Bond to required. Company able, when. be CHAPTER 169.-Security for wages of employees on railroads— SECTION 3827. A railroad company shall require sufficient security from the contractors for the payment of labor performed in con- structing the road by persons in their employ; and such company shall be liable, to the day laborers employed by the contractors, for labor actually performed on its road, if the person having such claim shall, in writing, within forty days after the performance of the labor, notify the engineer in charge of the section on which the labor was performed, that he has not been paid by the contractors. This statute is constitutional. It applies to laborers for subcontractors as well as to those of contractors. 31 Vt. 214. CHAPTER 169.—Safety appliances on railroads. SECTION 3883. All single track railroad bridges in this State * * shall, when built or rebuilt, be hereafter so constructed as to leave a clear space of not less than fifteen feet between the inner sides of said bridges, and also a clear space of not less than twenty feet from the lowest timbers, boards, or irons in the covering of said bridges, to the top of the rails under the same: And in all double track bridges the clear space of inside width shall be not less than twenty-seven feet. SEC. 3884. A person or corporation operating a railroad, or part of a railroad, in this State, shall place at the approaches of all its bridges and the highway bridges or other structures which cover or extend over its track, that do not leave a clear height of twenty feet from the top of the rails to the lowest part of said bridges or other structures directly over said rails, such telltale warnings, or other safety devices of uniform pattern for warning trainmen of their approach thereto, as shall be recommended by the board of railroad commissioners. SEC. 3885. A person or corporation operating a railroad or a part of a railroad in this State, shall at all times keep the frogs, switches and guard rails on its tracks, with the exceptions of guard rails upon bridges, filled or blocked with a wooden block or wedge, so as to prevent the feet of its employees from being caught therein. SEC. 3886. No railroad corporation shall run cars of its own with ladders or steps to the top of the same on the sides of its cars, but said ladders or steps shall be on the ends or inside of the cars. SEC. 3887. If a person or corporation fails to comply with the requirements of the four preceding sections, such person or corporation shall forfeit fifty dollars for every day's neglect, and be liable for the damages and injuries to passengers and employees on its roads, resulting from such neglect. SEC. 3888. Such penalty may be enforced by an action on the case in the name of the State, and the State's attorney of the county where the offense is committed shall prosecute the same. upon notice thereof from the board of railroad commissioners. An injured employee can not recover under this statute if his injuries resulted from negligence of his own combined with failure of the railroad company to comply with the law. 47 Atl. Rep. 827. A contract with an employee or with his next of kin waiving the right of action for damages which may arise from injuries received while in the service of a railroad company will not protect a company that fails to comply with the provisions of this law. 51 Atl. Rep. 6. SEC. 3910. All railroad passenger trains except mixed trains shall be provided with brakes operated from the engine by the engineer. * SEC. 3911. A person or corporation not complying with the requirements of * * [section 3910] shall be fined fifty dollars for every violation thereof, and shall be liable for the damages and injuries to passengers and employees on its road resulting from such neglect. CHAPTER 169.—Employment of intemperate persons on railroads— Negligence of employees. SECTION 3922. If a railroad company employs or retains in its Persons who service a conductor, engineer, brakeman, or switchman, who uses not to be emuse intoxicants intoxicating liquors as a beverage, such fact being known to the ployed. president, superintendent, or any of the directors of such road, such corporation shall be fined not more than three thousand dollars, and not less than three hundred dollars; and shall also be liable for the damages which a person sustains by the employment or retention of such conductor, engineer, brakeman, or switchman. SEC. 3923. If a person, while in charge of a locomotive engine, or while acting as the conductor of a car, or train of cars, on a railroad, is intoxicated, he shall be fined not more than five hundred dollars, or imprisoned in the State prison not more than one year. Intoxication of engineer,etc. Negligence SEC. 3924. When an engineer, fireman, or other agent of a railroad is guilty of negligence or carelessness, whereby an injury is causing injury. done to a person or corporation, he shall be imprisoned not more than one year, or be fined not more than one thousand dollars. This section shall not exempt a person or corporation from an action for damages. CHAPTER 172.-Accidents on railroads-Duties of railroad com missioners. ed. Accidents to SECTION 3987. The commissioners shall inquire into the causes of any accident on a railroad resulting in loss of life, and, in their be investigat judgment, into any accident not so resulting. If in their judg ment a public investigation is necessary they shall give reasonable notice of the time and place of such investigation to the person or corporation operating such railroad; also to the State's attorney for the county in which the accident occurred; to the parties known to have been injured in the accident, and to a representative or friend of a person killed thereby, if known, and shall investigate such accident and make public their conclusions thereon. The State's attorney shall attend and represent the State in said hearing, and produce to the board such legal evidence as tends to show the cause of such accident; and he shall be allowed five dollars per day for each day's attendance before said board, and his necessary expenses. SEC. 3988. The general superintendent or manager of a railroad Reports. doing business in this State, shall inform the commissioners of every accident upon his road resulting in loss of life or serious injury to any person, immediately after its occurrence. CHAPTER 194.