This quotation from an editorial in the “Wall Street Journal” (July 6, 1976) is a reminder that legal developments in the United States are taking place against a background of public dissatisfaction with the law and the legal process. One of the merits claimed for the common law is its ability to respond to the needs of society, and society today needs, and is demanding, a change from the well-established concept that a person causing damage should be made to pay for that damage only if he acted deliberately or negligently. This concept itself came into being in response to the moral and religious sentiments of the Middle Ages, a reaction to the tendency of the early common law to hold a man responsible for his actions whether he acted negligently or not. Today, much of the skill of lawyers and the time of the Courts are given up to the determination of whether or not there has been negligence, and society is beginning to realise that it can no longer afford the expense of so many suits based on negligence. The search is for a way to compensate the victim of an accident without the determination of fault.

Since the 1960s the public interest in compensation without fault has been concentrated on car insurance, and “No Fault” has come to be a topic of general conversation, but in fact the concept has been important for longer than the life of the motor car. The basis for Workman’s Compensation laws in the U.S. has been the concept of “No Fault,” and these laws were discussed in the last quarter of the 19th century. The first Workman’s Compensation statute was passed in America in 1908, a few years after the first statute in England. Each State has its own laws, and there is a Federal statute covering special groups of workers, principally on the railways. In some States employers and/or employees have a choice between negligence and “No Fault” compensation, but the intention of all the laws is to provide a system whereby an employee may be compensated for injury received in the course of employment.

There is some dissatisfaction with the provisions of the laws as they stand today, but nobody is suggesting a return to the old procedures. The reasons for compensation without fault are as well recognised now as they were when the statutes were first introduced, and include excessive delays, unduly high legal expense, and distaste for the common law defences available to an employer (assumption of risk, common employment, and contributory negligence). The current trend is for the extension of Workman’s Compensation, as, for example, by allowing compensation for a heart attack suffered at work, and by improving the scale of benefits payable.