WORKERS’ COMPENSATION Workers’ compensation is a system whereby an employer must pay, or provide insurance to pay, the lost wages and medical expenses of an employee who is injured on th
Trang 1justice that dealt with common claims He held the position until 1880, when his reputation prompted President ULYSSES S.GRANT to appoint him a U.S district judge in the Fifth Circuit
Woods’s judicial conservatism began to develop during this period; however, he still took a somewhat tolerant view of federal power, especially with regard to the government’s power to protectCIVIL RIGHTS
In 1881 President Hayes nominated Woods
to the U.S Supreme Court Once in the Court’s conservative majority, his judicial priorities changed Following the Civil War, Congress had enacted new civil rights laws aimed at ending
RACIAL DISCRIMINATION; equally important to this end was the RATIFICATION of the FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT to the U.S Constitution in 1868
But the Supreme Court soon undermined these
efforts In 1883 it struck down provisions of the
CIVIL RIGHTS ACTof 1875; Woods joined in the 8 to
1 majority in the so-called CIVIL RIGHTS CASES,
109 U.S 3, 3 S Ct 18, 27 L Ed 835
Woods’s intolerance for federal reform efforts marked his last years on the Court Like the majority of the justices, he took a narrow view of the Fourteenth Amendment He wrote the majority opinion in United States v Harris,
106 U.S 629, 1 S Ct 601, 16 Otto 629, 27 L Ed
290 (1883), which held unconstitutional a federal law protecting African Americans from the terroristKU KLUX KLAN organization Woods stated that such powers properly belonged to states rather than the federal government He died on May 14, 1887, in Washington D.C
WORDS AND PHRASES®
A multivolume set of law books published by West Group containing thousands of judicial definitions
of words and phrases, arranged alphabetically, from 1658 to the present
Words and Phrases is a legal research and reference work that is aimed primarily at lawyers It was first published in 1940 and has been continuously updated since then It contains words and phrases that have taken on special meaning in the law
The interpretation or meaning attributed to a word or phrase in a statute, court rule, adminis-trative regulation, business document, or agree-ment often determines rights, duties, obligations, and liabilities of the parties Many court decisions are based on the meaning attributed by an appellate court to a single word or phrase Words and Phrases allows a person to hone in on pertinent cases by selecting key words or phrases contained in a document
William Burnham Woods 1824–1887
1824 Born, Newark, Ohio
◆
1845 Graduated from Yale University
◆
1856 Elected mayor of Newark, Ohio
1861–65 U.S Civil War
1868 14th Amendment ratified, gave citizenship rights to African Americans
1847 Admitted to Ohio bar
1857–61 Served in the Ohio General Assembly
1883 Wrote majority opinion in United
States v Harris; voted with the
majority in the Civil Rights Cases
1870 15th Amendment ratified, gave voting rights to African Americans 1812–14
War of 1812
1887 Died, Washington, D.C.
1881–87 Served as associate justice of the U.S Supreme Court
◆ ❖
1869–80 Served
on the U.S Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
◆
1868–69 Served as chancellor of the Middle District of Alabama
◆
William B Woods.
PAINTING BY VIC
BOSWELL/ERIK GUIDE
HAUPT COLLECTION OF
THE SUPREME COURT OF
THE UNITED STATES.
448 WORDS AND PHRASES ®
Trang 2Prior to the introduction of online and
CD-ROM legal research tools, a work such as
Words and Phrases played a key role in legal
research by leading the researcher to a primary
authority, such as a case, statute, or
constitu-tional provision In 1996 WESTLAW® introduced
Words and Phrases as part of its online service
Whenever possible, Words and Phrases entries are
written in the exact language the court employed
WORDS OF ART
The vocabulary or terminology of a particular art,
science, or profession, particularly those
expres-sions that are peculiar to it
Though a society may share a common
language, there are many specialized uses of
words based on human activities An
examina-tion of any profession, for example, will yield
many expressions that are idiomatic or peculiar
to it For the person working within the
profession, these become words of art, which
usually convey a meaning much different from
the normal use of these words, or which may be
completely baffling to an outsider
Because the law is based on the expression of
language, it contains thousands of words of art
Many persons working outside the legal
profes-sion would recognize that “taking the Fifth”
means that a person is asserting his or her
protection against SELF-INCRIMINATION under the
FIFTH AMENDMENT to the U.S Constitution
However, very few persons would understand
that an appellant is the party bringing an appeal,
while a respondent is the party against whom the
appeal is taken Appellant and respondent are
words of art
CROSS REFERENCE
Term of Art.
