Workmen's Compensation Laws Research Articles

L'abus des fonctions dans la relation préposé-commettant en droit civil québécois.

The following article deals with the problem of « misuse of office » in the principal-agent relationship under Quebec civil law. Despite the abundance of case law, solutions to the problem are not well defined especially in cases involving personality defects of the agent. The law concerning « misuse of office » is generally to be found in article 1054(7) of the Quebec Civil Code concerning the liability of principals. This controverted article not only deals with the liability of masters for servants, but also with the problem of torts committed by agents (art. 1731 C.C.). It also has an effect on workmen's compensation laws. The main issue in « misuse of office » is the determination of what constitutes a carrying out of duties within the scope of employment. The principal can only be held liable for the tort of an agent if three conditions are met : the tort feasor must have been his agent ; he must have committed a wrongful act ; and this act must have been committed in the scope of his employment. After a general view of the fundamental principles involved, the paper defines « misuse of office » as « all torts committed by an agent in the exercice of his duties, even when not authorized to carry out the duties in the manner which he did, but where the activity is designed to benefit his principal ». The only case where the principal escapes liability is where the agent committed a tort which did not involve his work. The agent in that case no longer acts for the benefit of his principal, but is pursuing his personal interest. The principal is then no longer held liable. Determination of the notion of « benefit » therefore becomes essential. Far from being a simple question of monetary profit, it is extended to mean any activity which can serve the principal's enterprise, whether in the improvement of public relations, or of relations with staff or suppliers. The pecuniary gain becomes but one element amongst many others. It is not even necessary for the benefit to ever materialize. The simple fact that the intention was to benefit the principal is sufficient. The review of the case law leads the author to conclude that the modification of the ways in which the duties are carried out has little effect on the liability of the principal. For instance, the agent can change the time, the place and the manner of performance and still engage the liability of the principal. Quebec courts have gone even further. They have held that an agent can go beyond the usual scope of his duties or take up some that he was not authorized to do, without affecting the liability of the principal. In fact, Quebec courts have developed a broad interpretation of the notion of duty. They consider that the agent is called upon to perform tasks more or less accessory to his main duties and thus extend the principal's liability to all of them. As already stated, the notion of «benefit to the principal» is a determining factor. It is not necessary that the agent's work for the principal be exclusive. The agent that derives a personal benefit and simultaneously intends to benefit the principal, will still be considered to have performed an act in the course of his duties. The paper examines a series of problems involving the personality of the agent. Certain tortious acts can be committed in relations with third parties or co-workers, and are the direct result of a personality defect of the agent. Such is the case of a restaurant worker who physically attacks a client as the result of a dispute or of the agent stealing from a client. The paper points out the great difficulty that Quebec courts have experienced in the legal qualification of this situation. After an in-depth study of the Quebec case law, the paper concludes that the trend is to maintain the liability of the principal in these cases. One criterion appears to be well defined : the principal bears the responsibility, when hiring someone, to assure his clients or the persons with whom he does business, that he will respect their property as well as their moral and physical integrity. The necessary tie between the duties of the agent and the relationship with persons coming in contact with him, will engage the liability of the principal. Every time the agent comes in contact with a person in the carrying out of business, the principal will be held responsible for the damage resulting from personality defects of the agent. In all other cases, the relation will be considered personal to the agent and the principal will be relieved of any liability.

Workers' compensation: a historical review and description of a legal and social insurance system.

The workers' compensation system is a no-fault legal and social insurance system established to address compensation issues that involve work-related injuries and illnesses. The system was developed in response to dissatisfaction with common law litigation on the parts of injured workers and employers. The history of the development of workers' compensation is reviewed, and a general description of the system is offered, including discussion of state law and insurance structures, benefits and costs, administrative boards/commissions, and the federal systems for workers' compensation and related programs. The recent history of the workers' compensation system is provided, the recommendations of the National Commission on State Workmen's Compensation Laws in 1972 are reviewed, and the problems and state-initiated changes in worker's compensation that occurred during the 1990s are discussed.

The Wages of Sickness: The Politics of Health Insurance in Progressive America (review)

Chapter 1 of the American health insurance saga is the American Association for Labor Legislation's campaign during the second decade of the twentieth century. Charity societies, fraternal orders, dispensaries, company physicians, workmen's compensation laws, commercial "industrial insurance" (individual burial policies sold door-to-door), and the earlier social insurance schemes of certain European nations are the contextual antecedents, if not actual precedents, of this initial American venture toward compulsory health insurance. Since the story of the AALL campaign has been so well told by Ronald Numbers (Almost Persuaded: American Physicians and Compulsory Health Insurance, 1912-1920, 1978), the first question one must ask of any retelling is, What does it add?

