Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/826

 812 V. BENCH AND BAR culty by reason of the authorities, and my decision may pos- sibly not be reconcilable with one or more of them. In the view which I take of them I think they do not, when fairly considered, prevent my arriving at the conclusion at which I should have arrived had there been no authorities at all." He was equally unceremonious in dealing with the opinions of his colleagues. In referring, in Re Hallett's Estate, 13 Ch. D. 676, to a decision by Mr. Justice Fry, where that learned judge had felt himself " bound by a long line of authorities," Jessel said : " That being so, I feel bound to examine his supposed long line of authorities, which are not very numerous, and show that not one of thfm lends any sup- port whatever to the doctrine or principle which he thinks is established by them." At all events he was no respecter of persons. In Johnson v. Crook, 12 Ch. D, 439, he took a view contrary to most of the other equity judges, and despatched them in order. After quoting from Vice-Chancellor Wood he says: " All I can say about it is that it was simply a mistake of the Vice-Chancellor, and that is how I shall treat it." Then, quoting from Lord Chelmsford's opinion, he adds : " I am no CEdipus ; I do not understand the passage." Further on he remarks : " Lord Selborne says, ' Lord Thurlow said ' so and so. There is a very good answer to that — he did not say so." " What is the proper use of authorities ? " he in- quire in Re Hallett's Estate, 13 Ch. D. 676. He declares it to be *' the establishment of some principle which the judge can follow out in deciding the case before him." Jessel had a convenient application of this rule by means of which even the decision of a higher court was not binding un- less it decided a principle which he recognized as such. In Re International Pulp Co., 6 Ch. D. 556, where he was pressed with the authority of two cases previously decided by a higher court, he said : " I will not attempt to distinguish this case from the cases before the Court of Appeal, but I will say that I do not consider them as absolutely binding upon me in the present instance, and for this reason, that as I do not know the principle upon which the Court of Appeal founded their decisionT cannot tell whether I ought to follow them or not. If these decisions do lay down any principle