CHAPTER VIII.

REPORTING OF ACCIDENTS.

INTRODUCTION.

Accurate and full information of the character and causes of factory accidents is the material sought by legislators and factory inspectors in their efforts to prevent such accidents. Without such information intelligent and pertinent laws can not be framed nor can the inspection department exercise its influence and authority in the most direct and effective ways.

With this end in view, 10 of the 17 States covered by this report provide by law for the public reporting of factory accidents. These 10 are: Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Louisiana. In 1 of these, Louisiana, the law applies only to establishments employing children under 18 years of age, or women. In the remaining StatesMaine, Michigan, Maryland, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida-no such reporting is required.'

Important differences exist among the accident-reporting requirements of the 10 States having such requirements. These differences may be shown by a brief consideration of the several legal provisions upon the following points: (1) By whom and to whom reports are to be made; (2) kinds of accidents to be reported; and (3) period within which reports are to be forwarded.

Upon the first of these points the laws of 9 of the 10 States considered are alike in requiring accidents to be reported by the individual employer to the State factory inspector or other official with analogous functions. The 1 State which is exceptional in this respect is Wisconsin. Here the law does not require accident reports from employers, but orders simply that every physician and surgeon in the State shall report to the local registrar of vital statistics accidents to persons whom they are called upon professionally to treat.

As regards the second point-kinds of accidents to be reportedthe laws of the 10 States under consideration agree in directing that all fatal accidents be reported. But they do not agree as to accidents resulting in injuries not of a fatal character. The object of an

1 Connecticut was added to this list shortly after the field work was completed in that State. See p. 365.

2 The law here referred to is as in force at the time of the investigation, December, 1908, to April, 1909. The text of the laws in force Jan. 1, 1912, is given in the appendixes at the end of this volume.

accident-reporting law is fulfilled when all accidents causing injuries of a reasonably serious nature are reported. Difficulty arises, however, when an attempt is made to define the terms "serious" or "reasonably serious." To avoid this difficulty 2 States-New York and Indiana-require all accidents, however slight the resulting injuries, to be reported. The Pennsylvania law orders "serious" accidents to be reported, leaving the definition of the term "serious" to the factory inspection department, and Ohio places a similar responsibility upon the factory inspector by the use of the phrase "serious accident resulting in bodily injury." Each of the remaining 6 States under review measures the seriousness of an injury by the period of incapacitation, and provides that only those accidents shall be reported which either have a fatal result or cause the sufferer to be incapacitated from work for a certain period. Illinois fixes this period at 30 days; Rhode Island, New Jersey, Louisiana, and Wisconsin at 2 weeks; and Massachusetts at 4 days.

Of even less uniformity are the laws of the 10 States under review as regards the third of the mentioned points-the period in which accidents are to be reported. The Massachusetts law requires reports to be made "forthwith." Pennsylvania allows 24 hours, and New York and Indiana 48 hours for all reports to be made. New Jersey requires fatal accidents to be reported within 24 hours, but allows 4 weeks and a day for nonfatal accidents. In similar manner, Rhode Island orders fatal accidents to be reported within 48 hours, but allows 3 weeks for those of a nonfatal character, and in Ohio 7 days are allowed for the reporting of fatal accidents and 30 for those of a nonfatal character. In Illinois and Wisconsin no reports need be made in less than 30 days and the Louisiana law requires semiannual reports only.

In the following pages of this chapter are given for each of the 17 States covered, first, a statement of the law, if any, regarding accident reporting; second, a condensed statement of such information regarding the frequency and character of accidents as is available in the reports and records of the State; and, third, a statement of such data regarding accidents and accident reporting as were obtained by personal visits to the several establishments.

The information of the last of the three-mentioned classes is very incomplete. Effort was made in each of the visited establishments to ascertain the number of accidents resulting in injuries to employees that had occurred during the preceding year, and, if the establishment was in a State in which accident reporting was required, the extent to which such accidents had been reported. Many establishments, however, had no records of accidents, and in others the records were incomplete or unreliable. The information obtained is, therefore, too incomplete to be of much value.

A full statement of the conditions found in each establishment is given in Chapter XI, General Tables, of this volume.

MAINE.

There was, at the time of this investigation, no law of Maine requiring the reporting of accidents to the State. The commissioner of industrial and labor statistics favors such a law. In his report for 1908 he says:

We recommend the enactment of a law requiring a report of all accidents, fatal or otherwise, to employees in any industrial or other establishment where labor may be employed, be made to the bureau of industrial and labor statistics, the same to be tabulated and made a part of the annual report of the labor department."

CONDITIONS FOUND.

Accidents causing injury to employees were recorded as having occurred during the year previous by 6 of the 26 establishments visited, the total number of such accidents being 12.

MASSACHUSETTS.