Workers' Compensation, Federalism, and the Heavy Hand of History

Workers' compensation was the first social insurance program to gain widespread acceptance in the United States, and as such became one of the foundations of the modern American welfare state.The original and more gendered name for this program was workmen's compensation. The term “workers' compensation” did not become common until the 1970s. I will use both names in this article, depending on the context. Most states passed workmen's compensation laws between 1911 and 1920, and all but two states did so by 1935. The other major social policy innovation of this era were mothers' pensions laws, which were targeted at the poor children of single mothers. These laws also spread rapidly in the 1910s and were on the books in virtually every state by 1935.Although minimum wage and maximum hours laws for women also passed in many states prior to the New Deal, they have generally received less scholarly attention than workmen's compensation or mothers' pensions. The major histories of the American welfare stateEdward D. Berkowitz, America's Welfare State: From Roosevelt to Reagan (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991); Edward D. Berkowitz and Kim McQuaid, Creating the Welfare State: The Political Economy of Twentieth-Century Reform revised ed. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1992); Michael B. Katz, In the Shadow of the Poorhouse: A Social History of Welfare in America (New York: Basic Books, 1986); Roy Lubove, The Struggle for Social Security, 1900–1935, 2nd ed. (1968; Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1986; Charles Noble, Welfare As We Knew It: A Political History of the American Welfare State (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); Theda Skocpol, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992); Theda Skocpol, Social Policy in the United States: Future Possibilities in Historical Perspective (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995); Walter I. Trattner, From Poor Law to Welfare State: A History of Social Welfare in America, 6th ed. (New York: Free Press, 1999); Margaret Weir, Ann Shola Orloff, and Theda Skocpol, eds., The Politics of Social Policy in the United States (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988). always acknowledge the importance of workmen's compensation and mothers' pensions in the early twentieth century, and some authorsBarbara J. Nelson, “The Gender, Race, and Class Origins of Early Welfare Policy and the Welfare State: A Comparison of Workmen's Compensation and Mothers' Aid,” in Women, Politics, and Change, ed. Louise A. Tilly and Patricia Gurin (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1990), 413–35. argue that these two programs established the major fault lines of social provision – between social insurance and public assistance, between employed male workers and unpaid mothers – for the rest of the century.

Colliers Across the Sea: a Comparative Study of Class Formation in Scotland and the American Midwest, 1830-1924

Colliers Across the Sea: A Comparative Study of Formation in Scotland and the Midwest, 1830-1924. By John H. M. Laslett. (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2000. Pp. xv + 314. Cloth, $49.95; Paper, $18.95.) Historians have found it far easier to preach the virtues of comparative history than to practice that art. Professor Laslett of UCLA is to be commended for the clear and methodical manner in which he compares and contrasts the manner in which four successive generations of Scottish and Illinois coal miners practiced their craft, organized their unions, dealt with fellow workers of different ethnic origin, sought to influence their respective governments, and experienced class-consciousness. Although his overriding purpose is to test theses of American exceptionalism and Class Formation, some of the chief virtues of the book reside in the details set forth of life in the Scottish towns of Wishaw and Larkhall (near Glasgow) in the mid-Victorian years and of the northern Illinois towns of Braidwood, Streator, and Spring Valley in the postCivil War years. There a significant number of Scottish immigrants became pioneer miners and subsequently took on leadership roles in the United Mine Workers of America. The pattern of mining town development that Laslett charts turns out to be remarkably similar on the two sides of the Atlantic. The initial process involved small-scale mining in which artisan colliers preserved a high degree of workplace independence and were likely to preach interclass harmony. Then came a more complex technology, larger coal companies, and a greater degree of workplace discipline. By the turn of the twentieth century, mining had become a yet bigger industry, coal-cutting machines were being introduced, and worker-management relations often took the form of largescale strikes. On both sides of the Atlantic miners sought and won protection from the state in the form of workmen's compensation laws and mine safety codes. Analogously, many of them played with the idea of supporting a third political party rather than the Conservatives or Liberals in Britain and the Republicans or Democrats in the United States. Until World War I such efforts had limited success, but thereafter the political paths followed by Scottish and Illinois miners diverged sharply. In Britain, in the aftermath of the breakup of the Liberal party, a new separate Labour party grew rapidly so that by 1924 it could form (under the leadership of a Scot) a ministry of its own in Parliament. …

