446
THE GREEN BAG
earning of a sufficient amount to pay their salaries. The compensation of the officers of the court and the fees charged ought to be entirely separate considerations. The losses which the government may have to suffer through the lack of energy in the collection of costs and fees should be remedied in some other way. The salaries of the court officers should be fixed and should be paid out of the treasury of the county, state, or national government, as the case may be, and fees should be reduced to as low a figure as possible consistent with a reasonable discouragement of groundless and unneces sary litigation. I believe it is sufficiently in the interest of the public at large to promote equality between litigants, to take upon the government much more than has already been done the burden of private litigation. What I have said has peculiar application to the federal courts. The feeling with respect to their jurisdiction has been that limited as it is now to cases involving not less than $2000, the litigation must of course be between men better able to undergo its expense than in causes involving a less amount, and therefore that high fees and costs are not so objectionable in those courts as in the state courts. I think this has been a very unfortunate view and has been one of the several grounds for creating the prejudice that has undoubtedly existed in popular estimation against the federal courts as rich men's courts. In those courts suits for damages for personal injury, of which many are there by removal of defendant, are generally brought by poor persons. Then the expense of litigation in patent cases is almost prohibitive for a poor inventor. It forces him into contracts that largely deprive him of the benefit of his invention. In respect to patent cases much might be done by the supreme courts reforming the equity procedure and the bill of costs. I think another step in the direction of the dispatch of litigation would be the require ment of higher qualifications for those
judges who sit to hear the cases, involving a small pecuniary amount. The system by which the justices of the peace who have to do with smaller cases are nonprofessional men and not apt in the disposition of business is hardly a wise feature of the present system. The poor should have the benefit of as acute and able judges as the rich, and the money saved in the smaller salaries of the judges of the inferior courts is not an economy in the interest of the public. Under able, educated, and well-paid judges who understand the purpose of the law in creating them, I am quite sure that the people's courts as they are called could be made much more effective than they are for the final settlement of contro versies. Another method by "which the irritation at the inequalities in our administration of justice may be reduced is by the introduc tion of a system for the settling of damage suits brought by employees against public service corporations through official arbitra tion and without resort to jury trials. Such a system is working in England, as I am informed. Under the statute limitations are imposed upon the recovery of the employee or his representatives propor tioned to his earning capacity. The hearing is prompt and the payment of the award equally prompt, and in this way a large mass of litigation that now blocks our courts would be taken out of our judicial tribunals and be settled with dispatch. Of course it would not be proper or possible to prevent the plaintiff litigant from resorting to a jury trial if he chooses, but I believe that the result would be very largely to reduce the character of such litigation. The truth is that these suits for damages for injuries to employees and passengers and to trespassers and licensees have grown to be such a very large part of the litigation in each court, both in courts of first instance and in courts of appeal, and involve so much time because of the necessity for a jury trial, that they may be properly treated as a class
