Payment in installments. Cancellation. Furnishing proofs. Prohibitions. General Acts of 1915, Chapter 155. SECTION 1. Any person who is insured by an insurance company, and who is entitled to payment on account of sickness or accident, shall be paid at least once in thirty days the amount due, but this requirement need not be set forth in the policy of insurance or certificate of membership issued to such person. SECTION 2. All acts and parts of acts inconsistent herewith are hereby repealed. 8. A provision that the policy may be cancelled at any time by the company by written notice delivered to the insured or mailed to him at his last address as shown by the records of the company and the tender of the company's check for the unearned portion of the premium, but that such cancellation shall be without prejudice to any claim arising on account of disability commencing prior to the date on which the cancellation takes effect. 9. A provision specifying the time within which proofs of claim shall be furnished to the company, which time shall be not less than ninety days from the date of death, dismemberment or loss of sight or from the termination of any other disability. SECTION 2. No policy insuring against accidental bodily injuries or disease or death from accident shall be issued or delivered in this commonwealth if it contains in substance any of the following provisions: 1. A provision limiting the time within which an action at law or in equity may be begun to less than two years from the date when the final proof of claim is filed with the company. 2. A provision that shall authorize the deduction of any premium or assessment from any indemnity payable under the terms of the policy, except such premium or assessment as may be due or covered by written order or note at the time of payment of the indemnity. 3. A provision limiting the amount of indemnity to be paid to a sum less than the indemnity as stated in the policy and for which the premium has been paid: provided, however, that if the assured shall carry other insurance covering the hazard without giving written notice to the companies, corporations or associations issuing the policies, then and in that case each company, corporation or association may stipulate that it will be liable only for such proportionate amount of benefits as the indemnity promised bears to the total amount of indemnity in all the policies covering such hazard and for the return of such part of the premium paid as shall exceed the pro rata of the premium for the benefits paid. SECTION 3. This act shall not apply to or affect fraternal bene- Application. ficiary associations, societies or orders with representative form of government operating on a lodge system, or those whose members when admitted are residents of this commonwealth, or the beneficiary certificates or policies issued by them. SECTION 4. A policy issued in violation of this act shall be valid, Validity. but the rights, duties and obligations of all parties thereto shall be governed by the provisions of this act. outside of SECTION 5. The policies of insurance against accidental injury Applicability or disease issued by a company not organized under the laws of this Massachusetts. commonwealth may, when issued in this commonwealth, contain any provision which the law of the state, territory or district of the United States under which the company is organized prescribes shall be in such policies; and the policies of insurance against accidental injury or disease of a company organized under the laws of this commonwealth may, when issued or delivered in any other state, territory, district or country, contain any provision required by the laws of the state, territory, district or country in which the same are issued, anything in this act to the contrary, notwithstanding. SECTION 6. Nothing in this act shall apply to or affect any Blanket policy general or blanket policy of insurance issued to any municipal cor- exempt. poration or department thereof, or to any corporation, copartnership, association or individual employer, police or fire department, underwriters corps, salvage bureau, or like associations or organizations, where the officers, members or employees or classes or departments thereof are insured against specified accidental bodily injuries or diseases while exposed to the hazards of the occupation or otherwise, for a premium intended to cover the risks of all the persons insured under such policy. SECTION 7. Any company or association to which this act ap- Penalty. plies, or any officer thereof which issues or delivers in this commonwealth any accident or health policy or contract in wilful violation of the provisions of this act, shall be punished by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars for each offence, and the insurance commissioner may proceed against the company or association, or its officers or agents, in the manner provided in section seven of chapter five hundred and seventy-six of the acts of the year nineteen hundred and seven. SECTION 8. All acts and parts of acts inconsistent herewith are hereby repealed. SECTION 9. This act shall take effect on the first day of January in the year nineteen hundred and eleven. [Approved May 6, 1910. Defenses removed. Non-application. Waiver by employee. Notices. WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION