Assuming the risks: Occupational disease in the years before workers' compensation

Abstract

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, new knowledge of work-related illness became part of discourses in several institutional spheres on the relationship between aspects of the economy and workers' health. Appeals courts and state legislatures invoked this knowledge in their deliberations on legislation to ease the coercive aspects of the employment relationship. Insurers used the knowledge to help determine what types of coverage would be available to different occupational groups. In the courts, a narrow compensation remedy evolved for illness caused by employers' failure to warn of latent risks. This small, legal zone of protection of workers' health was separated out from the massive amount of uncompensated, preventable work-related illness.

Personal Reflections on Occupational Health in the Twentieth Century: Spiraling to the Future

“…In parallel with these developments occurred the enactment, in almost every state within a decade, of the first workers' compensation laws (1,2,28). These laws, passed within the domains of labor departments and law (rather than public health), were initially viewed as related not to prevention but rather to a broader public policy of worker protection from the economic ravages of injury.…”

Public Health in the Workplace

“…Under the theory of contributory negligence, if employees contributed to the injury in any way through their own negligence, the suit could be disallowed. Workers were held to have assumed the risks of that which they were aware or could reasonably have known of, thereby relieving employers of liability for negligently creating an unsafe condition (Bale, 1988). Hence, the employer had little economic incentive to improve safety and health conditions in the workplace.…”