premium paid unless it can be inferred from the language used in section 100 in connection with the power which has been granted to the commission under section 67 of the Workmen's Compensation Law (chapter 41, Laws of 1914, as amended) which provides that the commission shall make reasonable rules not inconsistent with this chapter regulating and providing for I carrying into effect the provisions of this chapter," or regulating and providing for "the collection, maintenance and disbursement of the state insurance fund."

Section 53 in providing for the payment of premiums into the State Fund and thereby relieving the employer from all liability for injuries to his employees seems to assume that the payment of premiums is the only payment required.

Section 90 sets forth the elements which go to make up the fund and does not mention assessments.

Section 92 provides for setting aside, from the premiums, a surplus and reserve to cover catastrophies and anticipated losses and to carry all claims and policies to maturity. There is no language here to indicate any further requirement as to assessment.

Section 94 provides for charging the administrative expense later to insurance carriers including the State Fund, but no mention is made of assessing employers insuring in either.

Section 95 permits the commission to adjust premiums, but there is no indication that this does not relate entirely to future policies. It would violate the obligations of a contract, if otherwise, and would be unconstitutional. It further requires the commission to fix the rates of premium so as to keep the fund solvent and create a reasonable surplus and reserve. Section 97 further adds requirements as to adjusting the premium rates in accordance with loss ratios in various groups but additional assessments are not mentioned.

The same section provides machinery for dividing and crediting an aggregate balance above what is necessary for adequate surplus and reserve so as to give the employer the benefit of it on his next premium. There is no mention made in this section, however, as to an assessment being levied to provide for a deficiency.

Provision is also made in this section for an adjustment of the amount of premium at the end of the six months' period when the actual amount is determined in accordance with actual wage expenditure but this is not an assessment within the meaning of section 100.

Section 99 in providing for action for the collection of payments required by the commission has no application in the absence of further express authorization, in the statute, of the commission to require payments other than the regular premiums.

I have not seen any form of contract or policy in connection with insurance in the State Fund. I presume, however, in view of the resolution of the commission of May 23d, in which the commission states it to be its belief that it has no power to assess any policyholder, that there is no contract provision in existing policies requiring the payment of such assessments.

The question remains whether liability to assessments being recognized as existing in section 100, the commission has power to make regulations to

cover the case either on the theory that it is "carrying into effect the provisions of this chapter," or on the theory that it is part of the "collection, maintenance and disbursement of the state insurance fund."

I do not believe that it can be said that the Legislature has provided for the levying of an assessment on policyholders in the State Fund when we find that the only mention of it is in a section permitting an employer at the expiration of his policy to take out one of the other recognized forms of insurance. It may be that this provision in section 100, dealing with assessments, was placed in that section with the expectation that machinery would be provided elsewhere for the levying of such an assessment or that at the time it was inserted there was actually in the bill being drafted a suitable provision for the levying of such an assessment which was subsequently removed.

If the statute had somewhere expressly granted to the commission the power to levy an assessment for the benefit of the State Fund, instead of incidentally referring to it as an existing power, then the provisions of section 67, authorizing the commission to make rules to carry into effect the provisions of this chapter could be applied. "I believe the courts would be reluctant to approve of a delegation of legislative power to the commission to determine not only the machinery for the levy of the assessment, but the limitations of the assessment itself, where no such assessment was directly authorized."

Neither do I believe that the commission has power to cover this case under subdivision 9 of section 67 permitting it to make regulations providing for "collection, maintenance and disbursement of the state insurance fund," for the same reasons.

Dated, July 16, 1915.

EGBURT E. WOODBURY,

Attorney-General.

TO LUCAS & DAKE Co.,

General Agents, Aetna Life Ins. Co.,

Rochester, N. Y.

Part XI

LAWS, RULES, AND REGULATIONS RELATING TO LABOR IN FORCE JANUARY 1, 1916

COMPILED BY THE BUREAU OF STATISTICS AND INFORMATION

EXPLANATORY NOTE

In this compilation are included all the laws in force relating to labor, with amendments to July 1, 1915. The laws are arranged in two groups. The first includes those labor laws which are administered by the present Department of Labor, comprising the general Labor Law, the Industrial Code (which is made up of the rules and regulations of the former Industrial Board, now succeeded by the Industrial Commission) and the Workmen's Compensation Law, together with penal law provisions relating to the two former. In addition to those there are a number of other laws which directly or indirectly affect labor and these are given, classified by subjects, in a second group.

The text of laws is given as in the Consolidated Laws of 1909 and succeeding years, as amended. References are given to all such amendments. For references to the sources, both original acts and amendments, of the various provisions as enacted in the Consolidated Laws, see a similar compilation in the Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor for 1909 (Appendix VI).

In notes are given cross references to laws, and references to court decisions or opinions of the Attorney-General construing the laws. The latter may be found in the reports of the Attorney-General or in the reports of the Commissioner of Labor for the years indicated.

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