アメリカ産業における安全運動の波及と労使関係管理の生成

The passage of workmen's compensation laws in 1910 and the succeeding years gave a powerful impetus to the efforts of specialists in the area of industrial safety. In this environment the “Safety First” movement, which was an organized effort in accident prevention led by chief safety inspectors who were more commonly known as “safety men, ” extended all over the country. Many safety men were not engineers, so there were some critical views to the movement from engineers who had much training and experience in mechanical engineering and systematic management.At the beginning of the movement safety men and engineers had totally different viewpoints in approaching industrial safety. Engineers insisted that industrial accidents could be prevented by safety devices and in no other way, and that designing the safety devices was an engineering problem. Whereas safety men preached that only a few percent of accident cases could be reduced by guarding dangerous places, and that the prevention of the vast majority of accidents was possible through educational methods eliminating the carelessness of workmen.One of the most important features of the educational programs was the safety committee, which was sometimes composed entirely of foreign speaking workmen for “sowing seeds of caution” among them. The effectiveness of the educational methods was gradually accepted by some engineers, especially members of the Association of Iron and Steel Electrical Engineers. And the Association supported projects of safety men in the steel industry to found a national organization for disseminating the movement. From these efforts the National Council for Industrial Safety was founded in September, 1913 (one year after renamed the National Safety Council).It is interesting to note that in the course of every-day accident prevention work on the shop floor, safety men realized that any safety work would not gain fruitful results without resolving the problems of industrial relations. In order to organize the communication system between employer and employee they enlarged step by step the functions of the safety committee, at last which became in fact the prototype of the employee representation plan. Arthur H. Young, a prominent safety man, recalled that one of the by-products of the safety movement had been the growth of the industrial relations movement.

Permanent Partial Disability in Workers' Compensation: Probability and Costs

Introduction Workers' compensation costs, as a percentage of covered payroll, have more than doubled since 1960, rising from 0.93 percent in that year to 2.15 percent in 1988. These increased costs have been attributed to changes in workers' compensation programs following the 1972 report of the National Commission of State Workmen's Compensation Laws, which criticized program benefits as inadequate.(1) Among other things, states responded to this report by increasing indemnity benefits and reducing the waiting period prior to benefit eligibility. In addition to the direct effect of such changes, a number of studies have found that liberalization of benefits increased program utilization. Specifically, several studies have found that higher compensation benefits are associated with higher claims incidence and longer durations of temporary total disability--the period of disability occurring prior to the point of maximum medical improvement (see Krueger, 1990a, and Ehrenberg, 1988, for recent reviews of the literature). A substantial portion of the increased cost of workers' compensation may be due to higher permanent partial disability costs. Permanent partial disability benefits represent approximately two-thirds of the total cost of workers' compensation benefits. In addition, while the incidence of permanent partial disability claims as a portion of total claims declined from a high of 26 percent in 1958 to 24 percent in 1982, the portion of total benefits attributable to permanent partial disability claims rose from 60 percent to 65 percent during that same period (Berkowitz and Burton, 1987). Krueger and Burton (1990) have shown that permanent partial disability benefits are an important determinant of overall program cost; that is, employer premiums are positively related to the proportion of total benefits accounted for by permanent partial compensation. Policy-makers have become increasingly concerned with permanent partial disability as overall costs have risen. Berkowitz and Burton (1987) have argued that increasing costs since the National Commission report have triggered a second wave of reform, centering on the compensation of permanent partial disability.(2) A number of jurisdictions have reassessed or changed their criteria or procedures for permanent partial benefits, including Florida, which implemented fundamental reform in 1979. Despite their importance as an element of compensation costs, there is little research examining the factors that influence the probability and costs of a permanent partial disability claim. This article explores three issues related to permanent partial disabilities. First, the process determining whether a claim becomes a permanent partial disability is modeled, as is the process determining the size of the permanent partial disability award. In particular, I estimate the extent to which each of these processes is affected by claimant moral hazard. Second, alternative empirical specifications of these processes are compared, one which assumes that the process determining the probability of permanent partial disability is identical to the process determining the size of the permanent partial disability award, and another which assumes that these two processes are different. (In this article, the probability of a permanent partial disability is estimated using a sample of injured workers rather than a sample of all workers. Therefore, the probabilities estimated in this study are not unconditional probabilities, but are conditional on a compensation claim having been initiated.) Finally, based on these results, estimates of the elasticities of permanent partial disability claims and costs with respect to changes in benefits are obtained. The next section of this article describes relevant aspects of workers' compensation programs; it is followed by a discussion of the potential effect of claimant moral hazard on the probability and size of a permanent partial award and a review of the empirical literature. …

