recover such payment for the period of one year. 21, paragraph c.)

If the workman leaves a widow or invalid widower, a monthly pay ment of twenty dollars ($20) shall be made throughout the life of th surviving spouse, to cease at the end of the month in which remarriag shall occur; and the surviving spouse shall also receive five dollars ($5 per month for each child of the deceased under the age of sixteen year at the time of the occurrence of the injury until such minor child sha reach the age of sixteen years, but the total monthly payment under th paragraph (1) of subdivision (a) shall not exceed thirty-five dolla ($35). Upon remarriage of a widow she shall receive, once and for a a lump sum equal to twelve times her monthly allowance, viz., the su of two hundred forty dollars ($240), but the monthly payment for t child or children shall continue as before. (WASHINGTON, section paragraph 1.)

If the deceased employee leave a widow or invalid widower the pa ment shall be twenty dollars ($20) per month until the death or marriage of such widow or widower. (WEST VIRGINIA, section 3 paragraph 4.)

RULINGS AND DECISIONS UNDER THE ACT.

The Work of the Board in General. The formal hearing and decision of cases under the Workmen's Compensation Act is perhaps the most important of the many functions of the Massachusetts Industrial Accident Board. Next in importance is the adjustment of cases by mutual agreement, with a member of the Board acting informally as a mediator, or referee, and bringing the parties together on a common basis, always in accordance with the provisions of the statute. Such informal conferences have averaged well above 10 cases daily, a total of over 3,000 claims concerning which there was some ground for a misunderstanding having been adjusted in this manner during the year from July 1, 1912, to June 30, 1913, inclusive. The expenses attendant upon formal hearings have been avoided. by these conferences, the members of the Board giving their entire time to the administrative work arising in connection with the act, and aiding in bringing about a speedy adjustment of all cases. The Industrial Accident Board has held at least two meetings weekly, and frequently, when the occasion required, held night meetings and additional daily sessions, for the purpose of expediting the transaction of business under the statute. Informal rulings, averaging 30 weekly, have also assisted the parties concerned in promptly adjusting claims in cases where an interpretation of the law upon a given statement of facts was requested, about 1,500 matters being thus informally ruled upon by the Board during the first year. The Board has also passed upon 499 disputed bills, referred to it as provided by section 13, Part III. of the act, in which the insurer and the physician, hospital or nurse could not agree as to what was a "reasonable fee" for services rendered in accordance with section 5, Part II., which requires the insurer to furnish reasonable medical and hospital services and medicines when needed.

Only a Small Number of Cases reach Arbitration Stage. Only a very small proportion of the cases arising under the act reached the arbitration stage, less than 300 being heard formally

by committees of arbitration during the first year, this number being increased to 584 up to Nov. 30, 1913. Of this number, 56 were heard by the Industrial Accident Board on a claim for review of the decision of the committee of arbitration, and 26 were taken up to the Supreme Judicial Court on appeal from the decision of the full Board.

Decisions which guide Board. - The Supreme Judicial Court has handed down several decisions of moment to guide the Board in its administration of the act. The court has passed upon cases which brought into question the meaning of the words "average weekly wages," "personal injury arising out of and in the course of his employment," the extra-territorial effect of the act, the rights of widows, their own children and stepchildren, and of an employee who was acting as the agent of his general employer at the time of the injury, to compensation under the statute.

Striking References to Act by Supreme Court. The court makes many striking references to the Workmen's Compensation Act in the course of the several decisions rendered. For the accomplishment of the purposes of the statute, "a simple method is furnished operating without delay or unnecessary formality.... In one aspect a case under the act resembles an action at law, for it seeks ultimately the payment of money. Payments, however, in most instances are by instalments. In another aspect it is akin to the specific performance of a contract, designed to cover the whole range of misfortunes likely to arise in the course of employment in a State with many and diversified industries." (Gould case below.) In another decision, in the Gillen case, the court refers to the "broad scope of the act and its comprehensive dealing with the whole subject," and states that "where words are used in one part of a statute in a definite sense, it may be presumed, in the absence of a plain intent to the contrary, that they are used in the same sense in other places in the same act." In the McNicol case, below, the court says injuries are excluded "which cannot fairly be traced to the employment as a contributing proximate cause, and that the provisions of the English act as to the dependents entitled to payments are wholly different from those of our own act." The court states that "the act should be interpreted

