So little was realized of the economic and efficiency values of
insurance against chance, that the beginning of the movement was
opposed. The movement resulted in certain obvious changes which
looking back upon them seemed inevitable and natural. This was what
was known as universal Employers' Liability laws. The principle soon
extending itself to all classes of accidents, resulted in the passage
of legislation which had been foreshadowed by the tremendous growth of
Casualty and Accident Insurance companies. Beginning at first with
laws holding the employer liable for accident, and afterward resulting
in the insurance of labor, it was gradually extended to accidents of
every nature, including injury from travel on common carriers and the
ordinary vicissitudes of life.
The result of State insurance against negligence and injuries of every
kind was that all claims for injuries were adjusted by the State and
the lawyers who lived by pursuing the neglect or misfortunes of
others, gradually became extinct. A certain distinguished and
conspicuous type was known by the term "ambulance chasers"--the exact
derivation of the term not being now, in 1947, entirely clear but
probably being related to some antiquated legal custom of succoring
the wounded--very soon disappeared.
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