Borgnis and others v. the Falk Company

Summary

The court held that the Workmen’s Compensation Act was constitutionally valid in its fundamental provisions, including its elective compensation system, abolition of specified common-law defenses for nonparticipating employers, administrative adjudication, and treatment of future tort remedies. Because an employee had no vested contractual right to a remedy for a tort that had not yet occurred, the employer’s election could not cause irreparable injury warranting an injunction, so the complaint should have been dismissed. Justices Marshall and Barnes concurred in the result but objected to language suggesting that constitutional meaning may change with social and economic conditions; a further concurrence is supplied only as a truncated filing notice.