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The Green Bag Despair came o'er him and he died Before his time by suicide. So this is why tradition states No lawyers pass through Heaven's gates. The legal mind is early bent To have regard for precedent.
The Legal Status of Workmen's Compensation BY FRANCIS DEAN SCHNACKE THE question of the constitutionality of the workmen's compensation acts of the various states attracts much attention at the present time. Within the past year the courts of last resort of half a dozen jurisdictions have passed on the validity of such statutes of their respective states, and with one excep tion, that of New York, their constitu tionality has been sustained. As a rule the validity of such legis lation is challenged on the grounds that: first, it violates the constitutional pro visions for jury trials, it being contended that a person under the operation of such a law is deprived of his right to have a jury determine the question of his liability, and also toassess the amount of the damages; second, such legisla tion is challenged on the ground that it deprives a person of his property without due process of law, and is there fore repugnant to the Fourteenth Amend ment of the federal Constitution and a similar provision which appears in almost every state's Constitution. There have been other objections advanced against the validity of such laws, as, for example, that they deny equal pro tection of the laws, but the courts have never considered such arguments as weighty, and have been unanimous in
declaring that their constitutionality does not turn on that point. The Court of Appeals of New York, in declaring the workmen's compensation act of that state void, did so only on the ground that it was 'a taking of property without due process of law in violation of the New York State Constitution. To quote the Court: "All that is necessary to affirm in the case before us is that in view of the Constitution of our state the lia bility sought to be imposed upon the employers enumerated in the statute before us is a taking of property without due process of law, and the statute is therefore void." (Ives v. South Buffalo Ry. Co., 94 N. E. 431, 448.) Passing to the discussion of the first objection, it has long been settled that the Seventh Amendment of the federal Constitution does not guarantee a trial by jury in a civil action in a state court. (Walker v. Sauvinet, 92 U. S. 90.) The objection to the validity of an automatic workmen's compensation act of New York on the ground that it was repug nant to a provision in the Constitution of that state that "trial by jury in all cases in which it has been heretofore used shall remain inviolate forever," was discussed by Mr. Justice Werner in the Ives case, but he ends by saying
