In 1924, Maryland’s child labor laws contained a cruel loophole.
Children could be working illegally. They could be injured on the job. And still, according to a report out of Baltimore, they might receive no protection under the State Industrial Accident Law.
The reason was grimly simple. If an employer could prove that a boy or girl had been working illegally, the Industrial Accident Commission could throw out the child’s claim for damages. In other words, the very fact that the employer should not have hired the child in the first place could be used to avoid responsibility after the child was hurt.
The children affected were among the most vulnerable: those under 14, who were not legally allowed to work at all, and children between 14 and 16 who were working without a permit or doing work not covered by their permit.
Child protection advocates were already preparing to take the issue to the next Maryland Legislature. Their likely proposal was to amend the law so that employers who illegally hired children and then saw those children injured would face double or triple damages.
Several other states had already adopted such protections. Maryland, according to the article, had not.
The brief report is a stark reminder of how child labor laws did not always shield the children they were meant to protect. Sometimes, even when the law recognized that a child should not have been working, it still left that child unaided after injury.
Working Children Unaided By Law
BALTIMORE, Maryland. — Maryland children illegally worked are unprotected by the State Industrial Accident Law.
If a boy or girl is hurt, the employer has only to prove the child was working illegally to have the claim for damage thrown out by the Industrial Accident Commission.
Persons interested in child protection are already preparing to ask the next Legislature to amend the law.
They probably will ask that double or triple damages be assessed on the employer where he has hired a child illegally and the child is hurt.
Several other States have such laws.
Children whom the law does not protect are those under 14, who are not permitted to work, with or without a permit, and any child between 14 and 16 working without permit or at work not covered by the permit.
Source: Evening Star. Washington, D.C. August 17, 1924.
