Accidents in German industries traceable to different causes.
==============================+=============+==========+======== Causes. | Agriculture | Industry | Mining | (1891) | (1887) | (1887) ------------------------------+-------------+----------+-------- Fault of employer | 18.2 | 19.8 | 1.3 Fault of injured workman | 24.4 | 25.0 | 29.8 Fault of both | 20.1 | 4.4 | Fault of third person | 2.8 | 3.3 | 4.3 Unavoidable or indeterminable | 34.5 | 46.9 | 64.6 +-------------+----------+-------- Total | 100.0 | 100.0 | 100.0 ------------------------------+-------------+----------+--------
Statistics from both Germany and Austria show that a full half or 98 more of all industrial accidents are due to causes for which neither employers, injured workmen, nor fellow employes are responsible, but which are incidental to the nature of the industry itself. But besides the danger of injury from machinery, there are numerous specially dangerous or injurious trades, in which injury by poisoning, disease, etc., is almost unavoidable as trade processes are at present conducted. These have been classified as follows: trades in which lead is a poisonous element, trades which produce other chemical poisons, trades in which lockjaw is an incident, trades in which the danger arises from injurious particles in the air, or from dust, processes that require a sudden change from heat to cold and vice versa, and those that require artificial humidity, and trades in which accidents are so frequent as to demand special legislation. Before we try to decide who in justice should bear the cost of sickness or injury arising from these causes, let us inquire as to the practice in the United States and in other countries, so as to have the data necessary for a fair conclusion.
The original legal doctrine regarding liability for accident in England and America, which is still practically unmodified in the latter country, was based on the principle of individual responsibility for acts of negligence. Briefly stated the common law doctrine is that an employer must provide reasonably safe conditions of employment, and that then the employe assumes the risks incident to the occupation, or arising from the carelessness of fellow-servants; moreover, even if the employer has been remiss, the employe cannot collect damages if he has been guilty of contributory negligence. These three doctrines--assumption of risk, doctrine of the fellow-servant, and contributory negligence--have been used practically to free the employer from all responsibility in cases where injured employes have sought to secure damages. Moreover, as has been shown above, many cases exist where it is impossible to fix 99 the blame on either employer, employe, or a third party, and in such cases no compensation could be secured for injury under the law. The full rigor of the common law, which has worked out so unfairly for the workingman in modern machine production, has been modified in about twenty-seven states by statutes defining more exactly the duties of the employer, and repealing the fellow-servant doctrine in regard to railway employes and in a few states in regard to all mechanical industries. With these exceptions, however, the law of employers’ liability has not been changed, and compensation for industrial accidents must be sought by injured employes through a suit for damages against the employer. In 1906 and again in 1908 Congress passed a federal employers’ liability act, limited to common carriers, which, however, represents only development along the lines of negligence law. That is, we are still proceeding upon the assumption that in every accident which occurs somebody is to blame. We shall have to look to foreign countries for a practical application of the principle that the cost of accidents in modern industry should be made a charge upon the industry itself, and ultimately be incorporated in the higher price of the article produced.