INSURANCE. CHAPTER 751, ACTS OF 1911, AS AMENDED BY CHAPTERS 172, 571 and 666, PART I. MODIFICATION OF REMEDIES. SECTION 1. In an action to recover damages for personal injury sustained by an employee in the course of his employment, or for death resulting from personal injury so sustained, it shall not be a defense: 1. That the employee was negligent; 2. That the injury was caused by the negligence of a fellow employee; 3. That the employee had assumed the risk of the injury. SECTION 2. The provisions of section one shall not apply to actions to recover damages for personal injuries sustained by domestic servants and farm laborers. SECTION 3. The provisions of section one shall not apply to actions to recover damages for personal injuries sustained by employees of a subscriber. SECTION 4. The provisions of sections one hundred and twentyseven 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 employees of a subscriber while this act is in effect. SECTION 5. An employee 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 employee shall not have given the said notice within thirty days of notice of such subscription. An employee 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. Acts of 1912, Chapter 666. The notices required by section five of Part I of said chapter seven hundred and fifty-one shall be given in such manner as the industrial accident board may approve. PART II. PAYMENTS. SECTION 1. If an employee who has not given notice of his claim Compensation of employee. 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. SECTION 2. If the employee is injured by reason of his serious and wilful misconduct, he shall not receive compensation. SECTION 3.1 If the employee is injured 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 employee. If a claim is made under this section the subscriber shall be allowed to appear and defend against such claim only. SECTION 4. No compensation shall be paid under this act for When comany injury which does not incapacitate the employee for a period begins. pensation 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. hospital serv SECTION 5.2 During the first two weeks after the injury, and, if Medical and the employee is not immediately incapacitated thereby from earn- ice. ing full wages, then from the time of such incapacity, and in unusual cases, in the discretion of the board, for a longer period, the association shall furnish reasonable medical and hospital services, and medicines, when they are needed. Where, in a case of emergency or for other justifiable cause, a physician other than the one provided by the association is called in to treat the injured employee, the reasonable cost of his services shall be paid by the association, subject to the approval of the industrial accident board. Such approval shall be granted only if the board finds that there was such justifiable cause and that the charge for the services is reasonable. SECTION 6.2 If death results from the injury, the association In case of shall pay the dependents of the employee, wholly dependent upon his earnings for support at the time of the injury, a weekly payment equal to sixty-six and two thirds per cent of his average weekly wages, but not more than ten dollars nor less than four dollars a 1 As amended by chapter 571, Acts of 1912. fatal injury. Dependency. week for a period of five hundred weeks from the date of the injury; but in no case shall the amount be more than four thousand dollars. If the employee leaves dependents only partially 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 employee 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 employee before his death, the compensation to dependents shall begin from the date of the last of such payments, but shall not continue more than five hundred weeks from the date of the injury. SECTION 7.1 The following persons shall be conclusively presumed to be wholly dependent for support upon a deceased employee: (a) A wife upon a husband with whom she lives at the time of his death, or from whom, at the time of his death, the industrial accident board shall find the wife was living apart for justifiable cause or because he had deserted her. The findings of the board upon the questions of such justifiable cause and desertion shall be final. (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: provided, that in the event of the death of an employee who has at the time of his death a living child or children by a former wife or husband, under the age of eighteen years, (or over said age, but physically or mentally incapacitated from earning,) said child or children shall be conclusively presumed to be wholly dependent for support upon such deceased employee, and the death benefit shall be divided between the surviving wife or husband and all the children of the deceased employee in equal shares, the surviving wife or husband taking the same share as a child. The total sum due the surviving wife or husband and her or his own children shall be paid directly to the wife or husband for her or his own use and for the benefit of her or his own children, and the sums due to the children by the former wife or husband of the deceased employee shall be paid to their guardians or legal representatives for the benefit of such children. 1 As amended by chapter 708, Acts of 1914. |