Excerpt from Liability of Master to Servant

The law of master and servant has been recently the subject of careful and protracted examination by a committee of the English House of Commons. A master, such is the way in which the law is stated, is not liable to his servants for such injuries received by the latter as are incidental to the service; and the reason ordinarily advanced for this conclusion is that, as servants contract with their master to take the risks of their service, they cannot recover from their master damages which they have virtually agreed to release. It is not surprising that the public mind of England, whose population is largely made up of operatives in mills and other enterprises in which defective machinery is productive of terrible risks, should have been agitated by the reason for the proposition, if not by the proposition itself. Of the myriads affected by this proposition (exempting masters, as it on its face does, from a large portion of their liabilities), probably not more than one out of a thousand has any idea of entering into any contract of the character imputed. Over the "fellow-servant" who inflicts the injury the injured servant has in very few cases such a power of supervision as should bring with it responsibility. Hence it was that political economists and politicians, as well as lawyers, heard with much satisfaction that a committee was appointed by the House of Commons, on Mr. Lowe's motion, Mr. Lowe himself being chairman, to report whether the condition of the law in this relation required any legislation.

The result is not very satisfactory. From Mr. Lowe, indeed, we have a very able paper, deploring the law as it now stands.

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