Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

commission may make such arrangements as may be deemed advisable by it for the payment of expenses of such board, commission, or other agency, incurred in the administration of this Act pursuant to this section, and for the payment of salaries to such board, commission, or other agency, or the members thereof, and may pay any amounts agreed upon to the proper officers of the State, upon vouchers approved by the commission.

(b) In any Territory of the United States or in the District of Columbia a person holding an office under the United States may be appointed deputy commissioner and for services rendered as deputy commissioner may be paid compensation, in addition to that he is receiving from the United States, in an amount fixed by the commission in accordance with the Classification Act of 1923.

(c) Deputy commissioners (except deputy commissioners appointed under subdivision (a) of this section) may be transferred from one compensation district to another and may be temporarily detailed from one compensation district for service in another in the discretion of the commission.

(d) Each deputy commissioner shall maintain and keep open during reasonable business hours an office, at a place designated by the commission, for the transaction of business under this Act, at which office he shall keep his official records and papers. Such office shall be furnished and equipped by the commission, who shall also furnish the deputy commissioner with all necessary clerical and other assistants, records, books, blanks, and supplies. Wherever practicable such office shall be located in a building owned or leased by the United States; otherwise the commission shall rent suitable quarters.

(e) If any deputy commissioner is removed from office, or for any reason ceases to act as such deputy commissioner, all of his official records and papers and office equipment shall be transferred to his successor in office or, if there be no successor, then to the commission or to a deputy commissioner designated by the commission.

(f) Neither a deputy commissioner nor any business associate of a deputy commissioner shall appear as attorney in any proceeding under this Act, and no deputy commissioner shall act in any such case in which he is interested, or when he is employed by any party in interest or related to any party in interest by consanguinity or affinity within the third degree, as determined by the common law.

INVESTIGATIONS BY THE COMMISSION

SEO. 41. (a) The commission shall make studies and investigations with respect to safety provisions and the causes of injuries in employments covered by this Act, and shall from time to time make to Congress and to employers and carriers such recommendations as it may deem proper as to the best means of preventing such injuries.

(b) In making such studies and investigations the commission is authorized (1) to cooperate with any agency of the United States charged with the duty of enforcing any law securing safety against injury in any employment covered by this Act, or with any State

agency, engaged in enforcing any laws to assure safety for employees, and (2) to permit any such agency to have access to the records of the commission. In carrying out the provisions of this section the commission or any officer or employee of the commission is authorized to enter at any reasonable time upon any premises, tracks, wharf, dock, or other landing place, or upon any vessel, or to enter any building, where an employment covered by this Act is being carried on, and to examine any tool, appliance, or machinery used in such employment.

TRAVELING EXPENSES

SEC. 42. The commissioners, deputy commissioners, and other employees of the commission shall be entitled to receive their necessary traveling expenses and expenses actually incurred for subsistence while traveling on official business and away from their designated stations, as provided by the Subsistence Expense Act

of 1926.

ANNUAL REPORT

SEC. 43. The commission shall make to Congress at the beginning of each regular session a report of the administration of this Act for the preceding fiscal year, including a detailed statement of receipts of and expenditures from the funds established in sections 44 and 45, together with such recommendations as the commission deems advisable.

SPECIAL FUND

SEO. 44. (a) There is hereby established in the Treasury of the United States a special fund for the purpose of making payments in accordance with the provisions of subsections (f) and (g) of section 8 of this Act. Such fund shall be administered by the commission. The Treasurer of the United States shall be the custodian of such fund, and all moneys and securities in such fund shall be held in trust by such Treasurer and shall not be money or property of the United States.

(b) The Treasurer is authorized to disburse moneys from such fund only upon order of the commission. He shall be required to give bond in an amount to be fixed and with securities to be approved by the Secretary of the Treasury and the Comptroller General of the United States conditioned upon the faithful performance of his duty as custodian of such fund.

(c) Payments into such fund shall be made as follows:

8

Each employer shall pay $1,000 as compensation for the death of an employee of such employer resulting from injury where the deputy commissioner determines that there is no person entitled under this Act to compensation for such death. Fifty per centum of each such payment shall be available for the payments under subdivision (f) of section 8, and 50 per centum shall be available for payments under subdivision (g) of section 8.

(2) All amounts collected as fines and penalties under the provisions of this Act shall be paid into such fund.

(d) The Treasurer of the United States shall deposit any moneys paid into such fund into such depository banks as the commission may designate and may invest any portion of the funds which, in the opinion of the commission, is not needed for current requirements, in bonds or notes of the United States or of any Federal land bank. (e) Neither the United States nor the commission shall be liable in respect of payments authorized under section 8 in an amount greater than the money or property deposited in or belonging to such fund.

(f) The Comptroller General of the United States shall audit the account for such fund, but the action of the commission in making payments from such fund shall be final and not subject to review, and the Comptroller General is authorized and directed to allow credit in the accounts of any disbursing officer of the commission for payments made from such fund authorized by the commission.

(g) All civil penalties provided for in this Act shall be collected by civil suit brought by the commission.

ADMINISTRATION FUND

SEC. 45. (a) There is hereby established in the Treasury of the United States a special fund for the purpose of providing for the payment of all expenses in respect of the administration of this act. Such fund shall be administered by the commission. The Treasurer of the United States shall be the custodian of such fund, and all moneys and securities in such fund shall be held in trust by such Treasurer and shall not be the money or property of the United States.

