THE MASSACHUSETTS WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION ACT.

§ 302. Nature and scope of the Massachusetts workmen's compensation act.-The Massachusetts act affects directly or indirectly all employés, except domestic servants and farm laborers. Employers who do not insure under the act, but elect to remain under the common law are deprived of the defenses of contributory negligence, negligence of fellow servant and assumption of risk by the employé. The act allows the employer to protect himself by becoming a subscriber to the Massachusetts Employés Insurance Association, or by insuring the liability to pay the compensation in a company, authorized to do liability insurance business in Massachusetts.

The employé is deprived of all compensation where the injury is caused by his own "serious and wilful misconduct." The amount of the compensation is doubled where the injury is due to the "serious and wilful misconduct of his employer," or "of any person regularly entrusted with and exercising the power of superintendence."

An employé of a subscriber may elect to sue at law by giving his employer notice in writing at the time of his contract of hire, that he claims such right, or if the contract of hire is made before the employer becomes a subscriber, then the employé must give the notice within thirty days of the notice of such subscription.

The act requires all employers to keep a record of injuries received by employés in the course of their employment, and report the same in detail within fortyeight hours of their occurrence under penalty of a fine of $50 for each failure to do so.

The act provides in considerable detail for the establishment of an industrial accident board, which is given general supervision over all parties affected and this board is clothed with quasi-judicial powers.

§ 303. Text of the Massachusetts compensation act. -The act is divided into five parts and is as follows:

PART I—MODIFICATION OF REMEDIES.

Sec. 1. In an action to recover damages for personal injury sustained by an employé in the course of his employment, or for death resulting from personal injury so sustained, it shall not be a defense:

1. That the employé was negligent;

2. That the injury was caused by the negligence of a fellow employé;

3. That the employé had assumed the risk of the injury.

Sec. 2. The provisions of section one shall not apply to actions to recover damages for personal injuries sustained by domestic servants and farm laborers.

Sec. 3. The provisions of section one shall not apply to actions to recover damages for personal injuries sustained by employés of a subscriber.

Sec. 4. The provisions of sections one hundred and twenty-seven to one hundred and thirty-five, inclusive, and of one hundred and forty-one to one hundred and forty-three, inclusive, of chapter five hundred and fourteen of the acts of the year nineteen hundred and nine, and of any acts in amendment thereof, shall not apply to employés of a subscriber while this act is in effect.

Sec. 5. An employé of a subscriber shall be held to have waived his right of action at common law to recover damages for personal injuries if he shall not have given his employer, at the time of his contract of hire, notice in writing that he claimed such right, or if the contract of hire was made before the employer became a subscriber, if the employé shall not have given the said notice within thirty days of notice of such subscription. An employé who has given notice to his employer that he claimed his right of action at common law may waive such claim by a notice in writing which shall take

effect five days after it is delivered to the employer or his agent. (See Ch. 666 Mass. Acts of 1912.)

PART II-PAYMENTS.

Sec. 1. If an employé, who has not given notice of his claim of common law rights of action, as provided in Part I, section five, or who has given such notice and has waived the same, receives a personal injury arising out of and in the course of his employment, he shall be paid compensation by the association, as hereinafter provided, if his employer is a subscriber at the time of the injury.

Sec. 2. If the employé is injured by reason of his serious and wilful misconduct, he shall not receive compensation.

Sec. 3. (As amended by Section 1 of Ch. 571, Acts of 1912). If the employé is insured by reason of the serious and wilful misconduct of a subscriber or of any person regularly entrusted with and exercising the powers of superintendence, the amounts of compensation hereinafter provided shall be doubled. In such case the subscriber shall repay to the association the extra compensation paid to the employé. If a claim is made under this section, the subscriber shall be allowed to appear and defend against such claim only.

Sec. 4. No compensation shall be paid under this act for any injury which does not incapacitate the employé for a period of at least two weeks from earning full wages, but if incapacity extends beyond the period of two weeks, compensation shall begin on the fifteenth day after the injury.

Sec. 5. During the first two weeks after the injury, the association shall furnish reasonable medical and hospital services, and medicines when they are needed.

Sec. 6. If death results from the injury, the association shall pay the dependents of the employé, wholly dependent upon his earnings for support at the time of the injury, a weekly payment equal to one-half his aver

age weekly wages, but not more than ten dollars nor less than four dollars a week, for a period of three hundred weeks from the date of the injury. If the employé leaves dependents only partly dependent upon his earnings for support at the time of his injury, the association shall pay such dependents a weekly compensation equal to the same proportion of the weekly payments for the benefit of persons wholly dependent as the amount contributed by the employé to such partial dependents bears to the annual earnings of the deceased at the time of his injury. When weekly payments have been made to an injured employé before his death, the compensation to dependents shall begin from the date of the last of such payments, but shall not continue more than three hundred weeks from the date of the injury.

Sec. 7. The following persons shall be conclusively presumed to be wholly dependent for support upon a deceased employé:—

(a) A wife upon a husband with whom she lives at the time of his death.

(b) A husband upon a wife with whom he lives at the time of her death.

(c) A child or children under the age of eighteen years (or over said age, but physically or mentally incapacitated from earning) upon the parent with whom he is or they are living at the time of the death of such parent, there being no surviving dependent parent. In case there is more than one child thus dependent, the death benefit shall be divided equally among them.

In all other cases questions of dependency, in whole or in part, shall be determined in accordance with the fact, as the fact may be at the time of the injury; and in such other cases, if there is more than one person wholly dependent, the death benefit shall be divided equally among them, and persons partly dependent, if any, shall receive no part thereof; if there is no one