Fifty years in Wall Street

by Henry Clews

Judge Fancher, who wrote the opinion on behalf of the bench, consigned that referee to everlasting disgrace, and set aside his opinion. There the case ended.

Another instance in my experience will illustrate the point which I have made in regard to the sympathy exhibited by juries with those whom they regard, rightly or wrongly, as oppressed. At one time I had employed a clerk at the rate of $2,000 per annum. He was a great disappointment to me in regard to competency, for the work for which I had engaged him, and for his entire lack of application to, as well as deficiency in, the department to which he was assigned. At the end of the first year, therefore, I gave him notice, in presence of two competent witnesses, that I should not require him after his year had expired, and advised him to look out at once for another situation. On the last day of the year he came to me with tears in his eyes and said that he had been unable to obtain another place, owing to the bad times prevailing, and begged me, in the name of his family, who was solely dependent upon him, to keep him in my services still longer, until he could get another situation. Purely out of sympathy for his condition, and believing his story, which was very plausible and pathetic, I told him that he might remain a short time longer on the same salary, but that I should require him to use all his exertions to get another place as speedily as possible.

When he entered on the second term his services were no more use to me than a fifth wheel is to a coach. After the expiration of a few weeks, I sent for him and inquired if he had got another situation; I said I had given him ample time to obtain one, and that I could not consent to keep him any longer. I therefore requested my cashier to draw a check to his order for the balance of his wages, up to date, filled in as a part of the body thereof with the words “payment in full for all claims and demands.”

Thereupon he left my employment, but called repeatedly at the office afterward. I assumed that his visits were simply for the purpose of paying his respects. At the expiration of the second year I received a notice of suit which he had commenced in Brooklyn for the balance of salary due him for the year, being at the rate of $2,000 a year for ten months.

The case came up duly in the Brooklyn court, his only witness being his father, who had made several calls upon me after the discharge of his son, on the strength of which he set forth, in his evidence, certain conferences that should have taken place between him and myself, the greater part of which were purely fictitious. He was the only witness called on the side of the plaintiff, while I had five or more witnesses to substantiate the facts, as I have related them, in relation to the young man’s discharge, all of them being of most excellent character.

Strange to say, the jury entirely ignored the overwhelming testimony on my side, and seemed to be altogether influenced by the “spread-eagle” address of the defendant’s counsel, which I am free to say was both able and ingenious. He drew a harassing picture of the poverty of the young man, and presented the imminent destitution of his family in a most pitiable light, brought about solely by the ruthless treatment of this hard-hearted millionaire and bloated bondholder. Hence the verdict was made, through the force of counsel’s oratory, to depend exclusively on the sympathy of the jury, irrespective of the evidence.

The case occupied several days, with five or six employees from my office in constant attendance, who were obliged to carry to and from court, every day, huge books and large quantities of papers, disturbing the regular business of the office in a very disagreeable manner.

After counsel had gone over the ordinary rigmarole in reviewing the testimony, the jury went through the formality of retiring, to keep up appearances, and after a brief interval of absence returned to court with a verdict for the deeply injured clerk for back pay, together with interest for the ten months during which he had not rendered me an hour’s service.

My lawyer was easily able to obtain fresh evidence from other sources, but he had not considered it necessary to put any more witnesses on the stand, as he had regarded the testimony already produced more than ample, so sanguine was he of success, and so fully satisfied of the plainness of his case, which he considered had only one side, and that in my favor.

The jury, however, put the boot on the other foot, upset all my counsel’s calculations and showed him that his law went for nothing where the famous twelve had the right to judge and legislate at the same time in accordance with their sympathies and prejudices. Still he went through the formality of going before the judge with new evidence, and applied for a new trial, which was ordered on the ground that the verdict was not in accordance with the weight of evidence.