Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1897-02-18
From jefferson City.

Ed ReqiSter-The first bill that sue
| cessfully passed all of the stages OF
| legislation and has become a law, is
one which is called the railroad fellow
servants law.
The history of this law and the re-
cital of the circumstances which have
| demanded its enactment. will be in
teresting If not instructive. This law
| declares who are fellow servants and
defines the liabilities of railroad cor
poration to their employees. The ne
cessity for such law has been appar-
ent for more than twenty years, and
many efforts have been made during
the period to enact something salts
factory on the statutes of this State.
But for various reasons, each previous
assembly has failed to do so. The
rulings of the higher courts in this
State, as well as in others where no
such law exists, have declared that
fellow servants are all of the employ
ees of a corporation, except the vice
principals, without respect to the ma
ture of their duties or the possibility
tot acquaintance. The law as just
passed is a complete copy of the bill
which was introduced at the last leg
islature at the regular session, but the
amendments which were added to it
destroyed its original intention. At
the extra session which was called to
consider fellow servants legislation
this same bill passed the house, but
was defeated in the senate.
This bill was carefully drawn and
had the approval of the friends of this
kind of legislation. as well as that of
the class of persons who are directly
effected by this law, and who as dis
tict organizations have repeatedly ask
ed for some protection in, this particu-
lar direction.
This kind of law has been demand
ed by the railroad employees of the
State, aud there are about twenty-six
thousand of them. They claim that
the welfare and protection of the State
ought to give to their class some de-
cided laws on this line. The court
ruling that the master is not liable to
an employee, for the results of the
negligence of fellow servant, had its
origin back in the common law, which |
was one of our heritages from Eng
land. 1t had its beginning and be- |
came Incorporated into the law long |
before a mile of railroad had been |
built on either continent.
In those times employers or corpor- |
ations did not employ men as they do |
now. A railroad company now may |
have men employed on line that ex-
tends across the continent and nearly |
all of them are declared by law to be
fellow servants. At the time of the |
first decisions on this subject, fellow
servants generally worked together in
companies or gangs, and they had OPP
portunity to know whether those with
whom they worked were careless or
they we're able to know
the danger to which they were expos
ed and as a natural consequence could
protect themselves by the exercise of
ordinary attention for self preserva-
ton. AS the existing law has been
defined, an employee cannot recover
damages for either injury or death
which may have resulted to him, from
accident which has occurred, notwith
standing the fact that he had no &C
uuaiutance with nor ability to observe
the actions of a fellow employees,
either in his own surroundings or at
thousand miles distance.
A railroad company would not be
held responsible for damages to en-
Dloyees. which may have happened
through negligence, carelessness, in
or visciousness, even If
1ne employee was occupied at a differ
snt kind of work, or at the remotest
point of the system.
The greater majority OF the railroad
employees are defined by our laws to
De fellow servants while the lesser
are considered vice princi-
pals. The only feature of statutory
ellow servant law that has ever been
in this State was passed In
1850, and the evident intention of the
legislature was to make it applicable
when death resulted from injury. The