The Express.
London, England, 1852-09-03 00:00:00

NEW ORDERS IN CHANCERY.

(Foss IND Doily Nista.)
Toe new General Orders of the Court of Chancery,
—which yesterday appeared in out columns,—coni-
pieta the preparations for a change in the practice and
course ot proceeding in that court, greater than has
ever been attempted since its original institution.
From the nature of our property laws, and the
manner in which the great majority of the propertied
classes deal with, and desire to dispose of, their pos-
sessions, the Court of Chancery, or some court act-
ing on the same principles, must ever be the tribunal
before which litigations about property in this coun-
try will be brought. Nor can great exception be
taken to the principles on which justice is adminis-
tered in our Courts of Equity. It is the machi-
nery of the court that has so long needed wholesale
reformation. The forms adopted as safeguards in
one age, had become trammels in succeeding ages •
and the very means by which it was endeavoured
in all cases to accomplish complete justice, be-
came practically enormous obstacles to the adminis-
tration of justice at all.
Subsequently to Lord ELno'c's time there has been a
constant struggle, more or less sustained, and directed
with varying degrees of skill, but all with one intent,
to adapt the practice and course of procedure in the
Court of Chancery to the exigenoim Of
tgaritirredtt
non and tho complexities of modem
The elaborate general orders of Lord LYNDHURST in
1828, those of Lord BROUGHAM in 1831, of Lord Cor•
TEN HAM in 18411, of Lord LYN DHURST also in 1443,
and of Lord Corrrxtum again in 18.50, have all been
directed to the simplification of procedure, the dimi-
nution of delay, and the reduction of expense in
Chancery litigation, and all to some, though to a
comparatively insignificant extent effected the in-
tended objects.
The great objection to the changes made by all
those general orders was, that they for the most part
nibbled at details, put a patch here and stopped a
leak there, but left the main edifice of technical for-
malism untouched. Yet those changes had the effect
of whetting the public appetite for a more radical
reform, and undoubtedly prepared the minds of the
ablest of the Chancery practitioners to accomplish
the large measures of alteration which the next
Michaelmas term will inaugurate.
We cannot predict that these alterations will
satisfy, or that they ought to satisfy, the public
amid for a tribunal, which shall adjudicate on
matatad claims and doubtful rights, with the ut-
most possible efficiency and at the least practicable
.net. Nor can we assert that all the parts of
the newly-arranged machinery are likely to work
smoothly, while we quite expect complaints from
sundry persons and classes whose interests will be
affected. As a whole, however, we have no doubt
that the new system will prove beneficial to the
suitors and the public, and that it will afford the
basis for any new measures or additional changes in
the administration of justice which experience may
show to be requisite.
Let us endeavour to place before the lay reader
the general effect of the alterations in a Chancery'
suit effected by the new general orders, and the act " toi
amend the practice and course of proceeding in the
High Court of Chancery" on which they are founded,
and of which they are the complement. Hitherto
the complainant bar commenced his suit by filing
his bill of complaint written on parchment, and sum-
moning the persons against whom he proceeds by
moans of writs of subpoena to appear and defend
themselves against his complaint. Beyond the fact
that a bill had been filed, which he was required to
answer, a defendant in a Chancery suit could know
nothing of the nature of the proceeding against him
until he had taken, at considerable cost, an office
oopy of the bill; and practically each defendant had
to take an office copy. Then, after an interval of 1
time—though shortened-of late still needlessly long
—the defendant must put in his answer to the bill,
though perhaps he admitted or denied all the
allegations of the bill, or perchance had no know-
ledge, one way or the other, about any of them.
Bat know he little or much about the ques-
tions asked, the defendant must answer; for
the practice, under a modern general order,
of serving a copy of the bill, had only
• limited application. Then of every answer, useful
or useless, the plaintiff had to take an office copy,
and the accumulation of paper in suits involving
many details, or much documentary matter, or to
which there are many defendants, often becomes
perfectly frightful. Then the power a plaintiff had
to compel a defendant to set forth in his answer in so
many words, lengthy accounts and documents, was
constantly made an engine ot much oppression. In
a case within our own cognisance, involving some
disputed mercantile accounts, a defendant, after some
ineffectual opposition on the ground of expense, was
compelled to set out in a schedule to his answer mere
copies of accounts from his books—the books them-
selves having been produced to the plaintiffs, and
who had the original accounts, as delivered, in their
possession- of which the stationer's charge for
making a single copy amounted to 120/.
When a Chancery suit is commenced after the 2nd
of November next t plaintiff will prepare his bill
according to a concise form given in the new orders,
which he must have printed "on writing royal paper,
quarto, in pica type, leaded," with blank paper of
the same kind interleaved, and this is to be filed with
the Clerk of the Records.
. _

