The employers or their insurers typically offered settlements to injured workers. In samples of fatal accidents, about half the families of fatal accident victims received some payments for the loss of their loved ones.
There were a few cases where the accident victims and their families received substantial payments, but there were far more cases where no payment was made.
To some extent workers received some compensation for accepting accident risk in the form of higher wages for more dangerous jobs. Workers had relatively limited opportunities to use these higher wages to buy accident or life insurance, or pay premiums into benefit societies.
As a result, many workers and families tried to rely on savings to sustain them in the event of an accident. The problem they faced is that it would take quite a few years to save enough to cover the losses of an accident, and if they were unlucky enough to have an accident early on, they would quickly exhaust these savings. The system of negligence liability, although without the three defenses, continues to determine the nature of accident compensation in the railroad industry.
Among industrial countries the U. The last state to adopt was Mississippi in The years that the law was permanently established are in parentheses. New York passed a compulsory law in and an elective law in , but the compulsory law was declared unconstitutional, and the elective law saw little use. New York passed a compulsory law in after passing a constitutional amendment. The Kentucky law of was declared unconstitutional and was replaced by a law in Another law passed in was defeated in a referendum in and an initiative on the ballot was again defeated in Maryland and Montana passed earlier laws specific to miners that were declared unconstitutional.
Most states also allowed firms to self-insure if they could meet certain financial solvency tests. Ohio and California in and Illinois later established compulsory laws. An injured worker typically had to sustain an injury that lasted several days before he would become eligible for wage replacement. Once he became eligible, he could expect to receive weekly payments of up to two-thirds of his wage while injured.
These payments were often capped at a fixed amount per week. As a result, high-wage workers sometimes received payments that replaced a smaller percentage of their lost earnings. The families of workers killed in fatal accidents typically receive burial expenses and a weekly payment of up to two-thirds of the wage, often subject to caps on the weekly payments and limits on the total amounts paid out.
Many workers had faced problems in purchasing accident insurance at the turn of the century. Some were troubled by the uncertainties associated with the courts and juries applying negligence liability to accidents. Some large awards by juries fueled these fears.
Others were worried about state legislatures adopting legislation that would limit their defenses in liability suits. The negligence liability system had become an increasing source of friction between workers and employers. Under the negligence liability system, the insurers had not been selling much accident insurance to workers because of information problems in identifying who would be good and bad risks. As a result, insurance companies saw a rise in their business of insuring workplace accidents.
It was supported by the major interest groups-employers, workers, and insurers-each of whom anticipated gains from the legislation. Progressives and social reformers played some role in the adoption of the legislation, but their efforts were not as important to the passage as often surmised because so many interests groups supported the legislation.
These battles over the details at times slowed the passage of the legislation. The benefit levels tended to be higher in states where there were more workers in unionized industry but lower in states where dangerous industries predominated. Reformers played a larger role on the details as they promoted higher benefits.
In several states the insurance companies lost the battle over state insurance, most often in settings where the insurance industry had a limited presence and reformers had a strong presence. Some other states established state insurance funds that would compete with private insurers. Further, workers hired by employers with fewer than 3 to 5 workers varying by state have been typically exempt from the law.
At the time that Mississippi adopted in , the percentage rose to about 78 percent. The growth has been caused in part by the expansions in the types of workers covered, as described above. Another source of growth has been expansions in the coverage of types of injuries and occupational diseases. By 23 states covered at least some occupational diseases. By the s all states had some form of coverage. More recently, some states have begun to expand coverage to include compensation to persons suffering from work-related disabilities associated with psychological stress.
The rise in benefits paid out has occurred even though workplace accident rates have declined since the beginning of the century. Since then, these costs have risen along a strong upward trend to nearly 2. The rise in compensation costs in Table 2 was driven in part by increased payments for benefits and medical coverage, as well as the introduction of the Black Lung program for coal miners in The rise in benefits can be explained in part by a series of amendments to state laws in the s that sharply increased the weekly maximums that could be paid for benefits.
Sources: , Alfred M. Skolnik and Daniel N. In , the Interim report of the Operational Review was tabled. Operational review of service performance : interim report Ontario. The task force comprised of employer and employee representatives, and representatives of the medical community. This is the report produced by the members of the Task Force on Vocational Rehabilitation.
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