Mountain Timber Company v. State of Washington

Citations

• 243 U.S. 219
• 37 S. Ct. 260
• 61 L. Ed. 685
• 1917 U.S. LEXIS 2107

Syllabus

<p>The Washington Workmen’s Compensation Act, as originally enacted, ■> Laws 1911, c. 74, establishes a state fund for the compensation of' workmen injured, and the dependents of workmen killed, in employments classed as hazardous; abolishes, except in a few specified cases, the action at law by employee against employer for damages due to negligence, and deprives the courts of jurisdiction over such controversies. 'It is obligatory upon both employers and employees. The fund is made the sole source of compensation, and is supplied by assessments upon each employer of definite percentages of his total pay-roll. It classifies industries in groups, and aims to adjust the percentage for each group, according to hazard, declaring this the most accurate and equitable method and promising future readjustments by the legislature of both classification and percentages to fit experience. The contributions of each group form a separate account or sub-fund, applicable to no other demands for compensation than those arising in the industries composing that group. Contributions, after the first, are not to exceed what is necessary to meet actual losses in the group for which they are exacted. The act expressly saves all actions and causes existing when it took effect, as between employers and employees, some months after its passage.</p> <p>Held: (1) The act not being valid against employers if not valid as against employees, an employer may question its constitutionality in both aspects.</p> <p>(2) Viewed, from the standpoint of employees, the act is the same in principle as the act sustained in New York Central R. R. Co. v. White, ante, 188.</p> <p>(3) The act is not objectionable upon the ground that, in violation of the Seventh Amendment, it does away with trial by jury in the federal courts, since it does not undertake to interfere with that mode of trial in respect of private rights of action which are preserved, but abolishes for the future all right of recovery as betwee