Restored to docket for reargument November 13, 1916.
MR. JUSTICE PITNEY delivered the opinion of the court.
A proceeding was commenced by defendant in error before the Workmen's Compensation Commission of the State of New York, established by the Workmen's Compensation Law of that State,
The errors specified are based upon these contentions: (1) That the liability, if any, of the railroad company for the death of Jacob White is defined and limited exclusively by the provisions of the Federal Employers' Liability Act of April 22, 1908, c. 149, 35 Stat. 65; and (2) that to award compensation to defendant in error under the provisions of the Workmen's Compensation Law would deprive plaintiff in error of its property without due process of law, and deny to it the equal protection of the laws, in contravention of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The first point assumes that the deceased was employed in interstate commerce at the time he received the fatal injuries. According to the record, he was a night watchman, charged with the duty of guarding tools and materials intended to be used in the construction of a new station and new tracks upon a line of interstate railroad. The Commission found, upon evidence fully warranting the finding, that he was on duty at the time, and at a place not outside of the limits prescribed for the performance of his duties; that he was not engaged in interstate commerce; and that the injury received by him and resulting in his death was an accidental injury arising out of and in the course of his employment.
The admitted fact that the new station and tracks were
We turn to the constitutional question. The Workmen's Compensation Law of New York establishes 42 groups of hazardous employments, defines "employee" as a person engaged in one of these employments upon the premises or at the plant or in the course of his employment away from the plant of his employer, but excluding farm laborers and domestic servants; defines "employment" as including employment only in a trade, business, or occupation carried on by the employer for pecuniary gain, "injury" and "personal injury" as meaning only accidental injuries arising out of and in the course of employment, and such disease or infection as naturally and unavoidably may result therefrom; and requires every employer subject to its provisions to pay or provide compensation according to a prescribed schedule for the disability or death of his employee resulting from an accidental personal injury arising out of and in the course of the employment, without regard to fault as a cause except where the injury is occasioned by the willful intention of the injured employee to bring about the injury or death of himself or of another, or where it results solely
In a previous year, the legislature enacted a compulsory compensation law applicable to a limited number of specially hazardous employments, and requiring the employer to pay compensation without regard to fault. Laws 1910, Chap. 674. This was held by the Court of Appeals in Ives v. South Buffalo Ry. Co., 201 N.Y. 271, to be invalid because in conflict with the due process of law provisions of the state constitution and of the Fourteenth Amendment. Thereafter, and in the year 1913, a constitutional amendment was adopted, effective January 1, 1914, declaring:
"Nothing contained in this constitution shall be construed to limit the power of the legislature to enact laws for the protection of the lives, health, or safety of employees; or for the payment, either by employers, or by employers and employees or otherwise, either directly or through a state or other system of insurance or otherwise, of compensation for injuries to employees or for death of employees resulting from such injuries without regard to fault as a cause thereof, except where the injury is occasioned by the willful intention of the injured employee to bring about the injury or death of himself or of another, or where the injury results solely from the intoxication of the injured employee while on duty; or for the adjustment, determination and settlement, with or without trial by jury, of issues which may arise under such legislation; or to provide that the right of such compensation, and the remedy therefor shall be exclusive of all
In December, 1913, the legislature enacted the law now under consideration (Laws 1913, c. 816), and in 1914 reenacted it (Laws 1914, c. 41) to take effect as to payment of compensation on July 1 in that year. The act was sustained by the Court of Appeals as not inconsistent with the Fourteenth Amendment in Matter of Jensen v. Southern Pacific Co., 215 N.Y. 514; and that decision was followed in the case at bar.
The scheme of the act is so wide a departure from common-law standards respecting the responsibility of employer to employee that doubts naturally have been raised respecting its constitutional validity. The adverse considerations urged or suggested in this case and in kindred cases submitted at the same time are: (a) that the employer's property is taken without due process of law, because he is subjected to a liability for compensation without regard to any neglect or default on his part or on the part of any other person for whom he is responsible, and in spite of the fact that the injury may be solely attributable to the fault of the employee; (b) that the employee's rights are interfered with, in that he is prevented from having compensation for injuries arising from the employer's fault commensurate with the damages actually sustained, and is limited to the measure of compensation prescribed by the act; and (c) that both employer and employee are deprived of their liberty to acquire property by being prevented from making such
In support of the legislation, it is said that the whole common-law doctrine of employer's liability for negligence, with its defenses of contributory negligence, fellowservant's negligence, and assumption of risk, is based upon fictions, and is inapplicable to modern conditions of employment; that in the highly organized and hazardous industries of the present day the causes of accident are often so obscure and complex that in a material proportion of cases it is impossible by any method correctly to ascertain the facts necessary to form an accurate judgment, and in a still larger proportion the expense and delay required for such ascertainment amount in effect to a defeat of justice; that under the present system the injured workman is left to bear the greater part of industrial accident loss, which because of his limited income he is unable to sustain, so that he and those dependent upon him are overcome by poverty and frequently become a burden upon public or private charity; and that litigation is unduly costly and tedious, encouraging corrupt practices and arousing antagonisms between employers and employees.
