OHS 208 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Contributory Negligence, The Employer, Procedural Law
4 Mar 2017
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Document Summary
It was the inability of the common law to compensate injured workers and their families which led to the imposition of state-run, no-fault insurance systems in many jurisdictions at the beginning of the 20th century. While few workers are allowed to sue (workers" compensation legislation prohibits such lawsuits), we see that the common law lives on in such rare cases. Indeed, the common law of ohs has lived on in the u. k. , where workers" compensation reform left the option open for workers to sue. Many of the defences an employer could deploy against a worker in the 19th century have disappeared or have been modified. In the 19th century, when a worker was injured on the job, he or she could sue the employer for damages. This would be characterized as a common law action. The cause of action would usually be in tort the tort of negligence.
