ployees' Insurance Association has been created, whose directors have been appointed by the Governor, which will do business on a mutual plan, but the private liability companies also issue policies of protection to employers. As far as the Industrial Accident Board is concerned, the association and companies are on the same plane. The rates of insurance must be submitted to, and approved by, the Massachusetts Insurance Department.

One of the forms of notice adopted by the Industrial Accident Board is that by which an employer notifies his employees that he has accepted the provisions of the Workmen's Compensation Act by insuring his liability thereunder either in the association or in any of the companies authorized to do business in this State. This notice to employees must be in writing and may be given by posting conspicuously in the factories at the entrances, and in the workrooms, or by any form of personal service on the employee.

Another form of notice adopted by the Industrial Accident Board for the use of any employee who wishes to stand upon his common law rights, permits the serving of such notice in writing to the employer in person, and in other prescribed ways that make it convenient for the employee to preserve his legal rights.

All occupational employers, except of farm labor, domestic servants and casual labor, are vitally concerned in this act. Employers who do not insure their liability under the act, and elect to stay under the common law, are thereby deprived of the three defenses of negligence of employee, negligence of the employee's fellow servant and the assumption by the employee of the risk of injury. This exposes them to serious possibilities as the result of actions brought to recover damages by injured employees.

This applies especially to contractors and those engaged in the socalled hazardous trades. All employees are equally concerned. Those who elect to remain under the common law have only the old common law remedies while the three above-mentioned defenses are preserved to their employers. Under such circumstances if a workman is killed at his employment, his widow and children may be left without compensation. The obvious thing for both employer and employee is, therefore, in most instances to come under the provisions of the act. The injured workman will be taken care of by the payment of reasonable

and prompt compensation and the ultimate cost to the employer will not be burdensome or excessive.

The Industrial Accident Board, which has charge of the administration of the act, the interpretation of the various sections of the new law, the supervision of agreements for compensation, and the settlement of all controversies arising between employer and employee under the act, realizes fully the grave responsibility placed upon it, to introduce successfully this long-needed Workmen's Compensation Act. The law will be broadly administered with absolute fairness to employer, employee and insurer, to the end that with the co-operation of each, justice will be done, the reduction to the minimum of industrial accidents attained, and a more friendly feeling between the wage-earner and his employer created.

For the opinion of the Massachusetts Supreme Court upholding the constitutionality of the act, see 207 Mass. 607.

INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENT BOARD.

JAMES B. CARROLL, Chairman.
DUDLEY M. HOLMAN.

DAVID T. DICKINSON.

ROBERT E. GRANDFIELD, Secretary.

EDW. F. MCSWEENEY.
JOSEPH A. PARKS.

Defenses removed.

Nonapplication.

Waiver by employee, of right at common law.

Manner of giving notices, see page 21.

CHAPTER 751, ACTS OF 1911, AS AMENDED BY CHAPTERS 172 AND 571,
ACTS OF 1912.

AN ACT RELATIVE TO PAYMENTS TO EMPLOYEES FOR PERSONAL
INJURIES RECEIVED IN THE COURSE OF THEIR EMPLOYMENT
AND TO THE PREVENTION OF SUCH INJURIES.

Be it enacted, etc., as follows:

PART I.

MODIFICATION OF REMEDIES.

SECTION 1. In an action to recover damages for personal injury sustained by an employee in the course of his employment, or for death resulting from personal injury so sustained, it shall not be a defense:

1. That the employee was negligent;

2. That the injury was caused by the negligence of a fellow employee;

3. That the employee had assumed the risk of the injury. SECTION 2. The provisions of section one shall not apply to actions to recover damages for personal injuries sustained by domestic servants and farm laborers.

SECTION 3. The provisions of section one shall not apply to actions to recover damages for personal injuries sustained by employees of a subscriber.

SECTION 4. The provisions of sections one hundred and twenty-seven to one hundred and thirty-five, inclusive, and of one hundred and forty-one to one hundred and forty-three, inclusive, of chapter five hundred and fourteen of the acts of the year nineteen hundred and nine, and of any acts in amendment thereof, shall not apply to employees of a subscriber while this act is in effect.

SECTION 5. An employee of a subscriber shall be held to have waived his right of action at common law to recover damages for personal injuries if he shall not have given his employer, at the time of his contract of hire, notice in writing that he claimed such right, or if the contract of hire was made before the employer became a subscriber, if the employee shall not have given the said notice within thirty days of notice of such subscription. An employee who has given notice to his employer that he claimed his right of action at common law may waive such claim by a notice in writing which shall take effect five days after it is delivered to the employer or his agent. [See chapter 666, Acts of 1912.]