WORDS OF LIMITATION
The words in a deed or will that indicate what
type of estate or rights the person being given land
receives
Words of limitation are used to indicate the
duration or terms of the conveyance of real
property There are many types of limitations
that can be expressed in a deed or a will For
example, a grantor might make a deed that
conveys a parcel of land“to A until B marries.”
A’s estate is restricted by these words of
limitation, since A is given the land for only a
specified length of time (the time before B marries)
A grantor may also place restrictions on who may receive property by employing words
of limitation For example, a grantor might convey property “to A and the heirs of her body.” The words heirs of her body limit the persons who can inherit the property and are, therefore, recognized as words of limitation
WORDS OF PURCHASE Language used in connection with a transfer of real property that identifies the grantees or designees who take the interest being conveyed by deed or will
The term words of purchase is a technical conveyancing expression, a TERM OF ART in real
PROPERTY LAW that has nothing to do with the ordinary meanings of the word purchase
The word purchase in the expression means that real property is being transferred by deed or will, not inherited through the laws ofDESCENT AND DISTRIBUTION Whether the property is bought or given away, if the transfer is by deed
or will, it is a purchase in this usage
The act or process of acquiring real property
by deed or will is called taking by purchase, even though it was a gift The person who acquires real property by deed or will is called a purchaser, even though this person may have paid nothing
Words of purchase are the words in a deed
or will that tell who takes an interest in real property The expression is contrasted with words of limitation, which are words in a deed
or will that tell how long that interest will last
For example, in a deed to Whiteacre “To A for life,” To A are words of purchase, for life are words of limitation
WORK PRODUCT RULE
A legal doctrine that provides that certain materials prepared by an attorney who is acting
on behalf of his or her client during preparation for litigation are privileged from discovery by the attorney for the opposition party
Under rules of civil andCRIMINAL PROCEDURE,
as well as some statutes, parties to a civil lawsuit
or a criminal prosecution must provide each other with information about the pending
LITIGATION If a party will not disclose informa-tion during the discovery process, a court may
Trang 3issue an order compelling the production of evidence
The work product rule is an exception to the concept of sharing information This rule is based on the attorney-client relationship, which includes maintaining the confidentiality of information given by the client However, it is broader in scope than the ATTORNEY-CLIENT PRIVILEGE, which only covers communication directly between the attorney and the client The general rule is that legal research, records, correspondence, reports, or memoranda are attorney work product to the extent that they contain the opinions, theories, strategies, men-tal impressions, or conclusions of the client, the attorney, or persons participating in the case with the attorney, such as a jury consultant
The U.S Supreme Court, in Hickman v
Taylor, 329 U.S 495, 67 S Ct 385, 91 L Ed 451 (1947), upheld the legitimacy of the work product rule contained in the Federal Rules of
CIVIL PROCEDURE Since the Hickman decision, there have been numerous cases in federal and state courts involving disputes over what constitutes non-discoverable work product
For example, in Bondy v Brophy, 124 F.R.D
517 (D Mass 1989), the federal district court ruled that the work product rule applied to information obtained by an investigator hired by the attorney for the administrator of a probate estate who had questions about a decedent’s property transfers The DEFENDANT (who was being sued by the PLAINTIFF) sought to obtain information from the investigator, including identities of persons investigated, identities of persons contacted, and copies of any and all written reports She argued that the work product rule only applied to information gathered for a trial or litigation and that, at the time of the investigation, no litigation was contemplated
The court rejected her argument, finding that the information collected was not in the ordinary course of business, nor was it typical for the administrator of an estate to hire an investigator
to look into property transfers of a decedent The only reasonable inference is that the investigator was hired because the plaintiff had questions about these transfers and was considering appropriate legal action if the inquiry turned up evidence of questionable conduct Under these circumstances, the investigator’s report and the names of persons he contacted enjoyed qualified protection under the work product rule
CROSS REFERENCE Attorney-Client Privilege.