Progressivism and the World of Reform: New Zealand and the Origins of the American Welfare State

In this major reinterpretation of the Progressive era, Peter Coleman argues that the American welfare state had its origins in what he calls the world-wide crisis of capitalism. Here and abroad, reformers, no longer content to treat the symptoms of distress, sought to achieve social, political, and economic justice by abandoning laissez faire in favor of governmental intervention. This study thoroughly documents the external forces that shaped the American Progressive movement and shows that the reformers' agenda for change drew heavily on foreign ideas and models as well as the American reform tradition. Tracing the international cross-currents of reform ideas, Coleman demonstrates that for nearly three decades American reformers of every stripe regarded the Australasian colonies, especially New Zealand, as examples of what the United States could become. Thus inspired, American reformers worked for such goals as wage-and-hour legislation for women, abolition of child labor, workmen's compensation laws, compulsory arbitration of labor disputes, land reform, cheap loans for farmers, old-age pensions, and infant and maternal care programs. Through these and other measures that touched all aspects of the nation's life, the role of government was enlarged. By placing progressivism within an international context, Coleman deepens our understanding of a phenomenon previously seen as distinctively American, thereby clarifying both the substance and process of change in this country. He also argues that in the Progressive era can be seen the origins of the regulations and mixed economy of the modern welfare state.

Workers' Compensation and the Level of Occupational Injuries

Workers' Compensation and the Level of Occupational Injuries

Disease, Not Accident: Recognition of Occupational Stress Under the Workmen's Compensation Laws

Disease, Not Accident: Recognition of Occupational Stress Under the Workmen's Compensation Laws

New Developments in Workmen's Compensation Law: Accident Defined and New Thoughts on Crediting

New Developments in Workmen's Compensation Law: Accident Defined and New Thoughts on Crediting

The Effort of Labor Force Age Distribution on Worker's Compensation Costs

Workers' compensation insurance is funded by premium payments from employers. The premium is determined by legislated coverage and benefits, industry category, and in some cases, employer accident record. Researchers have concentrated on the cost effect of changes in legislation. In this study, attention is focused on the age distribution of the insured individuals. Workers' compensation cost per unit of exposure varies by age group. Changes in the age distribution of the workforce induce changes in the cost of workers' compensation. Workers' compensation (WC) premiums are based on the location of the firm, the industry classification of the enterprise, and in some cases the accident record of the firm. Firm location is important since it determines the WC system and, therefore, the set of benefit provisions to which the firm is subject. Industry classification affects premium size because WC insurers track injury experience by industry group. However, the demographic characteristics of the pool of insured individuals (workers) do not directly enter the calculation of expected WC costs, although such characteristics directly affect insurance premiums in programs such as life and auto insurance. This unique trait of WC insurance has influenced the focus of WC studies, especially those conducted since the early 1970's. Liberalization of benefits and the increased rate of inflation drove WC costs up rapidly after 1970.1 In response a series of commissions and task forces has analyzed WC costs emphasizing factors that influence total dollar compensation for a given injury or number of injuries.2 In this study of WC costs the emphasis is on determinants of the number and severity of injuries. Specifically, the two-fold purpose of the study is to Alan E. Dillingham, Illinois State University. This research was funded by Illinois State University and, through the Workers' Compensation Project of the University of Connecticut, the Employment Standards Administration of the U.S. Department of Labor. An expanded version of this paper will appear in Safety and the Workplace: Incentives and Disincentives in Workers' Compensation, edited by John Worrall (New York: ILR Press, 1983). 1 Price [141 calculates the 1970-76 increase in employer costs for WC at 126 percent. Elson and Burton [61 estimate that their adjusted manual rate for WC coverage almost doubled between 1972 and 1978. 2 The two major efforts were: (a) the National Commission on State Workmen's Compensation Laws and (b) the Interdepartmental Workers' Compensation Task Force.

