RIGHT OF APPEAL While all acts provide opportunity of appeal for both employer and employee respecting questions of law and constitutional right, the findings of administrative commissions are usually conclusive when supported by evidence, although that evidence be not wholly satisfactory.1 But where the ultimate findings of fact by an administrative body are based upon conclusions of law, they are subject to court review, in so far as they involve the determination of such questions of law.2 An exceedingly important application of the compensation principle is found in the act of Congress of October 6, 1917, which provides compensation for death or disability resulting from personal injury suffered or disease contracted in the line of duty by any commissioned officer or enlisted man, or by any member of the army or navy nurse corps (female) of the United States, when employed in active military service. 1 Blanding v. Sayles, 21 R. I., 211. Western Indemnity Co. v. Pillsbury, 170 Cal., 686. Rhyner v. Hueber Bldg. Co., 156 N. Y. Supp., 903. 2 In re Rheinwald, 153 N. Y. Supp., 598. Hulley v. Moosbrugger, 88 N. J. Law, 161. X CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS A sympathetic examination of the legal structure and administration of compensation acts in the United States suggests certain definite conclusions. There can be little argument over the fundamental principle of compensation, namely: The substitution of a definite and certain measure of relief for the former uncertainties of redress through litigation. The compensation principle is in line with the best conceptions of equitable industrial relationships. However, in its practical application by a large number of independent jurisdictions and in its interpretation by various boards and courts, there has been, as this report clearly shows, a vast amount of conflict. Sudden subversion of long established theories of liability, the rapid extension of novel principles of obligation and procedure, the inevitable confusion of differing legislative policies dealing with a new and unfamiliar subject amid the play of many political forces and the lack of domestic experience, naturally express themselves in contradictory thought and action. Uncoordinated and extensive amendment of the various acts has not bettered this condition. Considering the widespread revolution in the thought and tradition of Bench and Bar, and the hitherto slowly changing legal relations of employer and employee, there is little occasion for surprise at this inharmony of enactment and interpretation. But this conflict of theory and action ought steadily to diminish. To accomplish this, it is obvious that at least an organized effort must be established toward a concert of thought and action by the state commissions. Common information is the seed of common opinion. It is therefore suggested: First: The states, through appropriate representatives, should undertake, under expert guidance, the immediate establishment of a permanent, scientific, uniform system of compensation statistics that all may know and apply the progressive experience of each. This would properly include provision for separate publication of judicial decisions relating to the compensation principle, together with substantial memoranda of all contested cases determined by administrative bodies. Thus there would be assured a set of controlling facts which, in association with collated judicial opinions, would secure an accurate and convenient legal record of the operation of each act.1 Second: Availability of such data would be a great step toward the establishment of definite insurable standards of liability. The interests of neither employer nor employee are served by ambiguous expressions of legal obligation which necessarily make for precautionary premium rates to safeguard against contingencies of judicial interpretation. Third: Compilation of systematic and uniform accident data would exercise a powerful influence on conventional legislative notions of the relative hazard of occupations, and permit the just extension of the compensation principle to many workers now arbitrarily excluded from its terms. Fourth: Clear discrimination, in legal definition, between "occupational disease," "accident," and "injury" would tend to clarify liability, harmonize administrative decisions, and minimize contested claims. Fifth: Experience justifies the further simplification of administrative procedure by uniformly encouraging direct settlement between employer and employee of all claims, this practice to be conditioned by adequate safeguards for the protection of the employee. Sixth: In view of the general conclusion of state courts and the Supreme Court of the United States that the compensation system is intended to be and should be substitutional for and not supplemental to employer's liability, it is suggested, as a great step toward uniformity in substance and procedure, that a fixed tendency be established toward an exclusively compulsory compensation system, thus eliminating many technical questions relating to whether or not employer or employee had made an election. The elective system in all its legal forms is intended to compel, under the penalty of abrogated defenses, an adoption of compensation, and leaves 1 The State of New York has just published the compensation decisions of its courts from 1914 to 1916. Department of Labor, New York State Special Bulletin No. 81, March, 1917. Court Decisions on Workmen's Compensation Law. Decisions have also been published by several other states; for example, Massachusetts, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, and West Virginia. to employer and employee in the vast majority of cases an option without a choice. The present state of the subject and the great number of independent agencies in operation, influenced by differing local conditions, make it difficult to more than suggest the establishment of tendencies which, once set in motion, undoubtedly would stimulate common action, as accurate and systematized information reacted upon popular and legislative opinion. APPENDIX-Table A DATES WHEN WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION LAWS WERE ENACTED AND BECAME EFFECTIVE IN UNITED STATES AND TERRITORIES (NOTE Most workmen's compensation laws have been amended or superseded since first enacted.) (a) Act declared unconstitutional; substitute act now in force approved March 23, 1916; administrative provisions effective April 1, 1916; liability provisions effective August 1, 1916. (b) Act declared unconstitutional; substitute act now in force approved March 8, 1915; administrative provisions effective March 8, 1915; liability provisions effective July 1, 1915. (c) Act declared unconstitutional; substitute act now in force approved Dec. 16, 1913; administrative and liability provisions effective July 1, 1914. (d) Passed over Governor's veto. 59 |