London Legal Letter.
479
LONDON LEGAL LETTER.
London, Sept. 7, 1895. INSTEAD of invoking the saints, the junior members of the liar feel at this season of the year much more like anathematizing them. Years ago, when it was the univer sal custom to observe as days of idleness all feast days and saints' days, the courts likewise refrained from work, and being to a certain extent identified, at least on their ecclesi astical side, with the church, the holidays were protracted to the extremest period of the saints' pleasure. Thus it has happened that out of the full term of the year the courts are closed for about four months, or more than one-third the lime. The terms of court are still called by the names of the saints, or have other ecclesiastical designation, as "Hilary," "Easter," "Trinity," and "Michaelmas." At the end of the Trinity term the courts are absolutely closed for more than twelve weeks at a stretch — from the 12th of August this year until the first week in November. This is all well enough for the judges and for a few of the over worked queen's counsel; but for the average even fairly successful practitioner it means not only a period of en forced idleness, but an absolute deprivation of an oppor tunity to earn an income. Year after year litigants who have cases awaiting trial and lawyers who would be glad to go on with their work, protest against the wasteful extrava gance of lime involved in the "long vacation," but nothing comes of these protests. The inns of court are practically deserted, except for the groups of American tourists who wander through them, red-covered guide-books in hand, gazing up at the silent rooms where Blackstone wrote his Commentaries, or where Goldsmith made merry, or where Charles Lamb had his much-loved residence, or into the dining-hall of the Middle Temple, still standing in perfect preservation and in all the glory of its oak-carved decora tion, w here the Tw elfth Night was performed under Shakespere's personal stage direction, and where Queen Elizabeth tripped the measures of the dance with the stately fullbottomed-wigged legal luminaries of her day. Even the law libraries, where students and text-book writers and re porters would be glad to work, are closed part of each day and wholly for some weeks. One judge, it is true, sits once each week for an hour or two to hear pressing motions, but even the Masters are absent, and so all pleadings and interlocutory proceedings are held in abeyance. This abso lute blotting out of time is one of the abuses which young and ambitious law yers are most vigorously insisting shall be abolished; but it unfortunately happens that those in whose hands is the remedy are those who most enjoy and are best able to afford the holiday, and who therefore cling to a privilege of which they assume they have earned the right to enjoy. For two days just before the vacation, the Lord Justice of Appeal in one of the divisions of the High Court of Ap peals had under consideration the interpretation of certain life insurance policies issued by the Equitable Life Assur ance Society of the United States. These policies were in
the form common to policies of a like nature where a hus band insures his life for the benefit of his wife, and in case she predeceases him for the benefit of their children. In this case the husband, the wife and the children were all residents of England, and the policies were taken out in England through the local agent of the American company. The husband survived his wife, and the questions arose, (a) when the beneficial interest of the policy vested in the children, and (b) in what manner; in other words, did the children who were alive at the mother's death take the in terest, or those who survived the father? And did such of the children as were entitled to the benefit of the policy take their benefit as joint tenants or tenants in common? The manner in which these propositions were discussed was remarkable for two things. First, the judges, all three of them, had a turn at criticising the drafting of the policy, and there was a unanimous opinion that it was about as poorly expressed an instrument as was possible under the circumstances. They found no difficulty in deciding that it was in reality two instruments within one — a contract of insurance between the husband and the company, and also a settlement by the husband upon the wife with remainder over to the children; and in this light it was discussed by the Chancery bar counsel on both sides and the Lords Jus tices themselves with an apparent relish of the subtleties of equity expressions and the refinements of technical phrase ology which they imported into the document. The second remarkable feature of the proceedings was the fact that not an intimation was made by counsel that the Court of Ap peals of New York had some time ago settled the very ques tions that were bothering the Court. The learned Queen's counsel for the plaintiff and his prompting junior had lying before them the New York Court of Appeals reports con taining the cases of Whitehead The New York Life, The United States Trust Company v. The Mutual Benefit Life, and Walsh v. The Mutual Life Insurance Company, but they apparently lacked courage to draw the attention of an English court to these decisions. It is a pity that the opportunity to see w hat authority the Lords Justices of an English court of appeals would give to the decisions of the New York Court of Appeals was missed. The points in controversy were finally decided in accordance with the view the New York Court of Appeals have taken of them, but the local judges reached their conclusions by a widely dif ferent course of reasoning, in which views were intimated directly at variance to those expressed by the New York courts. This is unfortunate, for the American life insurance companies are becoming very popular in England, and sooner or later questions must arise which will have a widely different judicial interpretation in the two countries. Every one on this side of the Atlantic who has any offi cial or legal connection with the United States is constantly applied to for the collection of "funds in Chancery," which are supposed to be lodged in bank here to the order of the Lord Chancellor, and only awaiting rightful claimants in America. In the majority of cases the claim is a family
