children of the deceased employee above named. The facts, so far as material to the question at issue, are as follows: Emil T. Bloom was employed by the firm of Tillin & Bleek, which firm, prior to the date of the accident, had given security for the payment of com. pensation by insuring with the Aetna Life Insurance Company. He was injured on March 24, 1915, and died on March 28, 1915. In passing upon the claim for compensation notice of hearing was sent to the employer and also to the insurance carrier. Upon the hearing the insurance carrier contended that the policy in question had been cancelled for non-payment of the premium. The employer contended that the premium had been paid and that notice of cancellation had never been received. Has the State Industrial Commission jurisdiction to determine whether the policy above mentioned has been cancelled? Has the State Industrial Commission jurisdiction to make an award of compensation directly against the insurance carrier, as well as against the employer? In what manner should the State Industrial Commission pursue its right of recourse against the insurance carrier under subdivision 1 of section 54 of the Workmen's Compensation Law? The Commission is frequently confronted with questions somewhat similar to the above, where the insurance carrier contends that its policy is not operative as to the accident in question, and the Commission would be glad to have your opinion upon the question above mentioned and any other views which you may care to give, indicating in what manner the rights, as between the injured workman, his employer and the insurance carrier may be definitely determined. If you desire, the writer will be glad to talk the matter over with you. Very respectfully, STATE INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION, JEREMIAH F. CONNOR, Counsel. August 16, 1915. ་ Claim 74190; Emil T. Bloom, deceased. HON. J. F. CONNOR, Counsel, State Industrial Commission, 1 Madison Avenue, New York City: DEAR SIR. In reply to your letter of the 13th instant and in reply to the questions therein set forth, would say that in my opinion the State Industrial Commission has jurisdiction to determine whether the policy has been cancelled inasmuch as it is provided under section 20 that "the Commission shall have full power and authority to determine all questions in relation to payment of claims for compensation under the provisions of this chapter", and also, it is provided under subdivision 5 of section 54 that "no contract of insurance shall be cancelled until at least ten days' notice of intention to cancel such contract shall be filed in the office of the Commission ", and from your letter I do not glean that any such notice had been filed in your office. As to the second question, I think the State Industrial Commission has jurisdiction to make the award directly against the insurance carrier under subdivision 1 of section 54, as I assume that the policy in question had the clause therein stated of the right of the Commission to enforce the policy. As to the third question, I think the State Industrial Commission after making the award, if it is not paid, can bring suit to recover the same with the penalty as provided in section 26. Very truly yours, E. E. WOODBURY, Amendments of Workmen's Compensation Law, § 54, subd. 5, effected by L. 1916, ch. 622, apply the requirement of notice to the Commission and the employer to insurance carriers instead of to stock companies or mutual associations and make such notice a notice, not of intention to cancel, but of actual cancellation. They also add a proviso that "the right of cancellation of a policy of insurance in the state fund shall be exercised only for non-payment of premiums." PROCEDURE AND EVIDENCE (Workmen's Compensation Law, §§ 23, 67, 68) A. New rules requisite. The rules of procedure in workmen's compensation cases must grow out of the nature and purposes of the Workmen's Compensation Law. The simple workmen's compensation plan having been adopted as a relief from the intricate and uncertain employers' liability system, the technical rules that have grown up around the employers' liability system must depart with it and new rules must develop that will harmonize with the compensation concept. In recognition of this necessity, the Workmen's Compensation Law gives the State Industrial Commission rule-making powers relative to notices, evidence, hearings, etc., emancipates it from "common law or statutory rules of evidence" and "technical or formal rules of procedure" and provides that appeals from its decisions shall be summarily heard in the courts. The Appellate Division set forth and applied this principle in its reversal of a decision of the State Industrial Commission which denied compensation to an employee on the ground that he was an independent contractor. The court declared: The Workmen's Compensation Law must in fairness be deemed to have been enacted in furtherance of a legislative determination, enforced by explicit mandate of the people through amendment of the State Constitution (Art. 1, § 19), that a new and different scheme and basis of indemnity for industrial accidents should be adopted in this State, in the light of the social experience of other commonwealths and countries. Injuries sustained by those who perform the manual and mechanical tasks of an industry must be deemed to have been intended by this statute to be made a social risk, a liability of the industry, a charge upon the production cost of the article manufactured or the service rendered. Hitherto the rule of our statute and fundamental law had been that any right of recovery for industrial accidents must arise from a breach of the master's duty as to care and safeguards, and accordingly was limited by whatever contractual relation existed between the person injured and the person whose breach of duty was the efficient cause of injury. For this historic concept of liability springing from omission of legal duty created by contractual relation there has been