The Compensation Cost of Occupational Disease

The economic principle that loss of earning power properly attributable to employment should be borne by the consumers of the products is now quite generally accepted. To apply it to the indemnification of disease requires a careful definition of the hazard, if equitable compensation is to be realized with a minimum of litigation. Questions of contributory negligence of employee, assumption of risk, proof of fault of employer, the fellow servant rule, etc., no longer of any considerable moment in the plan of industrial accident indemnification, will probably never seriously affect disease compensation; and it is to be hoped that the problem will not always be unduly complicated by the present very real and exceptional difficulty of distinguishing bona fide occupational diseases from those not actually " arising out of and in the course of" the employment.