PHILLIPS LEE GOLDSBOROUGH, GOVERNOR. 1429
CHAPTER 800.

AN ACT to promote the general welfare of this State by pro-
viding compulsory insurance against accident or death of
workmen engaged in extra-hazardous employments in this
State, and providing for the form, kind and method of
such insurance and the incidents thereto; and providing
for the amounts of compensation payable thereunder and
the person or persons to whom such compensation is pay-
able; and providing for the creation of a State Industrial
Accident Commission and defining its powers; and pro-
viding for the creation of a State Accident Fund; and
providing for an appropriation to carry out the pro-
visions of this Act; and providing for the abolishment in
certain cases of the defenses of "Assumption of Risks,"
"Contributory Negligence" and the "Negligence of a
Fellow Servant" in actions for personal injury and death,
and to repeal Chapter 837 of the Acts of 1912, and to
repeal Chapter 139 of the Acts of 1902; Chapter 153 of
the Acts of 1910 as amended by the Acts of 1912, Chapter
445, and to provide for the equitable disposition of the
funds created by virtue of the said Acts of 1902, Chapter
139 and the Acts of 1910, Chapter 153.

Whereas, The State of Maryland recognizes that the prosecu-
tion of various industrial enterprises which must be relied upon
to create and preserve the wealth and prosperity of the State
involves injury to large numbers of workmen, resulting in their
partial or total incapacity or death, and that under the rules
of the common law and the provisions of the statutes now in
force an unequal burden is cast upon its citizens, and that in
determining the responsibility of the employer on account of
injuries sustained by his workmen, great and unnecessary cost
is now incurred in litigation, which cost is borne by the work-
men, the employers and the taxpayers, in part, in the main-
tenance of courts and juries to determine the question of res-
ponsibility under the law as it now exists; and

Whereas, in addition thereto, the State and its taxpayers are
subjected to a heavy burden in providing care and support for
such injured workmen and their dependents, which burden
should, in so far as may be consistent with the rights and obli-
gations of the people of the State, be more fairly distributed as
in this Act provided; and