WORKERS’ COMPENSATION Workers’ compensation is a system whereby an employer must pay, or provide insurance to pay, the lost wages and medical expenses of an employee who is injured on the job
Workers’ compensation law is governed by statutes in every state Federal employees are governed by the Federal Employees Compensa-tion Act (Pub.L 103-3 1993) Specific laws vary with each jurisdiction, but key features are consistent Any employee is automatically enti-tled to receive certain benefits when that person suffers an OCCUPATIONAL DISEASE or accidental
PERSONAL INJURYarising out of and in theCOURSE
OF EMPLOYMENT Such benefits may include cash
or wage-loss benefits, medical and career reha-bilitation benefits, and in the case of accidental death of an employee, benefits to dependents TheNEGLIGENCEand fault of either the employer
or the employee usually are immaterial Inde-pendent contractors are not entitled to workers’ compensation benefits, and in some states domestic workers and agricultural workers are excluded or only partially covered
It is the goal of workers’ compensation to return the injured employee quickly and eco-nomically to the status of productive worker without unduly harming the employer’s business
A worker whose injury is covered by the workers’ compensation statute loses the common-law right to sue the employer for that injury, but injured workers may still sue third parties whose negligence contributed to the work injury For example, a truck driver injured in a rear-end collision by an unemployedTHIRD PARTYwould be entitled to collect workers’ compensation and also to sue the third party for negligence In such cases a PLAINTIFF who recovers money from a third-party lawsuit must first repay the employer
or insurer that paid workers’ compensation benefits The plaintiff may keep any remaining money Many jurisdictions permit the employer
or its insurer to sue negligent third parties on the employee’s behalf to recover funds paid as workers’ compensation benefits
In most states parties to workers’ compensa-tion disputes resolve them in an administrative, rather than judicial, tribunal Courts usually relax the standard rules of procedure, evidence, and conflict of laws to allow for expediency and
450 WORKERS’ COMPENSATION
Trang 4simplicity in keeping with the goal of getting an
injured worker the benefits necessary to return to
work
Workers’ compensation statutes require most
employers to purchase private or state-funded
insurance, or to self-insure, to make certain that
injured workers receive proper benefits The cost
of insurance is reflected in the cost of goods or
services produced by the employer; thus the cost
of workers’ compensation liability is passed
ultimately to consumers
Workers’ compensation law is unusual in
that negligent acts of either the employer or the
injured employee generally are irrelevant to the
determination of compensability Victims of
injuries not related to work in most cases must
prove the negligence of another party before
recovering money in a lawsuit Conversely, a
DEFENDANTin a personal injury lawsuit may avoid
or mitigate liability to a plaintiff whose own
negligence caused or contributed to the personal
injury Yet workers’ compensation is a no-fault
law, and an employee’s negligence or an
employ-er’s lack of negligence is usually not a factor
The underlying social philosophy of this
no-fault system is evident when one considers what
would happen without workers’ compensation
For example, assume a responsible employer
encourages a safe workplace and implements a
rule requiring workers to obtain the assistance
of a coworker before climbing a tall ladder to a
storage area One employee, hurrying to get her
work done for the day, ignores this rule and
climbs the ladder without assistance When she
reaches the top of the ladder, it shifts and she
falls, injuring her spine and paralyzing her legs
Society could choose to treat this injured
worker in one of three basic ways It could
refuse to render any aid, instead forcing the
injured worker to seek help from friends or
family If the worker was without ties to persons
both willing and able to assist, this plan would
leave her destitute A second option would be to
give her government aid, or WELFARE, such as
MEDICAIDor food stamps This alternative would
be less speculative but still not ideal because it
would force local taxpayers to pay for the
worker’s benefits regardless of whether they had
any connection to the injury
The third solution is the workers’
compen-sation system This system preserves the injured
worker’s dignity and well-being by providing an
income and medical care and keeping her off
welfare The system passes the cost of compen-sating injured workers to consumers of pro-ducts that, through their manufacture, cause the workers to get injured Thus the social philoso-phy underlying workers’ compensation is the efficient and dignified provision of financial and medical benefits to those injured on the job and the allocation of the expense to an appropriate source: the consumer
Workers’ compensation is also distinguish-able from other personal injury laws where negligence is a factor because although the employer is liable for paying injured workers’
benefits, the purpose of workers’ compensation is not to punish or hurt the employer For this reason, an integral component of workers’
compensation is the requirement that employers purchase workers’ compensation insurance, or provide a self-insured fund, to pay the benefits
This way, the employer can pass along the cost of insurance to the purchasers of the employer’s product
History Workers’ compensation laws in the United States developed during the early 1900s as a result of the industrial age and growing numbers of industrial injuries Before these laws were devel-oped, workers injured on the job often found themselves without remedy against their employer