-Inspection of steam boilers. Who may in SECTION 4700. Upon application of three citizens, the selectmen of a town, or the mayor of a city, or any person duly authorized spect. by them, may, after notice to the parties interested, examine any stationary steam engine or steam boiler therein, and, for that purpose may enter any house, shop, or building, and if upon examination it appears probable that the use of such engine or boiler is unsafe, they shall, upon notice to all parties concerned, and hearing, if they judge such engine or boiler to be unsafe, defective, or Unsafe boiler. unfit to be used, issue an order prohibiting the use thereof until it is rendered safe. If, after notice to the owner or person having charge thereof, such engine or boiler is used contrary to such order, such owner or person shall forfeit ten dollars for each day he uses the same, to the use of such town or city, to be recovered in an action on the case. CHAPTER 194.-Fire escapes on factories, etc. Fire escapes SECTION 4702. The owner or lessee of a building, factory, mill or workshop more than two stories high, in which persons are em- required. Penalty. Preventing employment. work. ployed above the second story, shall provide suitable ladders or other safe fire escapes, for the safety of patrons and occupants of such buildings. *本 * SEC. 4703. If the owner, keeper, or lessee of any of the places mentioned neglects to comply with the provisions thereof [in this act], he shall be fined not more than four hundred dollars, and not less than twenty-five dollars. CHAPTER 220.-Intimidation of employees. SECTION 5041. A person who threatens violence or injury to another person with intent to prevent his employment in a mill. manufactory, shop, quarry, mine, railroad or other occupation, shall be imprisoned not more than three months, or fined not more than one hundred dollars. Stopping SEC. 5042. A person who, by threats, intimidation or by force, alone or in combination with others, affrights, drives away or prevents another person from accepting, undertaking or prose cuting such employment, with intent to prevent the prosecution of work in such mill, shop, manufactory, mine, quarry, railroad or other occupation, shall be imprisoned in the State prison not more than five years, or fined not more than five hundred dollars. Sunday labor forbidden. Running of trains. Age limit. Limit day's labor. A count charged conspiracy to hinder and prevent by violence, threats, and intimidation the employment and retention by a company of certain employees; also conspiracy to terrify and drive away workmen by threats, with malicious intent to injure said company; also threats to publish the names of employees in the "scab list of a trade journal, thus putting them in fear and driving them away. Held, that these counts sufficiently charged an offense under the above sections. 59 Vt. 273. CHAPTER 225.-Sunday labor. SEC. 5140. A person who between twelve o'clock Saturday night and twelve o'clock the following Sunday night exercises any business or employment, except such only as works of necessity and charity, shall be fined not more than two dollars. * Working on Sunday in violation of this statute is not contributory negligence, and the liability of an employer is not modified by the fact that an injured employee was so working at the time he received his injury. 47 Atl. Rep. 169. SEC. 5141. The railroad commissioners may authorize the running upon any railroad of such through trains on Sunday as, in the opinion of the board, the public necessity and convenience may require, having regard to the due observance of the day. CHAPTER 225.-Employment of children. SECTION 5146. An owner, agent, superintendent or overseer of a manufacturing or mechanical establishment who knowingly employs or permits to be employed in such establishment a child under ten years of age, or employs a child under fifteen years of of age more than ten hours in one day, and a parent or guardian who allows or consents to such employment, shall be fined fifty dollars. ACTS OF 1902. ACT No. 90.-Sale of liquor to employees. SECTION 24. * Employer may forbid sale. Penalty. * * No liquor shall be sold or otherwise furnished * to a * employer has given notice in writing to person whose the licensee forbidding sale to such person. SEC. 83. A licensee who knowingly sells intoxicating liquors to one having the habit of drinking such liquors to excess, after having received notice in writing not to sell to him, shall forfeit one hundred dollars for each offense, to be recovered by the husband, wife, parent, child, guardian or employer of such person in an action on the case. But such action shall not be had unless commenced within two years from the time of the alleged offense. SEC. 84. [An] * ** ** employer or other person who is in- Damages. jured in person, property or means of support by an intoxicated person, or in consequence of the intoxication, habitual or otherwise, of any person, shall have a right of action against any person or persons who by selling or giving intoxicating liquor have caused in whole or in part such intoxication; * * ACT No. 90.-Employment of women and minors in barrooms. * No female [shall] be employed on the premises or in the room in which the license is operated. No male person under the age of twenty-one [shall] be employed therein. The two prohibitions last named shall not apply to hotels, common victuallers or pharmacists holding a license of the fifth class [druggist's license]. ACT No. 158.