“Well,” said the defendant, “I will do it, and give you a receipt in full in satisfaction of all claims.”
After this cordial termination of the trouble, the defendant turned to the plaintiff and said confidentially, “I am sorry you did not take the thirty thousand dollars which I offered you. I would sooner you had it than anyone else, as I had to pay it all the same.”
The profound lesson of humility taught in Scripture, that “the first shall be last and the last first,” was fully verified in this instance.
As litigation is now carried on either before a jury or a referee, it has a tendency to stir up bad blood, which grows worse as the case progresses through its various and lengthy stages, leaving relations more strained and matters for both parties much worse at the end than at the beginning. As the case drags its slow length along criminations and recriminations between plaintiff and defendant are constantly elicited, and family matters that should be regarded as sacred are dragged before the eyes of the public, subjected to unfriendly criticism, and innocent parties who have no interest in the case are subject to have their private affairs made known, to their great mortification, and often to their great detriment, having a cloud thrown over their reputation long after the litigants have passed away.
Thus the evils of litigation are far reaching in their consequences, and frequently exercise a most deleterious influence over the character and prosperity of those who have nothing to do with the original parties to the contest, and have no interest in the suit.
The expense is also another important consideration in going to law, and is only to be measured by the bank balances of the contending parties.
The time lost in the methods of procedure now generally adopted is of the utmost importance, especially to people the success of whose business in a large measure may depend on their personal attention thereto. It is perfectly astounding to reflect on the important portion of a person’s existence that may be lost in one case, which, from its inception in the lower court up through the regular gradations of the Supreme Court and Court of Appeals when a new trial is had, probably thus going over the entire ground twice, may consume all the way from five to ten years under the perpetual pressure of mental anxiety and torture before the end is reached, when at least one, and sometimes both parties, are financially ruined.
The worry, wear and tear of attending to a lawsuit in the capacity of either plaintiff or defendant is perfectly incomprehensible to those who have never passed through the trying ordeal. A person in either capacity, with his train of witnesses, is obliged to dance attendance on court every day, no matter how pressing the necessities of his own business may be. Books must be carried thither, and all his establishment must be upset for the convenience of the court and to gratify the whims and caprices of the opposing litigant. The business places of the two contending parties are entirely disarranged, and the help thrown into a state of partial disorganization. Each party to the suit seeks to give the other all the trouble he possibly can, and to subject him to all the sources of annoyance his imagination can devise. Such is the spirit imbued by going to law.
A lawyer, therefore, who has about half a dozen moderate cases has thus his entire time occupied, and while his clients keep out of bankruptcy his income is as good as the annuity of a life insurance company, and frequently the security is better.
The effect of the change which I propose, in the majority of cases where merchants and business men find it necessary now to resort to legal methods, would perhaps not render the life of the ordinary lawyer so happy as it is under the present system, but the merchants would gain ten-fold more than the lawyers would lose, so the effect upon the entire community would be incalculably beneficial.