or their fellow workers
The law of VICARIOUS LIABILITY developed in England in approximately 1700 to make the master, or employer, liable for the acts of the servant, or employee In 1837, however, the English case Priestly v Fowler, 3 M & W 1, 150 Reprint 1030, created the fellow servant exception
to the general rule of a master’s vicarious liability;
no longer would the master be held liable for an employee’s negligence in causing injury to a coworker
After Priestly, courts in the 1800s continued
to develop employer defenses to liability for injured workers One such defense, assumption
of the risk, allowed employers to escape liability with the questionable logic that employees could avoid or decline dangerous work duties
Another defense, contributory negligence, allowed employers to escape liability, notwith-standing the employer’s negligence, where the employee was also negligent Therefore, during
a century of burgeoning industry and its inherent risk of work-related accidents, workers
Trang 5faced nonexistent or inadequate remedies for their injuries
At the end of the nineteenth century, state lawmakers recognized the problem and began studying the compensation system developed in Germany in 1884 Rooted largely in its socialistic tradition, Germany’s compensation system man-dated that employers and employees share in the cost of paying benefits to workers disabled by sickness, accident, or old age Britain followed suit in 1897 with the British Compensation Act, which later became the model for many state workers’ compensation laws in the United States
In 1910 representatives of various state commissions met at a conference in Chicago and drafted the Uniform Workmen’s Compen-sation Law Although not overwhelmingly adopted, this uniform law became the blueprint for state workers’ compensation statutes All but eight states had adopted a workers’ compensa-tion law by 1920, and, in 1963, Hawaii became the last state to do so
Accident and Injury Workers’ compensation benefits are most com-monly provided to workers who are injured by a specific accident on the job, such as the worker who trips and falls down the employer’s staircase
or the worker who gets a hand caught in factory machinery But a compensable accidental injury might also include an occupational disease, such
as lung disease that resulted from an employee’s exposure to asbestos in the workplace Cumula-tive trauma associated with work duties, such as carpal tunnel syndrome caused by repetitive keyboard work, also can be compensable
Jurisdictions differ as to whether work-related mental illness is compensable In the majority of states, mental illness caused by work, such as stress, anxiety, or depression, is not compensable
A common exception to this rule exists when a specific accident or injury at work leads to mental illness For example, an employee who suffers from panic attacks upon hearing the phone ring
at work generally will not be entitled to workers’ compensation benefits But an employee who witnesses a viciousASSAULT AND BATTERY at work, and who then develops anxiety and panic attacks
as a result, would be entitled to compensation in most jurisdictions
Requirements for Benefits
An injured worker is entitled to workers’ compensation benefits only if the injury arose
out of and in the course of employment The first part of this requirement, “arising out of employment,” ensures that there is a causal connection between the work and the injury Usually the employee has the burden of proving that the injury was caused by exposure to an increased risk from employment
In determining whether an injury is compen-sable, it is helpful to categorize the risk causing the injury in one of three ways First, there is the risk that is associated distinctly with the employ-ment An example would be a house painter injured in a fall from a scaffold; the house painter would not have been on the scaffold but for his employment This type of injury is always compensable as arising out of employment The second category of risk is risk that is personal to the claimant An example is a worker who develops lung cancer due to years of smoking Assuming this cancer was not caused
by carcinogens in the workplace and would have developed notwithstanding employment, the disease would be considered personal and not arising out of employment Injuries from purely personal risks are never compensable
The third category of risk, neutral risk, is the most problematic in determining the compensa-bility of a work injury Neutral risks are neither distinct to the employment nor distinctly personal Examples would include a teacher shot
in a drive-by shooting while standing in his classroom; an auto mechanic bitten by a stray dog while dumping oil into an outdoor recepta-cle; and an executive struck by lightning when walking to his car after a meeting
Whether an injury resulting from a neutral risk is compensable is difficult to predict and often depends on the jurisdiction of the tribunal, the nature of the injury, and the precise facts surrounding the accident For example, injuries caused by lightning are usually compensable if the claimant can show that the work conditions increased the risk of being struck An employee struck while working atop a metal electric pole likely would receive workers’ compensation benefits for a lightning injury or death, whereas
an employee struck while walking to her car after her work shift would have a more difficult time collecting benefits In Reich v A Reich & Sons Gardens, Inc., 485 S.W 2d 133 (Mo Ct App 1972), the employee was killed by lightning while standing next to several vehicles in a wheat field The court deemed the death compensable, citing
452 WORKERS’ COMPENSATION
Trang 6testimony that the employee’s risk of being hit by
lightning was greater than that of other people in
the vicinity, who were sheltered in cars and
