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

by National Conference on Workmen's Compensation for Industrial Accidents

In conclusion, I believe I am expressing the sentiments of the trade-union people in the city of Chicago when I say that we are opposed to any law that will waive the right of action now in the hands of a workman. We think it should be as it is in Great Britain at the present time. Personally, I am in favor of going even further than that. I believe when a workman suffers an injury due to the carelessness of an employer or a superintendent, that that employer or superintendent should be sentenced to prison for that negligence. I mean by that those who are in charge of that work and who are responsible for that work. I claim that there should be a penal offense attached to that negligent act, and I believe that the majority of employers would have no objection to it; that is, those who are willing to use the necessary care for preventing these accidents. I hope that in the very near future the people in this country will become awakened to the need of these measures, and I believe the present facts obtainable will show that there can be fair protective measures created without any hardship whatever on the employer, although it may be necessary for them to add a small price on the product or on the contract price when he is bidding on construction work.

C. B. Culbertson (Wisconsin): I will assume a case in order that I may ask the last speaker a question. Say that in Wisconsin last year there was a loss, including the expense of court proceedings and obtaining judgments and everything that you could put under that head, of $460,000; that during that time the laboring men to whom this money should have gone got only from 18 to 25 per cent. of it; would he not prefer a law, if he could not get a better one, that would give 90 per cent. of that $460,000 to the sufferers, even if occasional large judgments should have to be waived?

Mr. Buchanan: I always prefer getting the best we possibly can. We must consider the conditions under which we are laboring. I do not believe that the laboring people are willing to waive their right of action in the courts for something that they do not consider especially good. Of course, I am not here representing any laboring body, but from my association with them I am led to believe that I can speak as to their sentiments in the city of Chicago. I am a delegate to the Chicago Federation of Labor, one of the largest bodies of its kind in the country, if not the largest, and have heard those matters discussed there, and I would say that we are willing to accept nothing less than the best we can get, and we are willing always to accept that.

John Mitchell (New York): I do not know whether there will be any advantage in the discussion of the character of a bill that we should want to adopt or as to the measure that any group would desire. I hold no commission that gives me a right to represent the workingmen of the United States, notwithstanding that I am an officer of the American Federation of Labor. As a matter of fact, the American Federation of Labor, which is representative of practically all the organized workmen in the United States, has not itself decided formally upon the character of a compensation bill that they would favor. But I do have some knowledge of the general sentiment that prevails in the country, and I think that in part I can say for the workingmen of the United States, and they, after all, the ones most affected by this legislation, they are the ones that are demanding it, and it is for their relief that it is going to be enacted. I believe I can say for them, as Mr. Buchanan has said, that the workingmen will not be willing to waive their right to enter the courts and sue for damages. To that extent, I think, he is correct, and that the workmen would not be willing to waive their right to sue.

On the other hand, I believe that if they understood the circumstances prevailing in Great Britain that they would not insist upon their right to sue, and then failing to win their suit to have their compensation. I do not have with me a table I have of statistics giving the amount secured in suits for damages and the average amount paid under the Workmen's Compensation Act of Great Britain, but my recollection is that the workmen of Great Britain, in cases where they have instituted suit under the employers' liability law or the common law, have received approximately $852, and that the average compensation paid under the Workmen's Compensation Act has been $848. My recollection is that the workingmen of Great Britain have received on the average more under the compensation act than they have under the liability act, and I think can we take it for granted that where men have sued under the liability laws of Great Britain it has been in cases where there has been a likelihood of responsibility on the part of the employer. Unless the workingman was convinced that he had a reasonably good case, he would not proceed under the liability laws, but would, on the other hand, proceed under the compensation act.

Now, if the workingmen of Great Britain recover a larger amount under the Workingmen's Compensation Act than they do under the liability laws, is it not likely that they would do the same thing in the United States? In other words, has not the right of the workingman of Great Britain to proceed under the liability laws simply been a temptation to him to sue in the hope, and the false hope, as it turns out, that he might recover a larger amount than he would under the compensation act; and if the figures I have given you are approximately correct, has the result not been that the workingman, lured by the false hope that he would secure a large verdict, has given a large part of the money he would have received under the compensation act to attorneys, because he has had to pay the costs of the courts, he has had to pay his lawyers their fees, although possibly not in as large an amount as would be the case here, because in England the court fixes the amount of the attorney's fees; and has he not taken from the employer money that ought to have been used to compensate the men for accidents. Whenever a burden is put upon the employer that means nothing to the workman, it simply deprives the employer of the opportunity of paying a larger amount under the compensation act.

Now, it is not because of any particular sympathy I have for the employer in the matter, although I want to be absolutely just to him, but it is because I want to protect the workingman and see that he receives the largest possible amount as a reward or as a compensation for his injury, that I am not in favor of giving the workman the right to sue under the liability laws, and, failing to win his suit, to then proceed under the compensation act. I think it is holding out to the workman a false hope, and I know the practice in England has been simply a lure, and has caused him to waste his own money and waste the money of the employer without any benefit to himself.

On the other hand, when I say that I believe the workman should have the right to sue, I believe that because I believe there should be something done to cause the employer to prevent accidents, and I think the fact that a workman once in a while may secure a verdict of $5000, $10,000 or $15,000 is an incentive to the employer to prevent accidents. And when all is said and done, gentlemen, one of the principal purposes of this Conference should be to prevent accidents. Your compensation, quite apart from preventing accidents, is necessary, yet it is of a hundred times more importance that a life be saved than it is that some man or his dependents should receive $3000 or $4000 for his life. It is all very well to receive $1000 for the loss of an eye or the loss of an arm, but it is much better, not only for that man, but also for society, that the eye or the arm be not lost.

Gentlemen, this gathering, if I may just make this general observation, is perhaps one of the most important gatherings that has met in the United States, because it is going to give impetus to a great movement to change our entire system of employers' liability. I doubt not but that within a very few years our courts will so broaden their vision, and so broaden their decisions, that they will find means, even under our present constitution, to recognize the growing demand on the part of the people for relief from our iniquitous system of employers' liability law. I do not know how fast we can go; no doubt those of us whose lives have been spent among workingmen, and who have daily been brought in contact with those who are suffering either from accidents directly or the dependents of those who have been killed, may grow impatient in our desire to secure a remedy, but we cannot go faster than the courts will let us go, and we cannot go faster than the Constitution of the United States will let us go, but we ought to go at least as fast as they will permit us to go. If some State will take the lead and adopt a comprehensive system of compensation, and put it up to the courts and have decisions rendered, we would then know just what we could do. In any event, gentlemen, I believe that the workingmen will not be at all satisfied either with the suggestion sometimes made of a contribution on their part or with any law that removes from the employer the incentive to prevent accidents.

Sherman Kingsley (Chicago): Gentlemen, in my duties as superintendent of the United Charities of Chicago, I come in touch with a great many families where the breadwinner has been removed, and where the burden of supporting the family devolves upon the wife and the children. In this State, within the year, as you know, we have met with a very great disaster down at Cherry, where a large number of men were killed in a very spectacular manner. The press of this city and country was alive with the stories of that disaster for weeks. It was debated in our Legislature, it was talked about in university halls and preached about from the pulpits. I doubt if ever in the history of industrial accidents 267 men ever had as much written, said and thought and felt about themselves and their families as was the case down at Cherry.