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THE GREEN BAG
untary Relief Associations to all employers of labor, and the substitution of a responsi ble insurance company for the Relief Depart ment of the employer's organization. The result of substituting a co-insurance acci- ' dent policy for an Employers' Liability policy is that both parties, the employee as well as the employer, receives protection, and their interests are harmonious instead of as now, under the ordinary Employers' Liability policy, antagonistic. As this pro posal will be entirely new to many of your readers, and as insurance companies will be bound to provide such policies as soon as there is sufficient demand therefor, I shall use the remainder of my alloted space to explain more fully the nature and effect of this proposed insurance policy. This is an ordinary accident insurance policy of the present up-to-date form, issued by a regular insurance company, which embodies a contract between employer and employee, whereby the employee, in consid eration of a partial payment by his employer of the premium for such policy, agrees, in the event that he elect to receive benefits provided for in the policy on account of acci dental injury, to release his employer from any and all liability on account thereof if occasioned by the negligence of his employer. The position of the insurance company issuing such policy would be precisely that occupied by the benefit associations in the similar contracts, which have come before the courts of this country on numerous occa sions, in cases between railroad corporations and employees, wherein such contracts have been uniformly upheld. The Baltimore & Ohio Employees' Relief Association, the Bur lington Voluntary Relief Department, the Philadelphia& Reading Railroad Relief Asso ciation, the Pennsylvania Railroad Volun teer Relief Department, and the Plant Sys tem Relief and Hospital Department, are instances of such benefit associations. The courts have uniformly pronounced these associations of the highest order of benefit societies, and have pointed out that
the contract simply offers the employee the opportunity to make his choice between the sure benefits of the association and the chances of litigation; and they have held, not only that such contracts were not against public policy, but on the contrary in harmony with the soundest public policy, inasmuch as the benefits payable to the injured employee are available for his relief without reference to the question of negligence of the master, thus including benefits in cases of accident, pure and simple, of injury by negligence of fellow-servants, and even by the employee's own contributory negligence, thus covering a wide field in which there is no legal liability on the part of the employer, extending even to all cases of accidental injury to the em ployee during the term of his employment, whether or not happening whilst actually engaged in work for the employer, or whilst going to or from work, at home, or whereso ever. The cost of this policy to the employer would in all probability not greatly exceed the premium he now pays for inadequate liability insurance. It has even been decided that it is not within the power of a legislature to take away the right of parties to enter into such a contract, and I beg to quote the following from a decision by Judge Ricks, of the U.S. District Court of Ohio, who says, in Shaver v. Penn. Co., 71 Fed. Rep. 934: "The sole question is whether, under the admitted facts already stated, this contract is valid. There are decisions of the Supreme Courts of the States of Iowa, Maryland. Pennsylvania, and of State Courts in Ohio, and of Circuit Courts of the United States in Ohio, holding such contracts legal and bind ing. Under this plan employees of rail roads are afforded protection by species of insurance. This sort of protection is not available to them in ordinary insurance companies, except at such high cost as to make it substantially unobtainable. Mem bers sick or injured are entitled to benefits regardless of what causes their temporary disabilities. They will thus receive bene
