Research

Scope and Content Note

This series is the complete file documenting the Commission's operations and the conduct of its investigation.

There are two subseries: Subseries 1, Commissioners Archie O. Dawson and Charles S. Hamilton's Investigation Administration Files, 1938-1955, documents the initial investigation during previous hit Governor Thomas E. Dewey's administration; Subseries 2, Commissioner Joseph M. Callahan's Investigation Administration Files, 1953-1959, documents the continuation and completion of the investigation during Governor Averell Harriman's administration.

Each subseries contains operational, background, and research materials including: transcripts or summaries of public and private hearings, conferences, and interviews with representatives of employer groups, union organizations, bar associations, and medical associations; background materials concerning the Workmen's Compensation Board, including information on medical examinations, hearing procedures, insurance carrier inefficiency, specific categories of claims (e.g. for facial disfigurement, hearing loss, or back injury), and general administration; background materials on and data from the New York Compensation Insurance Rating Board, an association of workers' compensation insurance carriers established in 1914 to establish, maintain, and administer rules, regulations, and premium rates (for approval by the State Insurance Department) for carriers and to gather, analyze, and interpret workers' compensation statistics; correspondence, memoranda, and data from the State Insurance Department, the State Insurance Fund (a non-profit insurance carrier for employers with workers' compensation and disability benefits, the expenses of which are met by premium payments), employer groups such as Associated Industries of New York State and the Commerce and Industry Association of New York, self-insurers, and labor groups such as the New York State CIO Council, the American Federation of Labor, and the New York Federation of Labor;

correspondence with physicians and medical associations concerning medical aspects of workers' compensation costs, including billing regulations, hospital charges and medical fees, and violations of the Workmen's Compensation Law (e.g. hospitals forcing staff physicians to "pool" their workers' compensation fees and then retaining a portion of the money before distributing the rest back to the physicians); completed questionnaires from physicians regarding compensable industrial heart accidents; completed questionnaires from the Workmen's Compensation Board's impartial specialists regarding their handling of workers' compensation cases; "complaint" files of correspondence from persons complaining of not receiving workers' compensation benefits to which they felt entitled, often explaining their accidents and injuries and sometimes charging the Workmen's Compensation Board physicians and their attorneys with collusion to prevent payment of benefits; legislative bills and supporting memoranda regarding the Workmen's Compensation Law; laws, rules, and procedures relating to workers' compensation in other states; drafts and proofs of reports to the Governor; press releases regarding progress of the Commission's work; and articles and clippings regarding the Commission and related workers' compensation issues.