Outputs and Outcomes of State Workmen's Compensation Laws

OVER THE PAST TWO DECADES, political scientists have given a great deal of attention to questions concerning variations in state policies. The primary focus of these studies has been on the relative impact of socioeconomic and political variables on state policy. The most frequent conclusion of most of the studies was that politics played only a marginal role in explanations of state policy variations.' Obviously these findings did not bode well with many political scientists who viewed this as a challenge to their raison d'etre.2 Later studies that reconceptualized political variables and policy

Sensitivity Analysis of Workers' Compensation Costs

The authors develop a deterministic model to review several factors influencing workers' compensation costs and the decision to self-insure. Variables examined include magnitude of losses, the relationship between primary and excess losses, differences in costs among states, interest rates, wage rate increases, and loss payout patterns. The study shows the effect that a given change causes. It provides evidence that suggests that firms with relatively low primary losses would be more likely to insure. Also, relatively short payout schedules and low interest rates favor the decision to insure. Sensitivity Analysis of Workers' Compensation Costs Workers' compensation has been a major commercial line of insurance for many years. It has become even more important since the National Commission of State Workmen's Compensation Laws published its report in 1973. This report made numerous recommendations to increase the level and scope of workers' compensation benefits. Besides making the recommendations, it threatened to create and make federal standards applicable to all states if actions were not taken by the states to improve their laws. As a direct result of the commission's work, the state workers' compensation laws have been modified to give more persons coverage and have increased benefits. This action, coupled with high rates of inflation, has caused the cost of workers' compensation to skyrocket the last several years. Insurance premium rates have been escalating and yet they still are inadequate. Employers are concerned because the already high rates face the possibility of further increases. For this reason, alternative plans of action including loss retention are being investigated. Purpose. The objective of this paper is to develop a deterministic model that can be used to examine various factors that affect workers' compensation costs. Some of the factors investigated include the relationship between primary and excess losses, differences in benefits among states, interest rates, wage rate increases, and loss payout patterns. The purpose of these sensitivity

The Future of Workers' Compensation

Dissatisfied with state workers' compensation laws, business interests, labor unions, state compensation bureaus, self insurers, and private insurance carriers, despite their disparate interests, increasingly agree that such laws are in need of significant revision. But the call for reform has been heard before. In 1972, the National Commission on State Workmen's Compensation Laws (hereinafter referred to as the National Commission) reported to the President and Congress that “… the protection furnished by workmen's compensation to American workers presently is, in general, inadequate and inequitable.”Between 1972 and 1977 hundreds of state laws were enacted in response to the recommendations of the National Commission and the threat of federalization. Yet, in its 1977 report to the President and Congress, the Policy Group of the Interdepartmental Workers' Compensation Task Force concluded:

STATE COMPLIANCE WITH WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION RECOMMENDATIONS

ABSTRACTThe Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 established the National Commission on State Workmen's Compensation Laws. The National Commission was directed to “undertake a comprehensive study and evaluation of State workmen's compensation laws in order to determine if such laws provide an adequate, prompt, and equitable system of compensation”. In 1972 the Commission issued its report, and “criticized many aspects of state workmen's compensation programs”. In its report the Commission made eighty–four recommendations for a “moder” workmen's compensation program and designated nineteen of these as “essential”. This research traces state progress in complying with each of these nineteen essential recommendations. Between 1972 and 1977 many states made significant improvements in their workmen's compensation programs and overall there was a 34 percent increase in compliance during this period. Higher levels of compliance were found to be related to two factors: changes in industrial diversification and the involvement and activity of vitally concerned interest groups.