In considering the constitutional question, it is necessary to view the matter from the standpoint of the employee as well as from that of the employer. For, while plaintiff in error is an employer, and cannot succeed without showing that its rights as such are infringed (Plymouth Coal Co. v. Pennsylvania, 232 U.S. 531, 544; Jeffrey Mfg. Co. v. Blagg, 235 U.S. 571, 576;) yet, as pointed out by the Court of Appeals in the Jensen Case, 215 N.Y. 526, the exemption from further liability is an essential part of the scheme, so that the statute if invalid as against the employee is invalid as against the employer.
The close relation of the rules governing responsibility as between employer and employee to the fundamental rights
The fault may be that of the employer himself, or — most frequently — that of another for whose conduct he is made responsible according to the maxim respondeat superior. In the latter case the employer may be entirely blameless, may have exercised the utmost human foresight to safeguard the employee; yet, if the alter ego while acting within the scope of his duties be negligent — in disobedience, it may be, of the employer's positive and specific command — the employer is answerable for the consequences. It cannot be that the rule embodied in the maxim is unalterable by legislation.
The immunity of the employer from responsibility to an employee for the negligence of a fellow employee is of comparatively recent origin, it being the product of the judicial conception that the probability of a fellow workman's
The same may be said with respect to the general doctrine of assumption of risk. By the common law the employee assumes the risks normally incident to the occupation in which he voluntarily engages; other and extraordinary risks and those due to the employer's negligence he does not assume until made aware of them, or until they become so obvious that an ordinarily prudent man would observe and appreciate them, in either of which cases he does assume them, if he continue in the employment without obtaining from the employer an assurance that the matter will be remedied; but if he receive such an assurance, then, pending performance of the promise, the employee does not in ordinary cases assume the special risk. Seaboard Air Line Ry. v. Horton, 233 U.S. 492,
So, also, with respect to contributory negligence. Aside from injuries intentionally self-inflicted, for which the statute under consideration affords no compensation, it is plain that the rules of law upon the subject, in their bearing upon the employer's responsibility, are subject to legislative change; for contributory negligence, again, involves a default in some duty resting on the employee, and his duties are subject to modification.
It may be added, by way of reminder, that the entire matter of liability for death caused by wrongful act, both within and without the relation of employer and employee, is a modern statutory innovation, in which the States differ as to who may sue, for whose benefit, and the measure of damages.
But it is not necessary to extend the discussion. This court repeatedly has upheld the authority of the States to establish by legislation departures from the fellow-servant rule and other common-law rules affecting the employer's liability for personal injuries to the employee. Missouri Pacific Ry. Co. v. Mackey, 127 U.S. 205, 208; Minneapolis & St. Louis Ry. Co. v. Herrick, 127 U.S. 210; Minnesota Iron Co. v. Kline, 199 U.S. 593, 598; Tullis v. Lake Erie & Western R.R. Co., 175 U.S. 348; Louisville & Nashville R.R. Co. v. Melton, 218 U.S. 36, 53; Chicago, Indianapolis & Louisville Ry. Co. v. Hackett, 228 U.S. 559; Wilmington Star Mining Co. v. Fulton, 205 U.S. 60, 73; Missouri Pacific Ry. Co. v. Castle, 224 U.S. 541, 544. A corresponding power on the part of Congress, when legislating within its appropriate sphere, was sustained in Second Employers' Liability Cases, 223 U.S. 1. And see El Paso & Northeastern Ry. Co. v. Gutierrez, 215 U.S. 87, 97; Ballimore & Ohio R.R. Co. v. Interstate Commerce Commission, 221 U.S. 612, 619.
We will consider, first, the scheme of compensation, deferring for the present the question of the manner in which the employer is required to secure payment.
Briefly, the statute imposes liability upon the employer to make compensation for disability or death of the employee resulting from accidental personal injury arising out of and in the course of the employment, without regard to fault as a cause except where the injury or death is occasioned by the employee's willful intention to produce it, or where the injury results solely from his intoxication while on duty; it graduates the compensation for disability according to a prescribed scale based upon the loss of earning power, having regard to the previous wage and the character and duration of the disability; and measures the death benefits according to the dependency of the surviving wife, husband, or infant children. Perhaps we should add that it has no retrospective effect, and applies only to cases arising some months after its passage.
Of course, we cannot ignore the question whether the new arrangement is arbitrary and unreasonable, from the standpoint of natural justice. Respecting this, it is important to be observed that the act applies only to disabling
Much emphasis is laid upon the criticism that the act creates liability without fault. This is sufficiently answered by what has been said, but we may add that liability without fault is not a novelty in the law. The common-law liability of the carrier, of the inn-keeper, of him who employed fire or other dangerous agency or harbored a mischievous animal, was not dependent altogether upon questions of fault or negligence. Statutes imposing liability without fault have been sustained. St. Louis & San Francisco Ry. Co. v. Mathews, 165 U.S. 1, 22; Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Ry. Co. v. Zernecke, 183 U.S. 582, 586.
