Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/413

 COURTS AND FACTORY LEGISLATION 399

Such being the American rule as to the ordinary negligences of the employer to do his legal duty in furnishing his workman a safe place to work, or safe tools and appliances, is there any different rule properly invoked when the master neglects to comply with a specific, definite, statutory duty ? In case a statute makes it mandatory upon the employer to take certain precau- tions, to use certain safety appliances in his business, and he neglects or refuses to comply, does the workman who knows of his employer's neglect to comply with the statute, assume the risk of personal injury which may result from the latter's refusal to obey the law ? If he does, then the statute is no protection to the workman, and is utterly worthless as far as its enforce- ment by ordinary suit at law is concerned. The answer to this question, moreover, will determine whether the courts will recog- nize and sustain the economic theory upon which such remedial statutes are framed, or will resist and nullify the application of that theory by upholding the laissez-faire doctrine upon which the old rule of assumed risk is founded. The modern economic theory which is the justification of factory legislation and laws regulating the hours and conditions of labor for the protection of the working classes has been recognized and approved by the United States Supreme Court recently, in the great Utah eight- hour law case in which the court, in the opinion by Judge Brown, used the following significant language :

The legislature has also recognized the fact, which the experience of legislators in many states has corroborated, that the proprietors of these establishments [mining plants] and their operators do not stand upon an equality, and their interests are in a certain extent conflicting. The former naturally desire to obtain as much labor as possible from their employes, while the latter are often induced, by fear of discharge, to conform to regula- tions which their judgment, fairly exercised, would pronounce detrimental to their health and strength. In other words, the proprietors lay down the rules, and the laborers are practically constrained to obey them. In such cases self-interest is often an unsafe guide, and the legislature may properly

interpose its authority But the fact that both parties are of full

age and competent to contract does not necessarily deprive the state of the power to interfere where the parties do not stand upon an equality, or where the public health demands that one party to the contract be pro- tected against himself. The state still retains an interest in his welfare,