broadly in harmony with its main aim of providing support for those dependent upon a deceased employee " in the course of its decision in the Coakley case, below. In the Pigeon case, below, the court declares that the Workmen's Compensation Act in its practical operation affects large numbers of people, and that its declared purpose is the humane one of preventing industrial accidents and providing payments for employees injured in the course of employment. The word "court" may be "given a signification liberal enough to include the committee of arbitration and Industrial Accident Board as instituted by the act, and under all the circumstances should be given such construction."

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"Average Weekly Wages." The court ruled, in Gillen v. Ocean Accident and Guarantee Corporation, Ltd., that the phrase "average weekly wages," as used in the statute, means all the wages which the employee receives in the course of a permanent employment," and that the employee is entitled to compensation based upon his earnings as a longshoreman, working for many employers in the course of a year. In connection with this case the court considered another phase of the average weekly wage question. Referring to the first portion of the definition of " average weekly wages as stated in the act, the court says that "average weekly wages' are there defined to mean 'earnings of the injured employee during the period of twelve calendar months immediately preceding the date of the injury, divided by fifty-two; but if the injured employee lost more than two weeks' time during such period, then the earnings for the remainder of such twelve calendar months shall be divided by the number of weeks remaining after the time so lost has been deducted.' . . . While the language is not amplified, it refers to substantially uninterrupted work in a particular employment. . . The basis is the earning capacity of the workman as shown by such employment." Where an employee has not been in the service of his employer for a year, his average weekly wages should be ascertained by "reference to the wages of others whose employment is substantially continuous."

Assault by Intoxicated Fellow Employee. In McNicol v. Employers' Liability Assurance Corporation, Ltd., the court

held that the widow of an employee who received a personal injury by reason of an assault committed upon him by a fellow employee who was in the habit of drinking to intoxication, and who, when intoxicated, was quarrelsome and dangerous, and unsafe to be permitted to work with his fellow employees, — all of this being known to a person exercising superintendence, was entitled to compensation, said personal injury arising out of and in the course of the employment. Rugg, C.J., states:

It is not easy nor necessary to the determination of the case at bar to give a comprehensive definition of these words (personal injury arising out of and in the course of his employment) which shall accurately include all cases embraced within the act and with precision exclude those outside its terms. It is sufficient to say that an injury is received "in the course of " the employment when it comes while the workman is doing the duty which he is employed to perform. It arises "out of" the employment when there is apparent to the rational mind upon consideration of all the circumstances a causal connection between the conditions under which the work is required to be performed and the resulting injury. Under this test, if the injury can be seen to have followed as a natural incident of the work, and to have been contemplated by a reasonable person familiar with the whole situation as a result of the exposure occasioned by the nature of the employment, then it arises "out of" the employment. But it excludes an injury which cannot fairly be traced to the employment as a contributing proximate cause and which comes from a hazard to which the workman would have been equally exposed apart from the employment. The causative danger must be peculiar to the work and not common to the neighborhood. It must be incidental to the character of the business and not independent of the relation of master and servant. It need not to have been foreseen or expected, but after the event it must appear to have had its origin in the risk connected with the employment and to have flowed from that source as a rational consequence. . . . The injury came while the deceased was doing the work for which he was hired. It was due to the act of an obviously intoxicated fellow workman, whose quarrelsome disposition and inebriated condition were well known to the foreman of the employer. A natural result of the employment of a peaceable workman in company with a choleric drunkard might have been found to be an attack by the latter upon his companion.

...

McNicol Case distinguished.

The McNicol case is dis

tinguished from a stabbing by a drunken stranger, a felonious assault by a fellow workman, or rough sport or horse-play by

companions who might have been expected to be at work.