buildings and were not standing in an open field
Using the same logic, injuries from sunstroke,
freezing, and other effects of heat and cold
exposure arise out of the course of employment if
the employee can show that such exposure was
greater than that to which the general public was
exposed Workers who contract contagious
diseases at work will receive benefits upon a
showing that the workplace offered an increased
risk of exposure
Another type of neutral-risk injury isASSAULT
Most courts will deem an assault as arising out of
the course of employment if the nature or setting
of the work increased the risk of assault or if a
quarrel that led to the assault originated at work
In Bryan v Best Western/Coachman’s Inn, 885 S
W.2d 28 (Ark 1994), the claimant worked as a
security guard at a motel The claimant and the
motel night clerk were involved in a personal
dispute, which led to a fight between the
claimant and the night clerk’s boyfriend, injuring
the claimant The court held that even though
the dispute was personal and not related to work,
the claimant, because of his job, faced an
increased risk of assault His injuries therefore
were compensable
Even idiopathic injuries, or injuries resulting
from risks personal to the employee as opposed
to risks associated with the job, may be
compensable if the job contributes to the risk
or aggravates the injury An employee who misses
breakfast and suffers a fainting spell ordinarily
will not be entitled to workers’ compensation,
because the fainting spell does not arise out of
employment But if the same worker faints and in
so doing hits her head on her desk and fractures
her skull, her injury will be compensable In
Silverman v Roth, 9 A.D 2d 591, 189 N.Y.S.2d
311 (1959), the employee died of heart failure
after suffering a heart attack and falling from a
ladder The precise sequence of events was
impossible to determine Nevertheless, the court
awarded benefits, citing evidence that even if the
heart attack occurred before the fall from the
ladder, the heart condition would have been
aggravated by the shock of the fall, and thus the
fall from the ladder was a contributing factor in
the employee’s death
In addition to the requirement that an
injury arise out of employment, the employee
seeking workers’ compensation also must show that the injury arose“in the course of employ-ment.” To arise in the course of employment, the injury must take place within the employ-ment period, in a location where it is reasonable for the employee to be, and while the employee
is fulfilling work duties This does not mean that the employee must actually be doing his job, or doing it within the precise work hours, when the injury occurs for it to be compensable
Distinguishing between injuries that do or do not arise out of the course of employment is often a difficult and confusing task
One common issue arises when an employee
is injured going to or from work Clearly, employment necessitates that an employee travel
to work and home again Yet it is not the purpose of workers’ compensation to protect the employee from the risk of travel Courts have, through the years, reached a compromise: An employee with fixed hours and work locale going
to or coming from work generally is covered by workers’ compensation if the injury occurs on the employer’s premises
This rule can lead to rather harsh results, as
in Heim v Longview Fibre Co., 41 Wash App
745, 707 P.2d 689 (1985) There, the claimant was driving his motorcycle through the usual exit from his employer’s premises when a coworker turning into the premises hit the claimant, killing him The precise location of the crash was fewer than five feet from the employer’s property, on a public access road to the plant used by company personnel Nevertheless, the court held that the injury did not arise in the course of employment and denied death benefits Employees injured off work premises may still recover damages in tort against any persons whose negligence caused them harm
Some courts, recognizing the harshness of the premises rule, have attempted to extend the premises rule to include injuries that occur within
a reasonable distance of the employer’s premises
And most courts recognize the compensability of
an injury that occurs off the employer’s premises when an employee is going to or coming from work, where the trip itself is a substantial part of the employee’s service to the employer In Urban
v Industrial Commission, 34 Ill 2d 159, 214 N.E.2d 737 (Ill App Ct 1966), the employee, a traveling salesperson, was killed in a car accident while driving in the direction of his home, although the evidence was not clear that he was
Trang 7actually returning home The court ruled the death to be compensable
Benefits Workers’ compensation provides two general categories of benefits to injured workers: INDEM-NITY benefits and medical benefits Indemnity benefits compensate for the worker’s loss of income or earning capacity resulting from the work-related injury Depending on the employ-ee’s medical status and ability to work following the injury, she may be entitled to different types
of indemnity benefits A worker whose injury is only temporary and does not preclude her ability
to work her normal job duties and hours typically will not receive indemnity benefits because her injury has no effect on her ability
to earn a living A worker whose injury temporarily causes him to miss time from work will be entitled to payment of all or a portion of his lost wages, known as temporary partial disability benefits A worker whose injury temporarily renders him unable to work at all may receive temporary total disability, which is usually a portion of the worker’s average wage A worker who is able to work at least part time but who has a work-related permanent disability may
