Court Opinion

ID: 9418381
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:24:14.346634+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:02.439096
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Holmes
concurring.1
The plaintiff (the defendant in error) was employed in the defendant’s mine, was hurt in the eye in consequence of opening a compressed air valve and brought the present suit. The injury was found to have been due to risks inherent, to the business and so was within the Employers’ Liability Law of Arizona, Rev. Stats. 1913, Title 14, c. 6. By that law as construed the employer is liable to damages for injuries due to such risks in specified hazardous employments when guilty of no negligence. Par. 3158. There was a verdict for the plaintiff, judgment was affirmed by the Supreme Court of the State, 19 Arizona, 151, and the case comes here on the single question whether, consistently with the Fourteenth Amendment, such liability can be imposed. It is taken to exclude “speculative, exemplary and punitive damages,” but to include all loss to the employee caused by the accident, not merely in the Vc.y of earning capacity, but of disfigurement and bodily-or mental pain. See Arizona Copper Co. v. Burciaga, 177 Pac. Rep. 29, 33.
There is some argument made for the general proposi*432tion that immunity from liability when not in fault is a right inherent in free government and the obiter dicta of Mr. Justice Miller in [Citizens’ Savings &] Loan Association v. Topeka, 20 Wall. 655, are referred to. But if it is thought to be public policy to put certain voluntary conduct at the peril of those pursuing it, whether in the interest of safety or upon economic or other grounds, I know of nothing to hinder. A man employs a servant at the peril of what that servant may do in the course of his employment and there is nothing in the Constitution to limit the principle to that instance. St. Louis & San Francisco Ry. Co. v. Mathews, 165 U. S. 1, 22. Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Ry. Co. v. Zernecke, 183 U. S. 582, 586. St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Ry. Co. v. Taylor, 210 U. S. 281, 295. See Guy v. Donald, 203 U. S. 399, 406. There are cases in which even the criminal law requires a man to know facts at his peril. Indeed, the criterion which is thought to be free from constitutional objection, the criterion of fault, is the application of an external standard, the conduct of a prudent man in the .known circumstances, that is, in doubtful cases, the opinion of the jury, which the defendant has to satisfy at his peril and which he may miss after giving the matter his best thought. The Germanic, 196 U. S. 589, 596. Nash v. United States, 229 U. S. 373, 377. Eastern States Retail Lumber Dealers’ Association v. United States, 234 U. S. 600, 610. Miller v. Strahl, 239 U. S. 426, 434. Without further amplification so much may be taken to be established by the decisions. New York Central R. R. Co. v. White, 243 U. S. 188, 198, 204. Mountain Timber Co. v. Washington, 243 U. S. 219, 336.
I do not perceive how the validity of the law is affected by the fact that the employee is a party to the venture. There is no more certain way of securing attention to the safety of the men, an unquestionably constitutional object of legislation, than by^ holding the employer liable *433for accidents. Like the crimes to which I have referred they probably will happen a good deal less often when the employer knows that he must answer for them if they do. I pass, therefore, to the other objection urged and most strongly pressed. It is that the damages are governed by the rules governing in action of tort — that is, as we have said, that they may include disfigurement and bodily or mental pain. Natural observations are made on the tendency of juries when such elements are allowed. But if it is proper to allow them of course no objection can be founded on the supposed foibles of the tribunal that the Constitution of the United States and the States have established. Why then, is it not proper to allow them? It is said that the pain cannot be shifted to another. Neither can the loss of a leg. But one can be paid for as well as the other. It is said that these elements do not constitute an economic loss, in the sense of diminished power to produce. They may. Ball v. William Hunt & Sons, Ltd., [1912], A. C. 496. But whether they do or not they are as much part of the workman’s loss as the loss of a limb. The legislature may have reasoned thus. If a business is unsuccessful it means that the public does not care enough for it to make it pay. If it is successful the public pays its expenses and something more. It is reasonable that the public should pay the whole cost of producing what it wants and a part of that cost is the pain and mutilation incident to production. By throwing that loss upon the employer in the first instance we throw it .upon the public in the long run and that is just. If a legislature should reason in this way and act accordingly it seems to me that it is within constitutional bounds. Erickson v. Preuss, 223 N. Y. 365. It is said that the liability is unlimited, but this is not true. It is limited to a conscientious valuation of the loss suffered. Apart from the control exercised by the judge it is to be hoped that juries would realize that unreasonable verdicts would tend to *434make the business impossible and thus tó injure those whom they might wish to help. But whatever they may do we must accept the tribunal, as I have said, and are bound to assume that they will act rightly and confine themselves to the proper scope of the law.
It is not urged that the provision allowing twelve per cent, interest on the amount of the judgment from the date of filing the suit, in case of an unsuccessful appeal, is void. Fidelity Mutual Life Association v. Mettler, 185 U. S. 308, 325-327. Consaul v. Cummings, 222 U. S. 262, 272.
Mr. Justice Brandéis and Mr. Justice Clarke concur in this statement of additional reasons that lead me' to agree with the opinion just delivered by my brother Pitney.

 This concurring opinion was delivered in one of the five cases, viz, No. 332, Inspiration Consolidated Copper Company v. Mendez.