It has therefore come about that the legal status of the elevator is in a very indefinite condition, its public regulation is generally local and therefore at best erratic, and the liability for the security of its occupants is as varied as the legal practice and rulings of different States.
The results are unfortunate to all concerned except perhaps that part of the legal profession which concerns itself with the prosecution of claims for injuries. Only two States, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, have adopted legislative provisions, of limited character, relating to elevators. The former State provided so long ago as 1895 a requirement for automatic locking devices on all passenger elevators, thus being the pioneer in this direction. The State of Rhode Island by its general law, Chapter 129, requires all elevators “to be equipped with safety appliances to prevent the starting of the elevator car in either direction while any door opening into the elevator is open.”
The State of Wisconsin, by its Industrial Commission law, Chapter 485, of 1911, placed in the hands of that body general power to require safeguards “in all places of employment,” but it does not appear that the powers of the act extend to every class of building in which elevators may or can be employed. Other efforts have been made to effect legislation in the same direction, but have so far failed of enactment.
A bill was introduced in the House of Representatives December 12, 1910, by Mr. W. Bennet, requiring all elevators in the District of Columbia to be provided with gate and car interlocking devices, which bill did not become law. A bill was introduced in 1911 into the Assembly of the State of New York amending the labor law in the direction recommended by the Wainwright-Phillips Commission, and empowering the Commissioner of Labor to require automatic door-locking and car interlocking on all passenger elevators in factories. Senate Bill 911 and Assembly Bill 329 of 1911 were designed to require in general terms the use of “such safety devices as will prevent accidents to persons getting on or off elevator cars and from falling through open doors into the elevator shafts.”
The attention of the American Museum of Safety has been directed for some years towards the accomplishment of some amelioration of existing conditions, and that humane organization made a strong effort to arouse public interest in these measures and to secure their enactment, but without success.
The subject has received some sporadic attention by several public associations, including the National Civic Federation, the American Association for Labor Legislation and the New York Association for Labor Legislation, but without effective results.
With the foregoing exceptions, the obligations of an owner of a building, as regards the security of an elevating appliance, are practically limited to a compliance with the then existing local regulations to the purchase of a device commensurate with the existing state of the art, of a design made by a reputable concern, and to the employment of reasonable care in upkeep and operation.
No legal obligation appears to lie upon an owner to alter or modify the appliance in conformity with greater knowledge of the art, or to add to it greater means of security. Until some unfortunate occurrence has taken place, an owner of property naturally feels unwilling to embark on such expenditures. The present system of liability insurance rather tends to such a situation, as an owner has no inducement in the form of reduced premiums, to expend money upon desirable safeguards. If the liability corporations should concede a substantial reduction of premiums, in connection with appliances dealing with a certain proportion of the risks attending elevator operation, much could be accomplished without the aid of special legislation.
While the law-making powers do not hesitate to direct such measures to be taken with and upon the property of common carriers, they seem to regard the operation of a practically public conveyance within private property as a privileged possession and hesitate to enter the castle of the owner and involve him in enforced expenditures upon a privately operated appliance.
Yet an elevator, whether used for the purpose of the carriage of goods, of tenants, of employes, or of visitors to a building, is a common carrier earning a profit, even if indirectly, for it is as much a source of revenue as is the machinery of a factory around which many enforced safeguards have, by legislation, been thrown.