Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 18.pdf/235

210 you will have gone a long way in solving the problem under discussion. Damage litigation you will have with you always, shyster damage litigation you can eliminate by putting him out of business, and in my opinion the Bar can help you in this direc tion as well as the legislature. It has been intimated that a fake suit is often settled to save expense; if so, then the defendant ac knowledges he thinks more of his dollars than he does of his principles, and if he does he then helps the fakir to do business rather than to put him out of business. Take a railroad company who has suits piled up against it, almost without number, and it claims, and perhaps justly, that lots of them should never have been brought, then had the company not better try these cases and win them, than to settle them, and thereby get a fresh supply of the same kind, because while trying these fake suits the company will be standing for principle and putting the fakir out of business, and putting off the day when meritorious claimants will convert their claims into judgments? I take it that all will agree that a meritorious claim will always have a standing in court and because it happens to sound in tort is no reason why it should be looked upon with suspicion. I believe in our jury system, but I also believe that it can be improved upon, and if we can get the court and bar to join hands in this direction, and have some concerted action, much might be ac complished. If the conscientious, fairminded, and substantial individual could be made to serve on our juries, then the wheat could be soon separated from the chaff, and another step in the right direction would be taken. It must not be forgotten, how ever, as we go along seeking remedies for supposed evils, to -do justice to all. The great mass of damage suits is directed against the corporations, because corpora tions own the place where and the things which usually are involved in this charac ter of litigation, and in attempting to pro tect the corporate body let us not forget the

human body and its rights. In Maryland I believe that all either want at this stage of the game is an upright judiciary, which, thank God, we have, an honest jury, and a fair fight, with no favors to either plaintiff or defendant. Other states may have a different condition of affairs which call for redress, and may I suggest that the conserted action of the Bench and Bar with reference to shysters and acts looking to the personate of the jury box will bring assist ance where assistance is most needed. In Maryland many of the damage suits are defended, not by actual defendants, but by the insurance companies who have issued certificates of protection. On April i, 1902, an act went into force in this state which had for its purpose the creation and maintenance of a cooperative insurance fund, in the hands and under the supervision of the state insurance com missioner, for the benefit of employees in certain lines of employment. The act provides that any corporation, partnership, association, individual, or indi viduals engaged in the business of operating any coal or clay mine, quarry, steam or street railroad in this state and any incor porated town, city, or county in the state, engaged in the work of constructing any sewer, excavation, or other physical struc tures, or the contractors for the same, shall be liable in law to any employee, engaged in the above-named occupations, or in case of death to his wife, her husband, if the de ceased be a married woman, or to his or her parent or children, in accordance with " Lord Campbell's Act," for damages flowing from an injury to said employee or from the death of such employee, when such death or in jury is caused by the negligence of the employer or by the negligence of any ser vant or employee of such employer, and if it appears that such injury or death was caused by the joint negligence of such em ployer, his servants, or employees on the one hand, and the negligence of the injured or deceased on the other, then the employer