(b) The provisions of subdivisions (b), (d), and (f) of section 44 shall be applicable to the fund hereby established.

APPROPRIATION

SEO. 46. (a) There is hereby authorized to be appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, the sum of $250,000, which shall be covered into the administration fund established in section 45 and shall be available for expenses incurred in the administration of this Act during the remainder of the fiscal year ending June 30, 1927, and during the fiscal year ending June 80, 1928. All unexpended balances of any appropriations made under authority of this section, remaining in such fund on July 1, 1928, shall be covered into the Treasury of the United States as miscellaneous receipts.

AVAILABILITY OF APPROPRIATIONS

SEO. 47. The expenses incurred for salaries and contingent expenses by the United States Employees' Compensation Commission in the administration (1) of the Act entitled "An Act to provide compensation for employees of the United States suffering injuries while in the performance of their duties, and for other purposes," approved

September 7, 1916, as amended, and (2) of this Act, may be paid from the appropriations for salaries and contingent expenses for th administration of such Act of September 7, 1916, and from the fund established in section 45 of this Act, in such proportion as the commission, with the approval of the Director of the Bureau of the Budget, determines to be fairly attributable to the cost of administration of the respective Acts, but the total amount paid from such appropriation and such fund in any fiscal year on account of the administration of such Act of September 7, 1916, shall not exceed the amounts appropriated for salaries and contingent expenses for the administration of such Act for such year.

LAWS INAPPLICABLE

SEC. 48. Nothing in sections 4283, 4284, 4285, 4286, or 4289 of the Revised Statutes, as amended, nor in section 18 of the Act entitled "An act to remove certain burdens on the American merchant marine and encourage the American foreign carrying trade, and for other purposes," approved June 26, 1884, as amended, shall be held to limit the amount for which recovery may be had (1) in any suit at law or in admiralty where an employer has failed to secure compensation as required by this Act, or (2) in any proceeding for compensation, any addition to compensation, or any civil penalty.

EFFECT OF UNCONSTITUTIONALITY

SEC. 49. If any part of this Act is adjudged unconstitutional by the courts, and such adjudication has the effect of invalidating any payment of compensation under this Act, the period intervening between the time the injury was sustained and the time of such adjudication shall not be computed as a part of the time prescribed by law for the commencement of any action against the employer in respect of such injury; but the amount of any compensation paid under this Act on account of such injury shall be deducted from the amount of damages awarded in such action in respect of such injury.

SEPARABILITY PROVISION

SEC. 50. If any provision of this Act is declared unconstitutional or the applicability thereof to any person or circumstances is held invalid, the validity of the remainder of the Act and the applicability of such provision to other persons and circumstances shall not be affected thereby.

EFFECTIVE DATE

SEC. 51. Sections 39 to 51, inclusive, shall become effective upon the passage of this Act, and the remainder of this Act shall become effective on July 1, 1927.

Approved, March 4, 1927.

[PUBLIO NO. 257-73D CONGRESS]

[8. 2794]

AN ACT

To amend the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act with respect to rates of compensation, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That subdivision (a) of section 7 of the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act, as amended, is amended by adding at the end thereof the following new sentence: "If at any time during such period the employee unreasonably refuses to submit to medical or surgical treatment, the deputy commissioner may, by order, suspend the payment of further compensation during such time as such refusal continues, and no compensation shall be paid at any time during the period of such suspension, unless the circumstances justified the refusal."

SEO. 2. So much of subdivision (c) of section 8 of such Act, as amended, as precedes paragraph (13) thereof is amended to read as follows:

"(c) Permanent partial disability: In case of disability partial in character but permanent in quality, the compensation shall be 66% per centum of the average weekly wages, which shall be in addition to compensation for temporary total disability paid in accordance with subdivision (b) of this section, and shall be paid to the employee, as follows:

(1) Arm lost, two hundred and eighty weeks' compensation. "(2) Leg lost, two hundred and forty-eight weeks' compensation. (3) Hand lost, two hundred and twelve weeks' compensation. "(4) Foot lost, one hundred and seventy-three weeks' compensation.

66

"(5) Eye lost, one hundred and forty weeks' compensation. "(6) Thumb lost, fifty-one weeks' compensation.

"(7) First finger lost, twenty-eight weeks' compensation.

66

(8) Great toe lost, twenty-six weeks' compensation.

"(9) Second finger lost, eighteen weeks' compensation.

"(10) Third finger lost, seventeen weeks' compensation.

11 Toe other than great toe lost, eight weeks' compensation. "(12) Fourth finger lost, seven weeks' compensation.

SEO. 3. Paragraph (22) of subdivision (c) of section 8 of such Act, as amended, is amended to read as follows:

"(22) In any case in which there shall be a loss of, or loss of use of, more than one member or parts of more than one member set forth in paragraphs (1) to (19) of this subdivision, not amounting to permanent total disability, the award of compensation shall be for the loss of, or loss of use of, each such member or part thereof, which awards shall run consecutively."

SEC. 4. Subdivision (j) of section 14 of such Act, as amended, is amended to read as follows:

« AnteriorContinuar »