PART II.

PAYMENTS.

SECTION 1. If an employee who has not given notice of his Compensation of employee. claim of common law rights of action, as provided in Part I, section five, or who has given such notice and has waived the same, receives a personal injury arising out of and in the course of his employment, he shall be paid compensation by the association, as hereinafter provided, if his employer is a subscriber at the time of the injury.

SECTION 2. If the employee is injured by reason of his No compensaserious and wilful misconduct, he shall not receive compensation. tion, when.

compensation.

SECTION 3 [as amended by section 1 of chapter 571, Acts of Double 1912]. If the employee is injured by reason of the serious and wilful misconduct of a subscriber or of any person regularly entrusted with and exercising the powers of superintendence, the amounts of compensation hereinafter provided shall be doubled. In such case the subscriber shall repay to the association the extra compensation paid to the employee. If a claim is made under this section the subscriber shall be allowed to appear and defend against such claim only.

SECTION 4. No compensation shall be paid under this act When compensation for any injury which does not incapacitate the employee for a begins. period of at least two weeks from earning full wages, but if incapacity extends beyond the period of two weeks, compensation shall begin on the fifteenth day after the injury.

hospital

SECTION 5. During the first two weeks after the injury, the Medical and association shall furnish reasonable medical and hospital ser- services. vices, and medicines when they are needed.

SECTION 6. If death results from the injury, the association In case of shall pay the dependents of the employee, wholly dependent fatal injury. upon his earnings for support at the time of the injury, a weekly payment equal to one half his average weekly wages, but not more than ten dollars nor less than four dollars a week, for a period of three hundred weeks from the date of the injury. If the employee leaves dependents only partly dependent upon his earnings for support at the time of his injury, the association shall pay such dependents a weekly compensation equal to the same proportion of the weekly payments for the benefit of persons wholly dependent as the amount contributed by the employee to such partial dependents bears to the annual earnings of the deceased at the time of his injury. When weekly payments have been made to an injured employee before his death, the compensation to dependents shall begin from the date of the last of such payments, but shall not continue more than three hundred weeks from the date of the injury.

SECTION 7. The following persons shall be conclusively pre- Dependency.

Expense of burial, etc., if

sumed to be wholly dependent for support upon a deceased employee:

(a) A wife upon a husband with whom she lives at the time of his death.

(b) A husband upon a wife with whom he lives at the time of her death.

(c) A child or children under the age of eighteen years (or over said age, but physically or mentally incapacitated from earning) upon the parent with whom he is or they are living at the time of the death of such parent, there being no surviving dependent parent. In case there is more than one child thus dependent, the death benefit shall be divided equally among

them.

In all other cases questions of dependency, in whole or in part, shall be determined in accordance with the fact, as the fact may be at the time of the injury; and in such other cases, if there is more than one person wholly dependent, the death benefit shall be divided equally among them, and persons partly dependent, if any, shall receive no part thereof; if there is no one wholly dependent and more than one person partly dependent, the death benefit shall be divided among them according to the relative extent of their dependency.

SECTION 8. If the employee leaves no dependents, the assono dependents. ciation shall pay the reasonable expense of his last sickness and burial, which shall not exceed two hundred dollars.

Total disability.

Partial disability.

Specified injuries, addi

SECTION 9. While the incapacity for work resulting from the injury is total, the association shall pay the injured employee a weekly compensation equal to one half his average weekly wages, but not more than ten dollars nor less than four dollars a week; and in no case shall the period covered by such compensation be greater than five hundred weeks, nor the amount more than three thousand dollars.

SECTION 10. While the incapacity for work resulting from the injury is partial, the association shall pay the injured employee a weekly compensation equal to one half the difference between his average weekly wages before the injury and the average weekly wages which he is able to earn thereafter, but not more than ten dollars a week; and in no case shall the period covered by such compensation be greater than three hundred weeks from the date of the injury.

SECTION 11 [as amended by section 2, chapter 571, Acts of tional compen 1912]. In case of the following specified injuries the amounts hereinafter named shall be paid in addition to all other compensation:

sation for.

(a) For the loss by severance of both hands at or above the wrist, or both feet at or above the ankle, or the loss of one hand and one foot, or the reduction to one tenth of normal vision in both eyes with glasses, one half of the average weekly