Page:Pennington's Executors v. Yell.pdf/19

230 failure of their duty in the issuance or service of process. He should pursue bail, however, and those who may have become bound with the defendant, either before or after judgment, in the progress of the suit. Nor is he bound to attend in person to the levy of an execution, or to search out for property, out of which to make the debt: this is the business of the sheriff. Nor is he liable for any of the short comings of that officer.

But, in reference to all these professional duties, the courts have recognized a principle to which we have already alluded, that does not, by any means, move the line between reasonable diligence and crassa negligentia, and thus in fact place the attorney further from responsibility to his client; but so far as its operation is, in any sort to his protection, it is so only by its influence upon the determination of the question of fact  whether or not the act or omission complained of, did really amount to that degree of crassitude for which the law holds him liable. This principle is that the attorney will always be justified in ceasing to proceed with his client's cause (unless specially instructed to go on) whenever he shall be bona fide influenced to this course by a prudent regard for the interest of his client. (J. & Z. Crooker vs. Hutchinson & Cushman, 2 Chip. (Vt.) R. 117. 2 Greenl. Ev., 2 ed., sec. 145, p. 140.) This principle would seem to grow directly out of the peculiar character of the functions of an attorney at law and to be founded on sound public policy. For, in the nature of thhigs, these duties cannot in general be performed in a manner to subserve the true interest of the client, if limited to that strict line of routine conduct which is chalked out by the law as the pathway for ordinary agents, and it is therefore inevitable that in the discharge of these duties they must be entrusted with a large and liberal share of discretion.

Hence the extreme difficulty of defining with accuracy that exact limit by which the skill and diligence are bounded, which an attorney undertakes to furnish in the conduct of the cause, or to trace precisely the dividing line between that reasonable skill