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Victorian Tort Liability For Workplace Injuries, Michael Ashley Stein

Faculty Publications

The first decision of an injured worker suing his master for a workplace accident was reported in 1837, the year of Queen Victoria's ascension. The second Workman's Compensation Act, a comprehensive social insurance scheme, was passed in 1900, a few months before her death. The Article provides an initial account of the development of employers' liability to their servants for work-related injuries during the Victorian era. It demonstrates that English judges, and especially the Barons of the Exchequer, interpreted the law to resist employers' liability. The means these judges used included creating the defence of common employment, widely applying the …