be entitled to permanent partial disability bene-fits The formula for permanent partial disability benefits varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction but usually considers the employee’s average weekly wage combined with the degree of permanent disability Finally, a worker who is permanently disabled from working at all may be entitled to permanent total disability benefits
The payment of medical benefits is usually not controversial However, disputes do arise when a worker requests payments for services provided by a family member For example,
in Carbajal v Industrial Com’n of Arizona,
P.3d 2009 WL 1650428 (2009), the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that employer must pay for the home healthcare services provided by the spouse of an injured worker, even though the spouse was not a licensed home healthcare provider
A frequently disputed issue between an employer and an injured employee is the degree that the employee’s injury restricts her from returning to suitable employment, mitigating the need for indemnity benefits Some state statutes permit or require the employer to provide an injured employee with vocational rehabilitation, job search assistance, or job retraining if the
injury would otherwise prevent the employee from returning to gainful work
In the case of a compensable work-related death, the decedent’s spouse, dependent chil-dren, or both spouse and children may be entitled to dependency benefits Most jurisdic-tions pay death benefits to a spouse until the spouse dies or remarries and to children until they reach age 18 Other jurisdictions place limits on benefit amount or duration
Employees injured on the job may also receive reasonable and necessary medical ben-efits that are related to the work injury Such benefits are compensable if they serve to cure the injury or, if the injury is incurable, relieve its effects These benefits may include medical treatments such as sutures, casts, or surgery; psychiatric or psychological treatments; hospi-tal, nursing, and physical therapy treatments; chiropractic or podiatric treatments; prescrip-tion medicaprescrip-tions; supplies such as wheelchairs
or wrist braces; orthopedic mattresses; or attendant care services Most workers’ compen-sation statutes also provide for the reimburse-ment of the employee’s travel expenses incurred
in obtaining medical services
The System in the Early 2000s Workers’ compensation has been criticized as an expensive component of doing business and a system made more expensive by undetected
FRAUD What was intended to provide the employer and the injured worker with an amicable and humane resolution of a work injury often results in contentious disputes and costly
LITIGATION Some employees feign injury to receive wage-loss benefits, and some employers balk at providing benefits to legitimately injured workers for fear that insurance premiums will rise But the system has been effective in keeping injured employees employed and promoting the impor-tance of a safe workplace
FURTHER READINGS Bevans, Neil 2008 Workers’ Compensation Law Florence, Ky.: Delmar Cengage Learning.
Hood, Jack, Benjamin Hardy, and Harold Lewis 2004 Workers’ Compensation and Employee Protection Laws in
a Nutshell 4th ed St Paul Minn.: Thomson West Moore, Sandy 2008 Understanding Workers’ Compensation Insurance Florence, Ky.: Delmar Cengage Learning CROSS REFERENCES
Employment Law; Labor Law; Master and Servant.
454 WORKERS’ COMPENSATION
Trang 8WORLD BANK
The International Bank for Reconstruction and
Development, commonly referred to as the
WORLD BANK, is an international financial
insti-tution whose purposes include assisting the
development of its member nations’ territories,
promoting and supplementing private foreign
investment, and promoting long-range balanced
growth in international trade
The World Bank was established in July
1944 at the United Nations Monetary and
Financial Conference in Bretton Woods, New
Hampshire It opened for business in June 1946
and helped in the reconstruction of nations
devastated byWORLD WAR II Since the 1960s the
World Bank has shifted its focus from the
advanced industrialized nations to developing
third-world countries
The World Bank consists of a number of
separate institutions The three major institutions
are the International Bank for Reconstruction
and Development (IBRD), the International
Development Association (IDA), and the
Inter-national Finance Corporation (IFC) The IBRD,
the bank’s most important component, lends
funds directly, guarantees loans made by others,
or participates in these loans The IDA,
estab-lished in 1960, lends to low-income countries on
more favorable terms, charging a small service
fee but no interest It gets its funds from more
affluent member countries The IFC, established
in 1956, provides loans to private business in
developing countries
Twenty-nine nations joined the World Bank
in 1945 As of 2009 the bank had 185 members
The bank is governed by an executive board and
a managing director Voting in the bank is
weighted according to the initial contributions
to the bank’s capital, which historically has
given the U.S government a dominant voice in
the bank’s affairs
In 1996 almost one-third of the bank’s loans
went to the world’s poorest countries However,
the bank has moved away from financing
large-scale infrastructure projects, such as roads,
rail-ways, and power facilities Since the 1970s, the
bank has provided an increasing number of loans
to developing countries for agricultural,
educa-tional, and population programs The goals of
these loan programs have been to raise the
standard of living and to increase self-sufficiency
The World Bank offers advisory services to
countries seeking to reform their banking and
finance systems It also launched InfoDev, an initiative to secure resources from corporations, foundations, and governments to promote reform and investment in the developing world through improved access to information tech-nology
