THE ABUSE OF PERSONAL INJURY LITIGATION aware of the prostitution of the courts because the defendant who has escaped a verdict based upon perjured testimony has not felt any duty resting upon him to prosecute. He is glad to avoid further litigation. The defeated defendant knows that he will be charged with a purpose to get even, if he complain, assuming that the verdict has not ruined him. The defendant, shocked at the outrageous lying against him, the jury which brings in an immediate verdict for defendant, and the bystanders all expect to hear the judge indignantly command the sheriff to take the perjurer to prison, but instead he blandly calls the next case. And so the evil might continue to grow were it not for the tendency of the times to bring about co-operation. The business of insuring employers against liability for the negligence of their servants is of recent development. But it has opened the eyes of many persons, to the frauds and dangers of personal injury litigation. By taking the defense out of the hands of the individual defendant, it has made his case the concern of every one insured in the same company because, after all, the company is only the instrument for averaging the losses among the policy-holders. It has also given to the defense an impersonal character and the courage of numbers. It has resulted in a collection of accurate statistics. It' has been the means of the organization of an Alliance against Accident Fraud. The Alliance against Accident Fraud is made up of the leading employers' liability insurance companies, the accident compa nies, the steam and the electric railway com panies, the transportation and public service corporations, and, generally, contractors and business men of all kinds whose property may be the subject of attack through acci dent litigation. It is continental in its scope. Its purpose is publicity and prose cution for the crooks, including professional
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litigants, "fakirs," false witnesses, shyster lawyers, tricky doctors, ambulance-chasers, and runners, and the encouragement of fair dealing and honest and prompt adjustment of the losses of honest claimants. For the interchange of information con cerning the practices of the "sharks" local bureaus are established in the large centers. A card index is kept of all claims made against members giving the names of the lawyer and the doctor in each case as well as the claimant's, together with any useful information obtained. There are pending against the street railway companies, represented by the writer, over twelve thousand personal injury actions. The trial of these cases occupies about a quarter of the time of all the courts in New York City. Allowing for sympathy for the plaintiff and prejudice against a railway corporation, which necessarily influences many verdicts which are not warranted by the truth, it is significant that only a little more than one half of the cases tried result in a verdict against the defendant. This shows the extent to which groundless suits are brought. And yet until the organization of the Alliance against Accident Fraud there was no means of preventing the unsuccessful plaintiffs from trying to sell their injuries to any other of the numerous subjects of their attacks. Now, they will be instantly spotted and, if caught, they will be prosecuted by an impersonal, dispassionate organization. Fur ther than this, every person having to do with the crooked case will be given the publicity which he deserves and which the protection of the public demands. The movement is in its infancy but it has already produced great results. It follows therefore that the best existing remedy for the evils under consideration is to be found in such an alliance. NEW YORK, N. Y., March, 1906.
