The pragmatic compromise of employer and employee interests represented by workers’ compensation statutes has provided a generally workable system for legally handling disputes over workplace injuries and who should pay for them. Certainly the administrative claims-handling systems set up in the various states have relieved the state and federal courts of what would otherwise be a tremendous load of personal-injury cases. It has even been suggested by some prominent experts in employment law that other types of workplace disputes, such as whether an employee has been illegally discharged, should be resolved in the future by state administrative systems such as are used to resolve workers’ compensation claims rather than by the courts.
