Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 2.djvu/238

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vant thereof without contributory negligence on his part, when sustained within this State, or when such agent or servant is a resident of, and his contract of emplojrment was made in, this State, and no contract, rule, or regulation between any such corporation, or any agent or servant, shall impair or diminish such liabUity."

This section of the Revised Statutes was repealed in 1880,^ and to-day the common-law rule has no restrictions placed on it by legislation.^ The only case which ever reached the Supreme Court was Gumz, admx., v, Chicago, St. Paul, and Minneapolis Railway Company, 52 Wis. 672, decided in 1881, in which a nonsuit ordered by the court below was sustained on the ground that there was no negligence on the part of the agent or servant of the company causing the injury.

The statutes in the two Territories, Wyoming and Montana, have never been before the courts. They read as follows : —

Compiled Laws of Wyoming (1876), 512, chap. 97 (approved 1869): "Any person in the employment of any railroad company in this territory who may be killed by any locomotive, car, or other rolling stock, whether in the performance of his duty or otherwise, his widow or heirs may have the same right of action for damages against such company as if said person so killed were not in the employ of said company ; any agreement he may have made, whether verbal or written, to hold such company harmless or free from an action for damages in the event of such killing shall be null and void, and shall not be admitted as testi- mony in behalf of said company in any action for damages which maybe brought against them ; and any person in the employ of said company who may be in- jured by any locomotive, car, or other rolling stock of said company, or by other property of said company, shall have his action for damages against said com- pany the same as if he were not in the employ of said company, and no agree- ment to the contrary shall be admitted as testimony in behalf of said company.** Laws of Revised Statutes of Montana (1879), 47 '» i S'S: — employee acting under the orders of his superior shall be the same, in case of injury sustained by default or wrongful act of his superior, or to an employee not appointed or controlled by him, as if such servant or employee were a passenger."
 * That in every case the liability of the [railroad] corporation to a servant or

Such is the history of employers' liability legislation down to 1880. Four States and two Territories have passed statutes practically abolishing the doctrine of common employment, but only in the single case of railroad employees. In Iowa the exemption is restricted closely to those employees actually engaged in the hazardous business of railroading. In Georgia and Kansas a

1 Laws of 1880, chmp. 232.

« Heine v. C. & N. W. Ry. Co., 58 Wis. 525; Peace v. C. & N. W. Ry. Co., 61 Wis. 163.