Yet it was said of that act in Keaney's Case, 217 Mass. 5, 7 — involving the employee of a farmer — that the act "was not intended to confer its advantages upon farm laborers, or to impose its burdens upon farmers." See also Young v. Duncan, 218 Mass. 346, 349. It might reasonably be thought that the statement of general purpose would be made more nearly accurate and less likely to mislead by excluding from such statement domestic servants and farm laborers than by impliedly including them therein under the same conditions as other employees.
Nevertheless the law has been held constitutional. Young v. Duncan, 218 Mass. 346, 351. Madden's Case, 222 Mass. 487, 497-498.
When called to decide the same matter coming before them as a court, the Justices are bound most sedulously to guard against any influence flowing from their previous consideration in their advisory capacity. Young v. Duncan, 218 Mass. 346, 351, and cases there collected. Perkins v. Westwood, 226 Mass. 268, 272, and cases collected.
The same result has been reached by the state courts generally. Opinion of Justices, 209 Mass. 607, 610; Young v. Duncan, 218 Mass. 346, 349; Hunter v. Colfax Coal Co., 175 Iowa 245, 287; Sayles v. Foley, 38 R.I. 484, 490-492. Similar reasoning may be applied to cotton gin laborers in Texas; indeed, it was applied to them by the supreme court of that State, as we have seen.
It is to be noted that with reference to such waiver the first sentence of § 24 has two distinct provisions: (1) an employee who contracts to work for an insured person shall be held to have waived his rights of action at common law to recover damages for personal injuries "if he shall not have given his employer, at the time of his contract of hire, written notice that he claimed such right"; (2) "if the contract of hire was made before the employer became an insured person" an employee is held to have made such waiver "if the employee shall not have given the said notice within thirty days of notice of such insurance" [italics ours]. In Young v. Duncan, 1914, 218 Mass. 346, 106 N.E. 1, the court attached significance to the differences in phraseology of these two provisions. It was dealing with the first situation, namely, where at the time of the contract of hire the employer was already insured under the Massachusetts act.
St. 1911, c. 751, Part I, § 5 (employees). See Young v. Duncan, 218 Mass. 346, 349 (1914). The act created incentives to induce both the employer and employee to avail themselves of its benefits.
Greem v. Cohen, 298 Mass. 439, 443, 11 N.E.2d 492, 494. See also Young v. Duncan, 218 Mass. 346, 349, 106 N.E. 1. With respect to the enforcement of an employee's common law rights when reserved by him, we find nothing in the bill that excludes trial by jury on any issue involved, including the issue whether the employer was insured. See Young v. Duncan, 218 Mass. 346, 348, 106 N.E. 1; Mountain Timber Co. v. Washington, 243 U.S. 219, 235, 37 S.Ct. 260, 61 L.Ed. 685.
The workmen's compensation act was passed in response to strong public sentiment that the remedies afforded by actions of tort at common law and under the employers' liability act were inadequate. Young v. Duncan, 218 Mass. 346, 349. While the workmen's compensation act did not compel employers to come under the new scheme of compensation, it manifested the purpose in its first section, now G.L. (Ter.
"The act is to be interpreted in the light of its purpose and, so far as reasonably may be, to promote the accomplishment of its beneficent design." Young v. Duncan, 218 Mass. 346, 348; 106 N.E. 1, 3. "The statute was the expression of what was regarded by the legislature as a wise public policy concerning injured employes.
Commonwealth v. Libbey, 216 Mass. 356, 358. Young v. Duncan, 218 Mass. 346, 353. Bogni v. Perotti, 224 Mass. 152, 157.