285 N.W. 893 | Minn. | 1939
Lead Opinion
Thus the employe, prior to 1913, had a common-law action which § 33 of the compensation act took from him and which the quoted amendment restored in part. No other state has such a provision as that incorporated in this amendment, and it was left to this court to interpret its provisions, which especially in the case of subd. (b) are rather vague and uncertain. The legislative history of c. 279 throws no light whatever upon the purposes of the legislature or the extent to which it sought to restore to the employe his common-law right of action. It may be that it intended that his common-law right of action should only be eliminated in situations like those where contractors and subcontractors are engaged on the same project and their employes exposed to the hazards created by such mutual engagements. But our decisions have gone much further than that in depriving the employe of his common-law right of action, and there have been numerous sessions of the legislature since those decisions and no amendment of the law as so interpreted has been made. It would serve no useful purpose here to review all of the cases where this provision of the statute has been under consideration. Most, if not all, of them were cited in Smith v. Kedney Warehouse Co. Inc.
Judgment reversed.
Dissenting Opinion
I dissent. In my opinion the situation is nearly the same as in Seidel v. Nicollet Ave. Properties Corp.
Dissenting Opinion
I concur in the views of Mr. Justice Holt.
MR. JUSTICE HILTON, incapacitated by illness, took no part. *256