In the late 1990s several coalitions of organizations and individuals formed Jubilee
2000 to campaign for debt-forgiveness for poor countries that found themselves unable to pay back the bank’s loans The World Bank and the
INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND responded by establishing the Heavily Indebted Poor Coun-tries Initiative (HIPC) that sought to provide relief for the world’s most heavily indebted countries In April 2000 World Bank President James D Wolfensohn stated that he welcomed Jubilee 2000 and continuing public involvement for their contributions toward getting creditor countries to support HIPC
The IDA provides core funding upon which many of the poorest developing countries rely
In 2007, 45 countries pledged a total of $25.1 billion in U.S dollars for aid that went into the IDA fund The IDA in turn distributed gifts to
80 poorer countries The United States pledged
$3.7 billion in 2007, about $500 million less than Great Britain
Robert B Zoellick became the World Bank’s eleventh president on July 1, 2007 Zoellick previously served as Deputy Secretary of the U.S.STATE DEPARTMENT He was also an executive with the Goldman Sachs Group
FURTHER READINGS Howarth, David, and Peter Loedel 2003 The European Central Bank: The New European Leviathan? New York:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Smith, Roy C., and Ingo Walter, eds 2003 Global Banking.
2d ed New York: Oxford Univ Press.
World Bank Website Available online at http://www.
worldbank.org/ (accessed June 7, 2009).
CROSS REFERENCE International Monetary Fund.
WORLD COURT See INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE
WORLD WAR I World War I was an international conflict primarily involving European nations that was fought between 1914 and 1918 The United States did not enter the conflict until April 1917,
Trang 9but its entry was the decisive event of the war, enabling the Allies (Great Britain, France, Italy, and Russia) to defeat the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, and Bul-garia) The leadership of President WOODROW WILSON led to both the conclusion of hostilities and the creation of the LEAGUE OF NATIONS, an international organization dedicated to resolv-ing disputes without war
Several factors contributed to the war The underlying causes dated back to the unification
of Germany in 1871 Resentment between nations grew during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, sparked in part by Germany’s desire to become an equal with the likes of Great Britain and France European nations had negotiated military alliances with each other that called for mutual protection
The most significant event to lead to the actual war was the ASSASSINATION of Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire A young Bosnian Serb killed Ferdinand for political reasons Austria-Hungary retaliated immediately against the Kingdom of Serbia by declaring war on July
28, 1914, setting off a chain reaction where nations declared war on one another based on alliance commitments
Two major alliances fought the war The Entente Powers consisted of France, Great Britain, and Russia Italy (1915) and the United States (1917) later joined this alliance The Central Powers consisted of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire Bulgaria joined this alliance in 1915 The war was fought primarily on three fronts and on the Atlantic
Ocean The western front was in France, where Germany was opposed by France, Great Britain, and eventually the United States The eastern front was in Russia, where Germany and Austria-Hungary opposed Russia The southern front was in Serbia and involved Austria-Hungary and Serbia
In August 1914 Germany invaded Belgium and then moved into France German forces were unable to achieve a decisive victory, however, and the war soon became a conflict
of fixed battle lines French, British, and German soldiers lived and fought in trenches, breastworks, and fortifications that stretched
475 miles (600 kilometers) Each side periodi-cally made assaults on the enemy by entering the “no man’s land” between two sets of trenches The use of machine guns, tanks, gas warfare, and artillery in these confined battle-fields generated unprecedented human carnage
on the western front
Though Germany had more success on the eastern front, neither side had sufficient eco-nomic and military strength to achieve victory
In 1916 and early 1917, Wilson sought to bring about negotiations between the Allies and Central Powers that would lead, in his words,
to “peace without victory.” Wilson’s efforts at first appeared promising, but German military successes convinced the Central Powers that they could win the war
Germany’s use of submarine warfare proved
to be the key element in provoking the United States’ entry into the war In 1915 a German submarine torpedoed without warning the British passenger steamship Lusitania off the southern coast of Ireland Nearly 1,200 people died, including 128 U.S citizens Popular feeling in the United States against Germany was intense, leading to calls for declaring war on Germany Wilson, however, sought a diplo-matic solution Though Germany rebuked his call for assuming responsibility for the tragedy,
it did not sink any more passenger liners without warning
Wilson abandoned his peacemaking efforts when Germany announced that unrestricted submarine warfare would begin on February 1,
1917 This meant that U.S merchant ships were
in peril, despite the fact that the United States was a neutral in the war Wilson broke diplomatic relations with Germany on February
3 and asked Congress later that month for
American soldiers
man a trench in
France in 1918 The
entry of the United
States in World War I
tipped the scales in
favor of the Allies,
and they soon won
the war against the
Central Powers.
