![handle is hein.journals/jworinsu1 and id is 1 raw text is: JOURNAL OF
Protects Compensates
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Employer Workmen
PULIHE BTHE OHIO STATE PLAN OFAAD
PUBLISHED BY THE STATE LIABILITY BOARD OF AWARDS
Columbus, Ohio, July 1, 1912
No. 1
PARTIES INTERESTED.
.\ny insurance plan is of interest to four
classes: elployers, employes, insurance com-
panies and the public.
Let us see how these classes stood with
regard to each other under the old plan, and then
let us see how they stand under the new.
UNDER TTTE OLD PLANN.
The Employer.-Paid his money to be pro-
tected against legal liability; got but a limited
protection; was compelled to defend law-suits:
saw his injured employes get next to nothing
unless out of the goodness of his heart he him-
self paid for medical aid and for time lost; dis-
.,atisfied.
The Employe.-Earned his money, the
laborer being worthy of his hire; carried alone
the risk of injury; knew that if he was injured
he would get nothing, at least voluntarily, unless
from the generosity of his employer; knew that
if injured, he would have to sue for adequate
compensation; knew that the liability company
looked upon every cent he got from it as some-
thing like blackmail; knew that if injured his
dependents might be left to the cold charity of
the world ; dissatisfied.
The Public. - Knew that the employer
paid money for insurance but that it did not
reach the injured workman; witnessed a proces-
sion of distressing damage cases in the courts;
saw attorneys divide with the employe the final
Vol. 1
WHY THE COMPENSATION LAW?
X T is matter of common knowledge that this law forns the legislative re-
sponse to an emphatic, if not peremptory, public demand. It was ad-
mitted by lawyers as well as laymen that the personal injury action
brought by the employe against his employer to recover damages for
injuries sustained by reason of the negligence of the employer had whol-
ly failed to meet or remedy a great economic and social problem which
modern industrialism has forced upon us, namely the problem of vho
shall make pecuniary recompense for the toll of suffering and death which that in-
dustrialism levies and must continue to levy upon the civilized world. This prob-
lem is distinctively a modern problem. In the days of manual labor, the small shop
with few employes, and the stage coach, there was no such problem, or if there was
it was almost negligible. Accidents there were in those days and distressing ones, but
they were relatively few, and the employe who exercised any reasonable degree of
care was comparatively secure from injury. Theie was no army of injured and dying
with constantly swelling ranks marching with halting step and dimming eyes to the
great hereafter. This is what we have with us now, thanks to the great material prog-
ress of our age, and this is what we shall have with us for many a day to come.
Legislate as we may in the line of stringent requirements for safety devices or the
abolition of employers' common law defense , the army of the injured will still in-
crease, the price of our manufacturing greatness will still have to be paid in human
blood and tears. To speak of the common law personal injury action as a remedy
for this problem is to jest with serious subjects, to give a stone to one who asks
for bread. The terrible economic waste, the overwhelming temptation to the commis-
sion of perjury and the relatively small proportions of the sums recovered which
comes to the injured parties in such actions, condemn them as wholl, inadequate to
meet the difficult.-Chief Justice lViuslow, of the Suprenze Court of .TVisconsin.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/jworinsu1&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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