The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1911-06-20
STATE Is TO HELP
VIII Look After Appeal in the
Levin Case.
Purpose Is to Defeat the Ruling
of Kansas Court.
FIXED A NEW RULE.
Established Liability of Owners
of Factories.
Woman Sued for the Death of
Her Husband.

Governor Stubs VIII instruct the at
torney general to aid Mrs. Caspar of
Wyandctte county in her effort to col
lect from the Levin company a judy
ment of $1,000 received in the lower
court and affirmed by me supreme
court of this state in the famous
Burch opinion. The Levin company
appealed the case to the United States
supreme court and the widow has not
the means to carry the case to the
court of last resort. Mrs. Caspar's
husband was killed something over a
year ago While operating a piece of
machinery in the Levin factory I'M
protected by belt sheathing. The &C
ton for damages was brought under
the compensation act.
Labor Commissioner w. L. A. Johns
ton had the case brought to his atten-
ton and he wrote a letter to the gov
ernor appealing to him to assist in up
holding the constitutionality of the
Kansas law in the interest Of work
| ingmen, which would be endangered
should the widow fail to appear in the
higher courts to answer the appeal.
Her attorneys, Angevine, Cubbison and
Holt of Kansas City, Kan, have offered
to assist the attorney general with
out compensation. The only expenses
to the state will be the cost of brief
ing the case and guaranty of costs of
appeal.
The decision in the Caspar VS.. Levin
case, written by Justice R. A. Burch,
attracted attention all over the coun-
try at the time it was handed down
last June. 1t placed a new and more
liberal construction on the copmon
law. It opposed the rulings of the
New York supreme courts in similar
cases. It was a mighty lift for the
cause of the man who works among
dangerous machinery.
The Burch Decision.
In his decision Justice Burch said:
! Common experience, everywhere, reg
istered in tables of gruesome statistics,
/ afford fresh demonstrations every day
of the inadeQuacy of the common law
doctrine of reasonable care to provide
places and instrumentalities reasonably
safe against foreseeable occurrences to
meet the situation of men, women and
| children who must manipulate and
must work in the midst of mechanical
products of modern inventive genius.
But when the legislature interven -
and makes the positive requirement
that specific safeguards shall be main
! tained the statute is too often treated
as legal superfluity, and cases are de-
cided according to the same old rules.
THE liberty of capital to conduct its
own business in its own way does not
include the right to inflict the cruelties
which have invariably characterized
! Industrial progress. The liberty of the
wage Garner to contract for extra pay
for extra hazard and to seek some other
employment If he does not like his
masters methods is q myth of, as has
been said, a neartless mockery. The
man and the machine at which he
works should be recos nized as substan-
TALLY one piece Of mechanism, and
mishapS TO either ought to be repaired
and charged to the cost of mainten-
ance. The courts cannot abolish the
old rules and adopt others which shall
suit existing facts and remedy exist
| ing evils. That must be done by the
! legislature. But when taroy statutes
are promulgated the courts should in
terpret them as favorably as their
terms will allow and not proceed to
shackle them with the discredited COM
mon law manacles.''
Goes to Highest Court
It was the Kansas supreme court de-
| cision in this celebrated case as writ
ten by Justice Burch that led the last
corporate its doctrines in the state
4 platform under the caption of the la
bility act.
In appealing this case to the United
States supreme court the factory own
| ers seek TO destroy a statute in the in
terest of the factory hand The i'm
portance of the final outcome of this
case is great. The effort of the gov
ernor to defend the law with all the
resources of the state will be generally
| regarded as well done.
The Kansas supreme court decision
as written by Justice Rurch attracted
attention all over the country. It was
regarded as a remarkable document
It reared a buIwark in front of tha
man who risked his life in the dis
charge Of his duty and was calculated
| to secure for this workman all the
safeguards possible to protect him
from injury or death. Justice Burch
received letters OF praise and tribute
! from jurists, editors government Of
ficials and friends of labor all over the
United States. The fate of this case
! in the United States supreme court
will be watched with interest in all
quarters.