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 THE ABUSE OF PERSONAL INJURY LITIGATION taught to talk and think in two figures, occasionally three; against this tool of cor porate greed is pitted some poor unfortu nate, and, too often, ignorant claimant, who knows nothing of injury or of law. It is like killing chicks with a cannon. This is the really pitiful spectacle that forms the background for many of the abuses that to-day may be vividly depicted in injury cases. Truly, no injured man is fit to pass judgment upon the merit and value of his own claim, and no more is he fit to cope with the "smooth gentleman of guile " than with the engine that struck him. It is an unfair, unequal contest, and in the majority of cases can only result one way. If corporations would pay in settlement of damage claims amounts that would fairly approximate their just value, the tendency would be to settle rather than to litigate, and those corporations that are known to meet the issue squarely, with a purpose to honorably weigh the facts and determine the rights of the parties, and to consider fairly the question of injury, seldom have any difficulty in securing a just result. But when every lawyer knows of settlements that ought to fix the brand of shame upon the corporations in whose name they were made; when every doctor has personal knowledge of cases in his own practice where injured men — ofttimes permanently crip pled — have ignorantly signed away their rights for a mere pittance; when the attache"es of every hospital in the land have seen and know of the trickery and deceit that is perpetrated in effecting cheap bed side settlements, can it be said by any rule of ethics that counteracting influences shall be open to censure, when they seek to pre vent these methods from being carried on unmolested. It is indeed pitiful that any interference should ever be interposed to prevent a corporation from securing iron clad releases upon its own terms, when those terms are grossly unfair and undeniably unjust, and can only merit the condemna tion of all right thinking men!

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This, then, is the situation that properly calls for remedial action. It cannot be denied that any plan that seeks to work out exact justice between the corporation and the individual will be welcomed by the individual. It would mean a proportionate increase in cost for every injury, and that would mean more reasonable care to prevent injury. Many of the improvements and methods to-day employed to reduce the hazard of railroading, and to minimize the dangers of mines, factories, and furnaces, are due, not to the love that corporations have for human life and limb, but because of heavy judg ments and expensive litigations. Large verdicts for personal injuries are not unrighteous and iniquitous, as corporation attorneys would have us believe. On the contrary, they are the most effective stim ulants to the production of reasonable care and the adoption of better safeguards. Heavy verdicts mean improved rolling stock, safer roadbeds, and more careful inspection. They are the forerunners of blocked frogs, covered cogwheels, and guarded machinery. They produce new rules and regulations, better material for scaffolding, and a little more care in their construction. Touch the "rocks" of the corporation and instantly abundant streams of care and prudence burst forth. The city of Cleveland recently sustained an unusually heavy judgment for injuries arising from a defective sidewalk; within a few weeks over two thousand de fects had been reported into the street de partment by the police force, and active measures taken for their repair. Had the city won, it is obvious that no such public missionary work would have resulted. So, a substantial verdict for the plaintiff is a lesson learned, that operates, not alone to benefit the present community, but genera tions yet to come. To a considerable extent the present abuses in tort litigation can be removed by the enactment of a just and fair Workmen's Compensation Act, but corporations are not