substituted an application of the social principle that, regardless of duty and regardless of fault, the expenses and loss of earnings resultant from occupational injury to a workman engaged in carrying on an inherently hazardous business or avocation of an employer should be paid in the first instance by the employer and by him made a charge against the operating costs of the business. In place of the traditional juristic rule that the master must respond in damages when his servant is injured through the master's fault, and that otherwise the servant must go unrecompensed and the loss be borne by him alone, the people and Legislature have now put in force the changed concept that the trade product should be charged with all consequences of inherent trade hazards, and that losses to individual workers through disability while engaged in the service of the proprietor of the business should be distributed among all its consumers or patrons, rather than left to operate ruinously against the disabled employee or the solitary employer. This mandate of the fundamental will of the people of this State should be remediably applied and beneficially enforced by the State Workmen's Compensation Commission and by the courts, in fair fulfillment of the legislative purpose, and ought not now to be hampered or crippled by continued application of definitions, concepts and rules of liability which indubitably produced in large part the very conditions of hardship for which the present statute was designed as comprehensive relief. Rheinwald v. Builders' Brick and Supply Co., 168 App. Div. 425, May 14, 1915. B. Right to cross-examine.— The Appellate Division reversed and remanded an award where the insurance carrier bad been denied an opportunity to cross-examine the claimant: Ramsey v. Fairbanks-Morse & Co., 171 App. Div. 959, November, 1915.* The Appellate C. Court procedure simple and expeditious. Division further recognized the new order as applicable to appeals and to the procedure of workmen's compensation cases in the courts as well as in the Commission. It denied the necessity of filing exceptions or of stating the grounds of appeal in the notice. The Court said: There is no provision of the statute or rule of this court requiring the filing of exceptions, or, as in England and in some of the States, that the grounds of appeal be stated in the notice of appeal; but it was intended that the procedure both before the Commission and in this court should be simple and without unnecessary delay or useless formality; and that until otherwise provided, the appeal to this court should bring up the whole case, to be heard upon the record of the Commission and the briefs and arguments submitted by the respective parties. Kenny v. Union Railway Co., 166 App. Div. 497, Mar. 3, 1915. But the most noteworthy instance of the court's recognition and interpretation of the new methods has to do with the subjects of court review and evidence. Section 20 of the Workmen's Com*Connor's " Employers' Liability, Workmen's Compensation and Liability Insurance," p. 133. pensation Law makes the State Industrial Commission's decisions "final as to all questions of fact." Section 67 empowers the Commission to make its own rules of evidence and procedure, provided only that they shall be reasonable and shall be consistent with the Workmen's Compensation Law. Section 68 declares that the Commission's investigations, inquiries or hearings "shall not be bound by common law or statutory rules of evidence or by technical or formal rules of procedure." D. Courts precluded from review of evidence. In a case decided May 5, 1915, the appellant employer argued "that there was no evidence sustaining the award and that therefore there was an error of law" but the Appellate Division unanimously affirmed the award upon the ground that the employer had had fair treatment in the matter of evidence and that it was precluded by Section 20 of the Workmen's Compensation Law from considering the Commission's decision further. The opinion was as follows: KELLOGG, J.: The Commission finds as a matter of fact that the claimant was disabled for the time allowed. The only question raised by appellants is that the evidence does not sustain that finding. The claimant was injured July 8, 1914, and the Commission, October nineteenth, awarded him compensation for three weeks at seven dollars and sixtynine cents a week, the total allowance being twenty-three dollars and seven cents, the employment falling under group 21 of section 2 of the Workmen's Compensation Law (Consol. Laws, chap. 67; Laws of 1914, chap. 41). On November 2, 1914, the matter again came before the Commission and an award was made of eleven additional weeks at the same rate per week from August 12, 1914, to October 27, 1914. Upon the first hearing the evidence of the physicians indicated that he was not injured as much as he thought he was. After the award he returned to the foundry and, entering the dark room, as he claims, was unable to see; there seemed a smoke over his eye to such an extent that he could not work. He appeared personally before the Commission. The appellants claim that the evidence of the physicians upon the first hearing showed clearly that the injury was only temporary, and that his story upon the second hearing was not true. That was a question of fact for the Commission to determine. Section 20 of the act declares that the decision of the Commission shall be final upon all questions of fact. The appellants now contend that there was no evidence sustaining the award, and that, therefore, there was an error of law. But the claimant was before the Commission, was examined personally and gave his testimony. It was justified in the award if it believed him. The evidence against him was that of the two experts upon the former hearing. The Commission considered that the claimant was not unworthy of belief, and that he, better than any one, knew his condition. It does not appear that the appellants offered any evidence which was excluded, |