THE APPLICABILITY OF ENGLISH METHODS
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ILLINOIS In the law courts of Chicago it requires from a year and one-half to two years to get a trial in the ordinary case. If the case follows the ordinary course of appeal through two courts it requires a year and a half to two years more to get a final judg ment, if there has been no reversible error committed in the trial court. The evils of this system are manifest. The man who has a legitimate claim against a fellowcitizen, growing out of a business transac tion, will forego the whole or a substantial part of his demand rather than engage in a law suit. The dishonest debtor will use this certain delay to force a reduction of his debt. Some lawyers encourage their clients to bring baseless actions in order to force a settlement, which action would never have been begun if a prompt trial were assured. In many suits baseless de fenses are interposed which would never be interposed were prompt trials assured. But one of the worst results of this delay is the perjury which is thereby encouraged in that class of litigation which occupies about four-fifths of the time of our law courts, viz: personal injury litigation. From statistics it would appear that in this city seventeen judges in our Circuit and Superior Courts dispose of nearly one thousand cases per year each on the average, whereas in England (according to the article by Mr. R. Newton Crane) twenty-three judges dispose of more than three thousand five hundred cases per year each. But certain conditions favorable to the dispo sition of business exist in England which do not, and perhaps never will or can, exist in this city. In the first place, there all judges of the High Court are appointed for life by the Lord Chancellor from the most active and experienced practitioners and the most eminent men at the bar. All trials are conducted too, by barristers of long and special training. With such ex perts on the bench, and such experts at the
bar, no lawyer can wonder that business is dispatched more rapidly there than here.' Our system of choosing judges by popular election does not always result in the selec tion of judges of eminent ability, with exten sive experience. But that system will stay with us; for the other system of life appoint ments by the executive has not uniformly resulted in such preeminently fit appoint ments as to serve as an impressive object lesson. But if some of our elective judges lack experience, so also did the majority of the practitioners before them, and in a more marked degree. That much time is wasted by these conditions is manifest; but the conditions are in a large degree perma nent. The first and most obvious remedy to be applied in order to cut down our long delays in litigation would appear to be, to cut down the time necessary for an appeal, from two and one-half years to about six weeks. This could be readily done by per mitting but one appeal instead of two, and by supplying enough judges to hear these appeals. This one thing would reduce the necessary time from the beginning of a suit to the final judgment more than one-half, and would discourage the filing of many baseless suits, and the interposition of many baseless defenses. Another simple method of reducing and shortening illegitimate litigation would be to require the plaintiff to swear to his com plaint, and the defendant to make a specific answer under oath; and to permit each to require the other to answer under oath per tinent interrogatories, without thereby bind ing the party calling for such answers. If in addition to these innovations a plaintiff were permitted to at once have judgment for the amount admitted or shown by the answer to be due, and to litigate the balance of his claim if so desired, another lot of unjustifiable litigation would be done away with.
