolutely nothing had been done on the matter. Then it so happened that I was asked to resign from another committee and take the chairmanship of that committee, its chairman having resigned. The committee was composed of gentlemen whom it was supposed would well balance the sentiment on the question. There was one lawyer that had made a specialty of liability insurance defenses, there was one country senator, the dean of the College of Law of the Minnesota University, an attorney that earned most of his living from the railroads and then I, neither a laborer nor a capitalist.

We took up the question, and found immediately after going over it with different theorists and by correspondence that there was no data in Minnesota or elsewhere that we could get upon which to draw a proper bill. We looked at the experience of Maryland, we looked at the reports, and the experience of New York down to that time, and found that they had not passed a bill which had been recommended for a permissive plan of contract; we looked at conditions in Massachusetts and found they had not accomplished very much there except a lot of work; we looked over the work of the Illinois Commission and corresponded with them, and found that their bill which had recommended a permissive plan of contract had been defeated. We found in New York the constitutionality had been questioned, and in Massachusetts it had been questioned by the Commission.

In Illinois the reports showed that the plan they wanted to adopt could not be adopted constitutionally, and they recommended the permissive plan in lieu thereof. Connecticut, I think, at that time had appointed a Commission, but it had not yet reported. The United States had passed a law known as the Act of June 11, 1906, which affected the comparative negligence rule and also provided certain obligations with respect to offsetting settlements, and the Supreme Court had declared that unconstitutional in January, 1908. Two important measures had been presented to Congress with able arguments to support them, and up to that time they had been practically limited in their discussion to leave to print in the Congressional Record.

Our philanthropic and other state institutions in Minnesota had no data from which we could get any intelligent idea, according to the correspondence that we had. The Associated Charities, both state and national, had no sufficient data. The labor unions throughout the United States had no sufficient data. The National Manufacturers' Association had no sufficient data. I say this because I wrote to the President, and the correspondence was referred to Judge Emory, and we never got any information, because, as I understood, they had not then studied the matter sufficiently. I wrote to Mr. Mitchell, and he answered that he had no sufficient data, and referred me to Mr. Gompers.

I wrote to Mr. Gompers concerning it and he answered practically to the same effect, sending back a bill to establish comparative negligence and some other provisions somewhat along the federal lines that had been declared unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court, because covering business within the State as distinguished from interstate business; that is, it related to both, as the court construed it.