Message to the Congress Transmitting the Report of the Employers' Liability and Workmen's Compensation Commission

To the Senate and House of Representatives:

I have the honor to transmit herewith the report of the Employers' Liability and Workmen's Compensation Commission, authorized by joint resolution No. 41, approved June 25, 1910, “To make a thorough investigation of the subject of Employers' Liability and Workmen's Compensation, and to submit a report through the President to the Congress of the United States.”

The commission recommends a carefully drawn bill, entitled “A bill to provide an exclusive remedy and compensation for accidental injuries resulting in disability or death, to employees or common carriers by railroads engaged in interstate or foreign commerce, or in the District of Columbia, and for other purposes.” This bill works out in detail a compensation for accidental injuries to employees of common carriers in interstate railroad business, on the theory of insuring each employee against the results of injury received in the course of the employment, without reference to his contributory negligence, and without any of the rules obtaining in the common law limiting the liability of the employer in such cases. The only case in which no compensation is to be allowed by the act is where the injury or death of the employee is occasioned by his willful intention to bring about the injury or death of himself or of another, or when the injury results from his intoxication while on duty.

It is unnecessary to go into the details of the bill. They are, however, most admirably worked out. They provide for a medical and hospital service for the injured man, for a notice of the injury to the employer, where such notice is not obviously given by the accident itself; for the fixing of the recovery by agreement; if not by agreement, by an official adjuster, to be confirmed by the court, and, if a jury is demanded, to be passed on by a jury. The amount of recovery is regulated in proportion to the wages received, and the more or less serious character of the injury where death does not ensue, specific provision being made for particular injuries in so far as they can be specified. The compensation is to be made in the form of annual payments for a number of years or for life. The fees to be paid to attorneys are specifically limited by the act. The remedies offered are exclusive of any other remedies. The statistical investigation seems to show that under this act the cost to the railroads would be perhaps 25 per cent more than the total cost which they now incur.

The report of the commission has been very able and satisfactory, the investigations have been most thorough, and the discussion of the constitutional questions which have arisen in respect to the validity of the bill is of the highest merit.

Three objections to the validity of the bill of course occur:

In the first place, the question arises whether under the provisions of the commerce clause the bill could be considered to be a regulation of interstate and foreign commerce. That seems to be already settled by the decision of the Supreme Court in the employers' liability case.

The second question is whether the making of these remedies exclusive and the compelling of the railroad companies to meet obligations arising from injuries, for which the railroad would not be liable under the common law, is a denial of the due process of law which is enjoined upon Congress by the fifth amendment to the Constitution in dealing with the property rights. This question the report takes up, and in an exhaustive review of the authorities makes clear, as it seems to me, the validity of the act. This is the question which in the Court of Appeals of the State of New York was decided adversely to the validity of the compensation act adopted by the legislature of that State. How far that act and the one here proposed differ it is unnecessary to state. It is sufficient to say that the argument of the commission is most convincing to show that the police power of the Government exercised in the regulation of interstate commerce is quite sufficient to justify the imposition upon the interstate railroad companies of the liability for the injuries to its employees on an insurance basis.

The third objection is that the right of trial by jury, guaranteed by the seventh amendment, is denied. As a matter of fact, the right is preserved in this act by permitting a jury to pass on the issue when duly demanded, in accordance with the limitation of the act.

I sincerely hope that this act will pass. I deem it one of the great steps of progress toward a satisfactory solution of an important phase of the controversies between employer and employee that has been proposed within the last two or three decades. The old rules of liability under the common law were adapted to a different age and condition and were evidently drawn by men imbued with the importance of preserving the employers from burdensome or unjust liability. It was treated as a personal matter of each employee, and the employer and the employee were put on a level of dealing, which, however it may have been in the past, certainly creates injustice to the employee under the present conditions.

One of the great objections to the old common-law method of settling questions of this character was the lack of uniformity in the recoveries made by injured employees, and by the representatives of those who suffered death. Frequently meritorious cases that appealed strongly to every sense of human justice were shut out by arbitrary rules limiting the liability of the employer. On the other hand, often by perjured evidence and the undue emotional generosity of the jury, recoveries were given far in excess of the real injury, and sometimes on facts that hardly justified recovery at all. Now, under this system the tendency will be to create as nearly a uniform system as can be devised; there will be recoveries in every case, and they will be limited by the terms of the law so as to be reasonable.

The great injustice of the present system, by which recoveries of verdicts of any size do not result in actual benefit to the injured person because of the heavy expense of the litigation and the fees charged by the counsel for the plaintiff, will disappear under this new law, by which the fees of the counsel are limited to a very reasonable amount. The cases will be disposed of most expeditiously under this system, and the money will be distributed for the support of the injured person over a number of years, so as to make its benefit greater and more secure.

Of course the great object of this act is to secure justice to the weaker party under existing modem conditions, but a result hardly less important will follow from this act that I can not fail to mention.

The administration of justice to-day is clogged in every court by the great number of suits for damages for personal injury. The settlement of such cases by this system will serve to reduce the burden of our courts one-half by taking the cases out of court and disposing of them by this short cut. The remainder of the business in the courts will thus have greater attention from the judges, and will be disposed of with much greater dispatch. In every way, therefore, the act demands your earnest consideration, and I sincerely hope that it may be passed before the adjournment of this session of Congress.

There accompanies the letter of transmittal of Senator Sutherland not only the report of the commission but also the hearings of witnesses by the commission, all of which is herewith submitted.

WM. H. TAFT.

The White House, February 20, 1912.