Ward & Gow v. Krinsky

1922-06-05

Headline: Court upheld New York law expanding workers’ compensation to cover employees in businesses with four or more manual workers, making employers liable for on‑the‑job injuries like a subway newsstand seller’s.

Holding: The Court upheld New York’s expansion of its workers’ compensation law to cover employees like a subway newsstand salesman whose on‑the‑job injury arose from employment and affirmed the compensation award against the employer.

Real World Impact:

Allows employees in businesses with four-plus manual workers to receive workers’ compensation.
Treats state court interpretation as controlling when reviewing constitutionality.
Makes employers liable to insure or post security for covered employees’ injuries.

Topics: workers' compensation, employment injuries, employer liability, state labor law, subway workplace safety

Summary

Background

The dispute involves an employer who ran newsstands and an employee, a subway newsstand salesman named Himan Krinsky, who was injured while emptying water from his booth onto the tracks. New York had added “group 45” to its workers’ compensation law, covering any business that regularly employs four or more manual workers or operatives. The State Industrial Commission awarded compensation, and state courts affirmed; the employer challenged the law as violating the Constitution’s fairness protections.

Reasoning

The Supreme Court examined whether the state law, as the New York courts had interpreted it, violated the Constitution’s guarantee of fair process and equal treatment. The Court accepted the state court’s reading that the law could reach workers like Krinsky when their injury arose out of and in the course of employment. The majority emphasized that the legislature had broad discretion to define groups of potentially hazardous businesses, pointed to administrative methods for setting premiums and security, and found the compensation award supported by the facts and not unreasonable under the Constitution.

Real world impact

Because the Court upheld the law, employers who run businesses that meet the statutory grouping can be required to carry insurance or post security and pay scheduled compensation when employees are hurt on the job, even if the injured worker’s duties seem comparatively non‑hazardous. The decision gives state legislatures and agencies room to classify and manage workplace risk by group and leaves factual disputes about on‑the‑job causation to administrative and state court factfinding.

Dissents or concurrances

A dissenting opinion argued the grouping was arbitrary: it warned that a clerk or salesman located far from manual workers could be swept into the law simply because the same employer also hired four manual workers elsewhere, challenging the fairness of that classification.