-Payment of wages-Scrip. Women and minors not to be employed. Scrip, etc., to be redeemable SECTION 1. Any person, corporation or business firm using checks, other than bank checks, slips, duebills, or other device to repre- in money. sent money in payment of wages or any other debt or obligation due to any employee or servant of such person, corporation or business firm, shall pay the face value of such checks, slips, duebills or other device, in current money of the United States to the holder thereof on the regular pay days of such person, corporation or business firm, and such checks, slips, duebills or other device shall be redeemable at intervals of not more than one month: Provided, however, That if any such employee or servant be discharged during the month, said checks, slips, duebills and other device shall be redeemed at their face value, in current money of the United States on the day of his discharge. SEC. 2. Any person, corporation or business firm refusing to redeem any of its obligations as above provided, shall forfeit twice the face value in an action on this statute. VIRGINIA. CONSTITUTION. ARTICLE 4.-Local or special laws regulating labor, etc., not to be SECTION 63. * passed. The general assembly shall not enact any local, special, or private law in the following cases: 12. Regulating labor, trade, mining or manufacturing, or the rate of interest on money. Penalty. Certain local laws forbidden. ARTICLE 5.-Bureau of labor and statistics. establish bu SECTION 86. The general assembly shall have power to establish Assembly may and maintain a bureau of labor and statistics, under such regulations as may be prescribed by law. ARTICLE 12.-Liability of railroad companies for injuries to employees. Acts of fel SECTION 162. The doctrine of fellow-servant, so far as it affects the liability of the master for injuries to his servant resulting from low-servants. the acts or omissions of any other servant or servants of the common master, is, to the extent hereinafter stated, abolished as to every employee of a railroad company, engaged in the physical construction, repair or maintenance of its roadway, track or any of the structures connected therewith, or in any work in or upon a car or engine standing upon a track, or in the physical operation of a train, car, engine, or switch, or in any service requiring his presence upon a train, car or engine; and every such employee shall have the same right to recover for every injury suffered by him from the acts or omissions of any other employee or employees of the common master, that a servant would have (at the time when this constitution goes into effect), if such acts or omissions were those of the master himself in the performance of a non Negligence of assignable duty: Provided, That the injury, so suffered by such superintendent. railroad employee, result from the negligence of an officer, or agent, of the company of a higher grade of service than himself, or from that of a person, employed by the company, having the right, or charged with the duty, to control or direct the general services or the immediate work of the party injured, or the gen eral services or the immediate work of the coemployee through, or by, whose act or omission he is injured; or that it result from Person in an- the negligence of a coemployee engaged in another department of other depart- labor, or engaged upon, or in charge of, any car upon which, or ment, etc. upon the train of which it is a part, the injured employee is not at the time of receiving the injury, or who is in charge of any switch, signal point, or locomotive engine, or is charged with dispatching trains or transmitting telegraphic or telephonic orders therefor; and whether such negligence be in the performance of an assignable or nonassignable duty. The physical construction. repair or maintenance of the roadway, track or any of the stru tures connected therewith, and the physical construction, repair. maintenance, cleaning or operation of trains, cars or engines, shall be regarded as different departments of labor within the meaning of this section. Knowledge, by any such railroad employee injured, of the defective or unsafe character or condition of any machinery, ways, appliances or structures, shall be no defense to Injuries caus- an action for injury caused thereby. When death, whether instaning death. taneous or not, results to such an employee from any injury for which he could have recovered, under the above provisions, had death not occurred, then his legal or personal representative, surviving consort, and relatives (and any trustee, curator, committee or guardian of such consort or relatives) shall, respectively, have the same rights and remedies with respect thereto as if his death had been caused by the negligence of a coemployee while in the performance, as vice-principal, of a nonassignable duty of the Contracts master. Every contract or agreement, express or implied, made waiving rights. by an employee, to waive the benefit of this section, shall be nu!l and void. This section shall not be construed to deprive any employee, or his legal or personal representative, surviving consort or relatives (or any trustee, curator, committee or guardian of such consort or relatives), of any rights or remedies that be or they may have by the law of the land. at the time this constitution Provisions not goes into effect. Nothing contained in this section shall restrict restrictive. the power of the general assembly to further enlarge, for the above named class of employees, the rights and remedies hereinbefore provided for, or to extend such rights and remedies to, or otherwise enlarge the present rights and remedies of, any other class of employees of railroads or of employees of any person, firm or corporation. Foreign con able. CODE OF 1888. CHAPTER 6.-Contracts for labor-Foreign contracts valid. SECTION 44. A contract for labor for a term of service, not extracts enforce- ceeding two years, made in a foreign country, with a person who shall immigrate to this State, and duly attested by the United States consul or commercial agent at the port where such immigrant shall embark, shall be respected and enforced to the same extent and in the same manner as if made within the State. |