LONDON LEGAL LETTER. London, August i, 1896.
HERE in this important commercial center a great majority of the disputes on trade and business matters are settled out of court, either by committees of trade and commercial organizations or by arbitration. The tedious delay that follows the filing of a suit, and the large and almost ominous expenses connected with the ordinary course of litigation are the deterring influences which are keeping the best class of litigants away from the portal of justice. Not only have the lawyers recognized this con dition of affairs, but for some years past the judges have been considering what relief could be afforded, A little over a year ago Mr. Justice Matthew took the matter up, and proposed to his associates on the bench the establish ment of a commercial division of the High Court. Mr. Justice Matthew had had a large commercial practice be fore he was called directly from the junior bar to the bench. His action on the bench was characterized from the first by resolute determination and a scarcely veiled contempt for technicalities of pleading and practice. He delights in facts, and his constant exclamation is, "Yes, yes, Mr. Silk, that may be so, but what are the facts? Give me the facts!" Having once acquired these, his decisions are quick and deep-cutting, and invariably just. The judges fell in with his suggestion, and under the power conferred upon them by the Judicature Acts they gave him authority to formulate the rules for the new court, or more properly for a new division of the Court. These rules define commercial causes to include causes arising out of the ordinary transactions of merchants and traders, amongst others those relating to the construction of mer cantile documents, export or import of merchandise, afreightment, insurance, banking and mercantile agency and mer cantile usages. An action with respect to any of these matters is brought in the usual way, and then after the parties have appeared, and, in some cases, before the defen dant has appeared, application may be made to Mr. Justice Matthew, who sits in Chambers every Saturday morning to hear such applications, to have the cause transferred to the commercial list. All that need be shown in support of the application is that the case is really a commercial case. The Court of Appeals, in an appeal from the decision of a chancery judge who had refused leave to have a cause trans ferred from his court to the commercial list, stated that the object of the establishment of the Commercial Court was not that, on the one hand, all commercial causes, or on the other hand only short causes, should be tried there, but that causes should be so tried "which are likely to be more speedily, economically and satisfactorily tried if brought before a judge having special familiarity with mercantile transactions." The appeal was therefore granted, and the cause, which involved a number of complex transactions between merchants in London and Calcutta, and an appli cation for an accounting, was transferred from the Chancery side to the Commercial Court. Once the case is lodged in this Court the practice is of the simplest kind. The judge directs that there shall be no pleadings, but that "points" shall be exchanged within a limited period, usually about ten days; that a list of docu
ments or other matters to be put in evidence shall also be exchanged, and that the case shall be heard at the first open date on his calendar, after these exchanges have been made. Everything which tends to complicate or delay the issue is discouraged. Applications for inspection of documents, for the delivery of interrogatories and other interlocutory applica tions which are generally so numerous, are quickly settled, and with the idea of getting straight away at the hearing of the case and to promote its speedy determination. How well the system works is manifest from the following illustration. A firm in New York recently sent to England an agent to sell in Great Britain a patented article of great commercial value. The agent had hardly entered upon his work when he was served with a writ and a notice of an application for an injunction to restrain him from selling or soliciting orders for his goods. His appearance was entered, and with it an application to have the cause transferred to the Commercial Court, on the ground that as the plaintiff claimed to have exclusive license to this territory under a contract with the defendant's employers, the question in the case was one of construction of a contract. The motion was granted, and an immediate day fixed for the hearing of the application for the injunction. This however was postponed until the case should be heard on its merits, six weeks after wards, that being the first vacant date. Counsel waived the exchange of points, but gave lists of documents and letters to be used at the trial. When the case was heard no wit nesses were called, no evidence was formally put in and no documents were proved. Counsel, however, at the in stance of the Court, argued and commented upon the evidence contained in the letters and documents as freely as if they had been technically proved. The matter involved a business whose transactions covered a period of seven years, and whose annual profits were more than 350,000. Had it been conducted in the ordinary way the trial would have lasted a week, and it would have involved a large ex pense in taking testimony to prove the documents. Under the new system the trial was compressed within less than two days, and from the time the writ issued until final judg ment was rendered was not more than eight weeks. This expedition in business and the cheapness with which it is connected have already attracted the attention of busi ness men. New cases are coming to the courts, and the tide of litigation, after having been at a low ebb for years, is beginning to flow. What has been accomplished here may, perhaps, be done in the United States, but there are two circumstances at work here which give the experiment a greater assurance of success than could be expected in your country. In the first place the Bar in England holds the judiciary in the greatest respect — perhaps "awe" would be a better expression. Whatever the judgment of a judge or his conduct of a case, no remonstrance is heard, no exception is taken to a ruling, and no opposition of any kind is manifested. In the next place, when finally the cause is determined and a verdict is rendered or a judg ment delivered, that is, in the great majority of instances, the absolute end of the matter. Appeals are rarely taken, and, when taken, rarely result in a reversal of the finding of the court below. Stuff Gown.
