Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 10.djvu/65

Rh by a young lawyer of meagre experience to a friend in the legislature. The thousands of annotations to this Code can be safely used only by finding the exact wording of the section passed upon at the date of the case. But however often a section may be amended, all cases on it in its various stages follow it while it lasts. It is scarcely too much to say that an expert in our practice cannot be sure of knowing it over night. Older lawyers tired of this long ago. In cases where there are a multitude of counsel, it is not unusual, when a question under the code comes up, for the seniors to say, "Let the young men fight that out."

The writer has recently known of a litigation hotly contested to judgment, in which both the attorneys and judge knew nothing of a new section of the Code controlling the chief point in the case. Revision of all its Code is again imminent, but scientific codification is not in sight.

The multitude of judges before whom a case in its many phases may have to pass is a risk of litigation. To a degree, it is like handing around a kaleidoscope, and expecting each person to see the same figure in it. On the recent call of an equity case, the defence claimed that the wrong tribunal had been chosen, and demanded a jury. The judge held that the case was properly before him. As the term was far spent, the case went into the next term, and before a new judge. The motion was renewed, and this judge said there was an issue for a jury. It was cheaper to obey than to appeal, so the issue was proceeded with before a jury. Here the third judge on his own motion declared the matter wholly of equity jurisdiction, and sent it back to equity, where it was tried. All three of these judges have been on the bench for ten or more years. Many judges exchange courtesies to the detriment of litigants. There is now in our highest court an appeal involving under four hundred dollars on a question in which five judges have concurred; but the judge who wrote the last prevailing opinion allowed an appeal through courtesy to one judge, who dissented, but wrote no opinion.

Again, pettifoggers can profit by the number of judges. In vacation (June to October) Chambers is held by the same judge only a week or two at a time. A corporation is sued for refusing to transfer stock on its books. X. is counsel for the corporation, is the treasurer who refused to make the transfer, and also claims to be the legal owner of the stock in question. As counsel he advises himself as treasurer that the corporation has a good