206
THE GREEN BAG
of meritorious cases of this nature is greatly delayed; and the disposition of general legal matters is seriously hampered. Under the present conditions existing in the courts I see but little prospect of relief. The proverbial generosity of juries with the money and property of other people will constantly encourage litigants to fit the facts to the decisions. Improvement of the situ ation, through the medium of the courts themselves, is scarcely to be expected. It seems to me, therefore, that the only refuge lies in the enactment of statutes which will tend to decrease the number of injuries and to prevent the bringing of purely specula tive cases. The following suggestions occur to me : i. Laws prohibiting or restricting the employment of children should be adopted and enforced. In this State the minimum age of children who may be employed in factories is fixed at fourteen years. I pre sume the statutes of other States are simi lar. The age limit might be raised with propriety. We may reasonably assume that persons of greater age would display greater discretion and judgment in the handling of machinery and that thus the number of in juries would be substantially decreased. I believe that such a law, strictly enforced, •would also have a very beneficial effect from the standpoints of education and the gen eral welfare. .2. The enforcement of statutes requiring careful provision for the safety of employees, and requiring employees to take prr per pre cautions for the safety of themselves and their co-employees would also have a bene ficial tendency. A great many personal in juries are caused through what amounts to •criminal carelessness and reckless disregard for the safety of their fellow-servants. Strict accountability for such carelessness would •cause employees to be more thoughtful. 3. Strict laws against champerty and maintenance, if properly enforced, would be -very beneficial. It is urged that such laws •would prevent poor persons, who have been
injured, from obtaining redress; in other words, that unless the person injured is able to make a contract for payment for ser vices and disbursements on a contingent basis, he will be unable to have his day in court. I do not believe that this position is true in fact. It not infrequently occurs that meritorious cases of this class are pre sented in Court by our best and busiest lawyers, who take them either out of chari table considerations or from the fact that the result is reasonably certain and reason able compensation is assured. In most in stances, friends of the injured person will see that his legal rights are protected. Deserv ing cases will always receive proper atten tion without the necessity of sharing con tracts whereby the attorney becomes personally in terested in the result of the litigation. 4. Statutes should be passed requiring early notice of claims of this kind. Such statutes are in existence as to claims against municipalities, and by shortening the time of the statute of limitations, a similar result has been obtained as to other employers. Still, by reason of frequent changes of em ployees and inability to ascertain the true condition of machinery at the time of the accident, failure to give speedy notice of injuries frequently leads to injustice. If a claim is meritorious, no harm will be done by making a requirement which will per mit early investigation. 5. I believe that the present jury system ij responsible for much of the present injus tice in this class of cases. Whatever we may think of the merits or demerits of this system, it is doubtless here to stay, and all that can possibly be done is to modify it in some respects. Practically speaking, leav ing a case to a jury for decision upon the facts simply leaves the question as to the amount of the verdict. The fact of injuryseems to render the testimony of the plain tiff and his witnesses conclusively true. Again, practically speaking, our juries are not composed of men who represent the average intelligence of the community. Men