SUMMARY OF LEGISLATION.1

By the law of Massachusetts all accidents causing death or four days' loss of time must be reported to the factory-inspection department [the district police]. The provision in detail is as follows: 3

*

All manufacturers, manufacturing corporations, and proprietors of mercantile establishments shall forthwith send to the chief of the district police a written notice of any accident to an employee while at work in any * * establishment operated by them, if the accident results in * death * * * or in such bodily injury as to prevent * returning to his work within four days thereafter. The chief of the district police shall * * [acknowledge receipt of notice] and he shall keep a record of all accidents so reported to him, of the name of the person injured, of the city or town in which the accident occurred and the cause thereof, and shall include an abstract of said record in his annual report. * * *

Penalty. Not more than $20.

*

The following table shows for the years 1905, 1906, 1907, and 1908 the number of accidents, fatal and not fatal, and the principal causes of such accidents, as reported to the district police and as presented in the annual reports of that department. The report for 1908 covers only 11 months, December 1, 1907, to November 1, 1908. The industries in which the accidents occurred are not shown in these reports.

1 The law here referred to is as in force at the time of the investigation, January, 1909, in Maine, and Dccember, 1908, to February, 1909, in Massachusetts, The text of the laws in force Jan. 1, 1912, is given in the appendixes at the end of this volume.

2 Twenty-second Annual Report of the Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics, Maine, 1908, p. vii.

* Rev. Laws, 1902, ch. 106, sec. 17 (22d An. Rept. Com. of Labor, p. 594).

NUMBER OF INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENTS REPORTED TO THE DISTRICT POLICE OF MASSACHUSETTS, BY CAUSES, 1905 TO 1908.

[Compiled from Annual Reports of the Chief of the Massachusetts District Police: 1905 pp. 95, 96, 99, 100, 1906, pp. 107, 108, 113, 114; 1907, pp. 109, 110, 115, 116; 1908, p. 152.]

The report for 1908 explains that of the 2,050 accidents occurring during the 11 months reported upon, "42 were fatal, 470 were serious in their nature, and 1,538 were classified as 'slight injuries.'"'1 This distribution between serious and slight injuries is not shown in the earlier reports.

The report for 1908 also makes the following statement:

*

*

Of the total number [of accidents], there were 731 arising from causes other than in the operation of machinery, constituting more than 35 per cent of the entire number reported, and it is assumed that such cases are not of the class to which the law applies. * The fact that such accidents * * * are so promptly reported by manufacturers and others, although there would seem to be no legal requirements for so reporting them, would seem to show a desire and intent on the part of those interested to observe the provisions of the law in its broadest sense rather than in any degree to violate any of such provisions.

The chief of the district police explains his attitude toward the investigation of reported accidents as follows:

An investigation is made by an inspector of this department in each case of fatal accident reported, as well as in each case where such an investigation is deemed necessary by the nature and condition reported, in order to ascertain if more adequate means of protection can be

1 Report of the Chief of the Massachusetts District Police for the year ending Dec. 31, 1908, p. 149.

applied to insure against the possibility of the recurrence of such accidents.1

CONDITIONS found.

In 18 of the 44 establishments visited, accidents causing injury to employees were recorded as having occurred during the preceding year, the total number of such accidents being 238. In 2 of these 18 establishments none of the accidents, 4 in total, had caused as much as 4 days' loss of time, and thus reporting to the State was not necessary. By 5 of the remaining 16 establishments such reporting to the State had been done, and had not been done by 2, satisfactory information on this point not being obtained from the other 9.

RHODE ISLAND.

SUMMARY OF LEGISLATION."

The law of Rhode Island requires fatal accidents and those incapacitating the injured party for two weeks or more to be reported to the factory inspector. The provision in full is as follows: 3

It shall be the duty of the owner or superintendent [of establishments employing 5 or more persons or any child under 16 years of age] to report in writing to the factory inspectors all fatal accidents within 48 hours after their occurrence; all accidents which prevent the injured person or persons from returning to work within 2 weeks after the injury shall, within 1 week after the expiration of such 2 weeks, be reported in writing by the person in charge of such establishment or place to the said inspectors, stating as fully as possible the cause of such accidents.

Penalty. Not more than $500.

The form used by the factory-inspection department for accident reports is as follows:

STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.

1 Report of the Chief of the Massachusetts District Police for the year ending Dec. 31, 1908, pp. 151, 152.

2 The law here referred to is as in force at the time of the investigation, December, 1908, to February, 1909. The text of the laws in force Jan. 1, 1912, is given in the appendixes at the end of this volume.

Gen. Laws 1896, ch. 68, secs. 7 and 12, as amended by ch. 1215, enacted 1905 (22d An. Rept. Com. of Labor, p. 1209). And see sec. 2 for establishments affected by law. 49450°-S. Doc. 645, 61-2, vol 19-23