We have referred to the maxim respondeat superior. In a well-known English case, Hall v. Smith, 2 Bing. 156, 160, this maxim was said by Best, C.J., to be "bottomed on this principle, that he who expects to derive advantage from an act which is done by another for him, must answer for any injury which a third person may sustain from it." And this view has been adopted in New York. Cardot v. Barney, 63 N.Y. 281, 287. The provision for compulsory compensation, in the act under consideration,
This, of course, is not to say that any scale of compensation, however insignificant on the one hand or onerous on the other, would be supportable. In this case, no criticism is made on the ground that the compensation prescribed
But, it is said, the statute strikes at the fundamentals of constitutional freedom of contract; and we are referred to two recent declarations by this court. The first is this: "Included in the right of personal liberty and the right of private property — partaking of the nature of each — is the right to make contracts for the acquisition of property. Chief among such contracts is that of personal employment, by which labor and other services are exchanged for money or other forms of property. If this right be struck down or arbitrarily interfered with, there is a substantial impairment of liberty in the long-established constitutional sense." Coppage v. Kansas, 236 U.S. 1, 14. And this is the other: "It requires no argument to show that the right to work for a living in the common occupations of the community is of the very essence of the personal freedom and opportunity that it was the purpose of the [Fourteenth] Amendment to secure." Truax v. Raich, 239 U.S. 33, 41.
It is not our purpose to qualify or weaken either of these declarations in the least. And we recognize that the legislation under review does measurably limit the freedom of employer and employee to agree respecting the terms of employment, and that it cannot be supported except on the ground that it is a reasonable exercise of the police power of the State. In our opinion it is fairly supportable upon that ground. And for this reason: The subject-matter in respect of which freedom of contract is restricted is the matter of compensation for human life or limb lost or disability incurred in the course of hazardous employment, and the public has a direct interest in this as affecting the common welfare. "The whole is no greater than the sum of all the parts, and when the individual health, safety, and welfare are sacrificed or neglected, the State
We have not overlooked the criticism that the act imposes no rule of conduct upon the employer with respect to the conditions of labor in the various industries embraced within its terms, prescribes no duty with regard to where the workmen shall work, the character of the machinery, tools, or appliances, the rules or regulations to be established, or the safety devices to be maintained. This statute does not concern itself with measures of prevention, which presumably are embraced in other laws. But the interest of the public is not confined to these. One of the grounds of its concern with the continued life and earning power of the individual is its interest in the prevention of pauperism, with its concomitants of vice and crime. And, in our opinion, laws regulating the responsibility of employers for the injury or death of employees arising out of the employment bear so close a relation to the protection of the lives and safety of those concerned that they properly may be regarded as coming within the category of police regulations. Sherlock v. Alling, 93 U.S. 99, 103; Missouri Pacific Ry. Co. v. Castle, 224 U.S. 541, 545.
No question is made but that the procedural provisions of the act are amply adequate to afford the notice and opportunity to be heard required by the Fourteenth
The objection under the "equal protection" clause is not pressed. The only apparent basis for it is in exclusion of farm laborers and domestic servants from the scheme. But, manifestly, this cannot be judicially declared to be an arbitrary classification, since it reasonably may be considered that the risks inherent in these occupations are exceptionally patent, simple, and familiar. Missouri, Kansas & Texas Ry. Co. v. Cade, 233 U.S. 642, 650, and cases there cited.
We conclude that the prescribed scheme of compulsory compensation is not repugnant to the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment, and are brought to consider, next, the manner in which the employer is required to secure payment of the compensation. By § 50, this may be done in one of three ways: (a) state insurance, (b) insurance with an authorized insurance corporation or association, or (c) by a deposit of securities. The record shows that the predecessor of plaintiff in error chose the third method, and, with the sanction of the commission, deposited securities to the amount of $300,000, under § 50, and $30,000 in cash as a deposit to secure prompt and convenient payment, under § 25, with an agreement to make a further deposit if required. This was accompanied with a reservation of all contentions as to the invalidity of the act, and had not the effect of preventing plaintiff in error from raising the questions we have discussed.
The system of compulsory compensation having been found to be within the power of the State, it is within the limits of permissible regulation, in aid of the system, to require the employer to furnish satisfactory proof of his financial ability to pay the compensation, and to deposit a reasonable amount of securities for that purpose. The third clause of § 50 has not been, and presumably will
This being so, it is obvious that this case presents no question as to whether the State might, consistently with the Fourteenth Amendment, compel employers to effect insurance according to either of the plans mentioned in the first and second clauses. There is no such compulsion, since self-insurance under the third clause presumably is open to all employers on reasonable terms that it is within the power of the State to impose. Regarded as optional arrangements, for acceptance or rejection by employers unwilling to comply with that clause, the plans of insurance are unexceptionable from the constitutional standpoint. Manifestly, the employee is not injuriously affected in a constitutional sense by the provisions giving to the employer an option to secure payment of the compensation in either of the modes prescribed, for there is no presumption that either will prove inadequate to safeguard the employee's interests.
Judgment affirmed.
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