Worker's Compensation Coverage for the Self-Employed: The Israeli Experience

self-employed typically are excluded from workers' compensation coverage because of alleged high administrative costs and fear that they will claim benefits for non-work accidents. Israel has covered the selfemployed for more than 20 years; its experience, therefore, is useful assessing these two allegations. Israel's administrative cost for the selfemployed is much higher than that for wage and salary workers. While little support exists for the view that the self-employed claim benefits for non-work accidents, the number of work days lost per accident by the selfemployed is much higher than that for wage and salary workers. Virtually all countries have some system of compensation for work-connected injuries and occupational illness. These programs cover wage and salary workers, and typically exclude the self-employed. In this 1973 study of social security programs ten major developed countries, Kaim-Caudle concluded: The self-employed benefited only rarely from protection against workconnected injuries. only countries which provided schemes for certain of the self-employed were Austria, Germany, and Denmark and even there the conditions and terms were less favorable than those applying to [1, p. 100]. According to the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare's 1977 survey of Social Security Programs Throughout the World, about a fourth of the 129 countries with workers' compensation statutes provide some kind of coverage for the self-employed [5, pp. xviii-xix]. self-employed are not covered because of (a) alleged high administrative costs and (b) the danger of abuse. According to Kaim-Caudle, in any scheme restricted to industrial accidents, it is fairly easy for the self-employed to claim benefit for accidents which are not work-connected. quantitative importance of this can easily be exaggerated, but the fear of abuse is Joseph Krislov is Professor of Economics at the University of Kentucky. He holds the Ph.D. degree. Professor Krislov has been Visiting Professor at Tel-Aviv University and a Fulbright Professor at Trinity College, Dublin. He was employed six years as a Research Analyst for the U.S. Social Security Administration. Yehuda Kahane is Senior Lecturer and Academic Director, Erhard Insurance Center, Faculty of Management, Tel-Aviv University. He holds the Ph.D. degree. Dr. Kahane taught at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, University of Florida, University of Toronto, and currently is visiting at the Research Center for Risk and Insurance at the Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Administration, Caracas, Venezuala. authors would like to thank Mrs. Yechiela Bern, Ms. Rivka Pri-Or, and Mr. Igal Volozni, deputy actuary, the National Insurance Institute (Israeli Social Security), for help preparing the data and for their critical comments. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.162 on Thu, 11 Aug 2016 05:38:02 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 114 Journal of Risk and Insurance uppermost the minds of many policy-makers all over the world [1, p. 1001. Israel has covered its self-employed from 1957 [2, pp. 252-2541, and that country's experiences should be helpful deciding whether the two objections are Specifically this paper seeks to determine (1) the extent of abuse by the selfemployed and (2) the administrative cost providing coverage. If the objections to coverage are valid, then some estimates of the increased costs would emerge. Presumably, other countries contemplating coverage of the selfemployed would incur similar costs and then would be a position to make a political decision whether to incur these additional costs. Some interest has been expressed the United States workers' compensation for the self-employed. 1972 National Commission of State Workmen's Compensation Laws pointed out that workers' compensation originated by covering employees only, and that coverage has not been extended beyond this group. Commission concluded, however, that we are not convinced that the practice of confining workmen's compensation to employees remains valid. It specifically recommended that coverage be made available, on an optional basis, for the self-employed [6, p. 48]. Optional coverage for some self-employed was available some jurisdictions even before 1972, but only a few individuals apparently elected such coverage. Administrative Costs At the authors' request, the Israel National Insurance Institute prepared some special tabulations allocating the administrative costs for the fiscal years 1974, 1975, and 1976. agency's administrative cost data for fiscal 1977 are not strictly comparable with those for previous years, and therefore that year was not included the analysis. Table 1 indicates that total administrative costs as a percentage of premium income for the self-employed and the wage and salary worker have fluctu-

Legal ramifications of the medical definition of back disease.

Back pain occurring without external force is extraordinarily prevalent in all segments of society. The practicing internist is often faced with the complaint, a need to define its cause, and a request to render an opinion as to whether the patient is disabled in the context of his employment. This opinion will have some weight in determining compensability under workmen's compensation law. This essay examines the inferences, as regards back pain, upon which compensation law is based. These inferences are then tested in light of our current understanding of the pathophysiology of back pain. A number of fallacies become apparent that may provide impetus for remedial legislation and clearly mandate further clinical investigation.

An Alternative to Workmen's Compensation

Examination of a model common law system and a model workmen's compensation system in the United States. Role of the National Commission on State Workmen's Compensation Laws; Description of the common law model; Analysis of a model workmen's compensation system; Criticisms of the proposed common law system. (Abstract copyright EBSCO.)

Respiratory Disease in Coal Miners

LAST year the Social Security Administration disbursed more than $1 billion for "black lung" compensation. By way of comparison, for 1971 the total disbursement for all other industrial injury and illness for the entire US population covered by workmen's compensation laws was only $2.4 billion. Yet, there are around 120,000 working coal miners as compared to approximately 30 to 40 million other US workers covered by workmen's compensation laws. Nor can this disparity be explained by the fact that a disabled miner receives almost twice as much in compensation as does a disabled steelworker with silicosis. The Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969, and the regulations that were put into effect as the result of the passage of this act, enabled any coal miner to qualify for "black lung" benefits provided he had (1) roentgenographic evidence of complicated pneumoconiosis (progressive massive fibrosis [PMF]); (2) simple pneumoconiosis in