Vintage: Women and Injuries
This week in our Vintage series, an exploration of the film industry in the 1927-1929, I thought we'd look at some of the legal issues of the day. It sounds like a dry subject; actually, it's quite fascinating because of how starkly certain attitudes have changed over time, particularly following the equal rights movement. That discussion will segue (not so smoothly) into a look at how the "frivolous lawsuit" may not be as recent a trend as we tend to think.
Although you can read these posts in either order, this one can be seen as a continuation of the legal discussion in the Vintage: Boxing and Sunday post, which was about rulings concerning the distribution of boxing films and theaters being required to close on Sundays, both legal concerns that seem strange today.
The last major paragraph in the introductory section is worth a read, but I won't comment on it here.
The rest of the page concerns special laws concerning the employment of "women and minors" by the film industry. Strange to see. The general bent seems to be about offering women and minors additional protection by law concerning their working conditions and hours.
The most interesting portions are the "Notification of Night Work, 'Wet' Work, Or Dangerous Work" and "Working Conditions On Location" subsections on the second page. Women must be provided safe transportation to and from work at night. They also have to have private restroom facilities, not less than one "seat" per 20 women.
Men are seemingly on their own, but it's tough to infer what the laws for male adults are from this documentation alone.
The third page here is actually the fifth page of this legal rulings section. I skipped a couple pages that weren't that interesting. Here we make that not so smooth segue I promised.
In America, the general perception seems to be that "frivolous lawsuits" suddenly became a real problem in the 1980s or so. Most people know about hot coffee lawsuit against McDonald's (though the case is not quite as outrageous than it is understood to be). I heard a story about a burglar who was breaking into a house, fell through the skylight, broke his leg, and successfully sued the skylight manufacturing company. No idea how true that story is, but these stories seemed to crop up with increasing frequently in the 1980s.
I was therefore a little surprised, though not upon further reflection, to see a report of this Block vs. Opera Holding Co. case, about an employee of a leased concession service spilling lemonade on a patron. Come to your own conclusions about the case or not, as you like, but the story of the incident, which takes up most of the first column on this page, is a hilarious read.
The first two thirds of the second column cover cases in other industries that may be relevant for theater owners, for whom this information was compiled. The first incident in the second column is a sad thing, but I can't help but be amused by the hyperbole in the legal wording of what defendants are "alleged" to have done. ". . . alleging that the attendant . . . carelessly and negligently, and with great force and violence, suddenly and without warning pushed or shoved them down the slide or incline . . ."
Let no noun or adverb ever walk along but be conjoined with another to keep it company.
Finally, who says the 1920s weren't progressive? Even 80 years ago, the government was infringing on the rights of private institutions to dispense their assets as they please, and even 80 years ago, the private institutions were finding hilariously shameless ways to exploit loopholes in the law.
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