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 THE ABUSE OF PERSONAL INJURY LITIGATION along the lines of this Act should be accept able, if not welcome, to both employer and employee. I say acceptable to the employer, because it would tend to avoid litigation; would provide some support for an employee injured in the master's work; and would, also, limit within reasonable bounds the amount that the employer would be called Tipon to pay in any given case. I say ac ceptable to the employee, because he would, as a rule, receive what was his due at the time that he most needed it, that is, imme diately after he had received his injuries; he would be assured against becoming a charge upon charity, in the event of total or partial incapacity; and, also, what to my mind is of chief consideration, he would in most, if not all, cases realize, from the pro vision made by such a statute, fully as much as he obtains under present principles, even when successful at the close of prolonged litigation. I say this last advisedly, be cause, although the compensation provided in the English Act is, in general, less than one-half of the amount that the law would allow to the injured employee, if successful under our present rules, yet, as far as my experience goes, it is a very unusual case in which a successful plaintiff in personal injury litigation realizes as much as onehalf of the amount of his judgment. In considering the provisions of the Eng lish Act (which I assume are understood by anyone who may be interested to read what I have written), the following have occurred to me as possible criticisms, viz: First. Under such a statute which se cures to an employee (except in the exceed ingly unusual cases where he can be charged with reckless personal negligence) a stipend from his employer without his being re quired to work for it, will the employee be less careful in protecting himself from in juries, and will he unreasonably aggravate injuries that he may receive? Although the courts have frequently answered these propositions in the nega tive, and it would seem to me that no man

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would injure himself or aggravate his in juries upon the assurance that he would receive one-half of his wages and not be required to work, yet I find that employers of labor do not agree to this, and in some cases have expressed to me the opinion that such evils would result to a larger extent than is generally supposed. However, even if this latter opinion were true, it seems to me that any such evils are only the same, and are no greater in degree, than are met by insurance com panies. At the present day, as is well known, all kinds of policies are issued, pro viding for indemnity against accident. The master must be in a better position to pro tect himself against unwarranted claims than is an insurance company, between which and the injured there are no personal relations. Second. How far would such an act tend to lessen litigation in master and servant cases? I was surprised, upon a cursory examina tion of the English reports, and especially the reports of the Queen's Bench Division, to find that apparently the higher courts in England were called upon to pass upon more master and servant cases since the Act took effect than prior thereto. This would not seem to promise a lessening of litigation, which is one of the things to be desired by a change in our present laws. At the same time, a further consideration of the cases indicates that there has been a material lessening of the class of litigation with which the evils above referred to are attended, and that, perhaps, such litiga tion has been largely eliminated. The cases since the Act took effect are, almost without exception, actions which call for a construction of different provisions of the statute; in other words, they call for deci sions upon questions of law. When the Workmen's Compensation Act of 1897 has been fully construed by the courts, I believe that even this class of litigation will largely disappear. The act is, in this respect,