PUBLIC DOMAIN
456 WORLD WAR I
Trang 10authority to arm merchant ships and take other
protective measures In mid-March German
submarines sank three U.S merchant ships,
with heavy loss of life Wilson called a special
session of Congress for April 2 and asked for a
declaration of war on Germany Congress
obliged, and on April 6, 1917, Wilson signed
the declaration
The United States immediately moved to
raise a large military force by instituting a
military draft It took months to raise, train, and
dispatch troops to Europe The first 85,000
members of the American Expeditionary Force
(AEF), under the command of General John J
Pershing, arrived in France in June 1917 By the
end of the war in November 1918, there were
2 million soldiers in the AEF
Germany realized that U.S war production
and financial strength reduced Germany’s
chances of victory In March 1918 Germany
launched its last great offensive on the western
front U.S troops saw their first extended action
in the Battle of the Marne, halting the German
advance on June 4 During the second Battle of
the Marne, U.S and French troops again
stopped the German advance and successfully
counterattacked The Allies began pushing back
the German army all along the western front,
signaling the beginning of the end of German
resistance
Wilson renewed his peace efforts by
proposing a framework for negotiations On
January 8, 1918, he delivered an address to
Congress that named Fourteen Points to be
used as the guide for a peace settlement The
fourteenth point called for a general
associa-tion of naassocia-tions that would guarantee political
independence and territorial integrity for all
countries In October 1918 Germany asked
Wilson to arrange a generalARMISTICEbased on
the Fourteen Points and the immediate start of
peace negotiations Germany finally
capitu-lated and signed an armistice on November 11,
1918
The cost of World War I was enormous
More than 60 million European soldiers were
mobilized between 1914 and 1918 The war
caused more than 40 million casualties,
includ-ing an estimated 20 million military and civilian
deaths related to non-combat aspects of war
such as famine and disease
The 1919TREATY OF VERSAILLES ended World
War I and imposed disarmament, reparations,
and territorial changes on Germany The treaty also established the LEAGUE OF NATIONS, an international organization dedicated to resolv-ing world conflicts peacefully Wilson was unable to convince the U.S Senate to ratify the treaty because it was opposed to U.S
membership in the League of Nations
World War I saw the 1917 Bolshevik revolution in Russia The specter of a worldwide Communist movement generated fears in the United States that socialists, anarchists, and Communists were undermining democratic institutions During the war, socialist opponents
of the war were convicted of SEDITION and imprisoned In 1920 the federal government rounded up 6,000 ALIENS it considered to be politically subversive These “Palmer Raids,”
named after Attorney General A MITCHELL PALMER, violated basic civil liberties Agents entered and searched homes without warrants, held persons without specific charges for long periods of time, and denied them legal counsel
Hundreds of aliens were deported
FURTHER READINGS Hall, Kermit L., and Peter Karsten 2009 The Magic Mirror:
Law in American History New York: Oxford University Press.
Macmillan, Margaret Olwen 2002 Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World New York: Random House.
May, Christopher N 1989 In the Name of War: Judicial Review and the War Powers Since 1918 Cambridge, MA:
Harvard Univ Press Murphy, Paul L 1979 World War I and the Origin of Civil Liberties in the United States New York: Norton.
CROSS REFERENCES Abrams v United States; Armistice; Communism; “Four-teen Points ” (Appendix, Primary Document); Socialism.
WORLD WAR II World War II began in 1939 when Germany invaded Poland as part of Germany’s effort to expand its empire in Eastern and Western Europe The war escalated quickly as a conflict between Germany and the combined forces of France and Great Britain and eventually in-cluded most of the nations of the world before it ended in August 1945 It caused the greatest loss
of life and material destruction of any war in history, killing 25 million military personnel and 30 million civilians By the end of the war, the United States had become the most powerful nation in the world, the possessor and user of atomic weapons The war also