any statute enacted for the safety of the employees, where such violation contributes to the injury or death of the employee; that in a measure it established the rule of comparative negligence. The act being federal, duty as well as courtesy requires that the decisions of the highest federal court be considered as the correct interpretation of the act.
If, however, we were construing the state act (which bears a great similitude to the federal act) in a similar case arising in intrastate commerce, we are not so certain that we would arrive at the same conclusion with reference to the retention of the principle of assumption of risk—whose source, the English case pf Priestley v. Fowler, 19 Eng. Rul. Cas. 102, was a case of no importance, except for the announcement therein of the fellow-servant and assumption of risk rules. In 18 Ruling Case Law, 672, it is said of this case:
“But not until several decades had elapsed did it come into prominence. During the 60’s a scattering of decisions lent it their support; in the 70’s the courts of many states adopted the doctrine; and in the ensuing decade it was recognized by all save a very few courts. Indeed, it seems that only one court has consistently refused to accept ‘the assumption of risk’ as an independent principle of law. The period during which the doctrine came into existence was one that favored capital in every way, and it was generally thought to be politic to deny the laborer a right of recovery against the capitalists when his only contention was that he had been injured in the discharge of his duties. * * * Social and economic ideals and standards have undergone revolutionary changes in the past decade, and we may expect to find the courts holding that no defense is available to the employer where it is shown that the employee was injured while performing his duties in the usual and contemplated manner.”
It would seem that the fellow-servant rule, the doctrine of contributory negligence, and assumption of risk are rules which came into existence for the protection of the employers, the capitalists, so that they might employ men to work with dangerous instrumentalities and complicated machinery in unsafe places without incurring liability for injuries to workmen. Those principles are not founded in justice, and the adoption of them as principles of law has afforded the employer a safe and sure means of avoiding their just liabilities, and have imposed upon a weaker class great burdens and suffering. The effect of the operation of those principles cannot be ascertained fully, unless it were