Instead of serving • subpcena, • mere writ of sum-
mons, the plaintiff must then serve each defendant
with a printed copy of the bill, on which is an in-
dorsement informing him when he must appear and
the consequences of his non-appearance, such copy
having been authenticated by the stamp of the
Record Clerk. The bill is to contain no interroga-
tories, but if the plaintiff requires an answer from
any defendant, separate intermgatorice may be filed
for the examination of the defendant within eight
days after the time limited for the defendant's ap-
peIITIWICe. Each defendant is entitled to demand ten
printed copies of the bill from the plaintiff, at • fixed
price, one halfpenny per folio of seventy-four words.
Thus the bill having been once printed, all the various
parties to the suit have the benefit of this convenient
form in every stage cf the proceedings; and though
in some cases the first cost to the plaintiff of printing
the bill may rather exceed that of a single written
bill, yet in the end,—the unsuccessful, as • rule,
having to pay ultimately all the costs,—the saving at
the termination of the snit will most likely be very
considerable. If amendments or additions are re-
quired to be made to the bill, they are to be
printed and served in the same way as the original.
The orders give a concise form for answers. But if
no answer is required by the plaintiff, or thought
necessary by the defendant, he merely files a repli-
cation, and leaves the plaintiff to prove his case in
the best: way he can. At the end of three months, if
the plaintiff has not proceeded with his suit effec-
tually, so as to bring it to a hearing, the defendant
may move to dismiss the bill for want of prosecution,
when the court may make such order as may be just
and reasonable. Thus a defendant can never have a
suit hanging over him more than three months, un-
less there be substantial and active proceedings in the
cause. _ _

In many cases tho object is to get a speedy hear-
ing ; probably there is little or no dispute as to facts,
and all that is wanted is the decision of the court on
legal questions. In other cases, again, prompt deci-
sion is of tho essence of justice. This is now pro-
vided for; when the defendant's time for answering
has expired, the plaintiff may move for a decree,
giving a month's notice and previously filing all the
affidavits he means to use, and giving at the foot of
his notice a list of such affidavits. In fourteen days
the defendant must file his affidavits in answer, giving
his opponent a list of them, who has seven days more
to file affidavits, which must " be confined to matters
strictly in reply."
When no such motion for a decree is made, but
issue is joined,either party may give notice of his inten-
tion to examine the witnesses orally, when that mode
of taking the evidence is to be adopted; but where
neither party requires oral examinations, the evidence

will be given by affidavits. Not to pursue fart/ter at
present the details of the new course of procedure,
it will be obvious that with the reciprocal power
plaintiffs and defendants will have of forcing
on suits to • termination, and with the nects-
pity both parties will be under of proceeding
promptly, a Chancery suit will take no longer time
than may be due to the substantial merits
and difficulties of each case. When to this we add
1 the abolition of the Masters' offices, and the substi-
tution of the judge before whom the whole cause has
to be heard, as the functionary by whom all inciden-
tal questions arising in the progress of the suit are
to be decided, and the great reduction of fees payable
by suitors, wo may fairly anticipate that the Court
of Chancery will be deemed much more generally
than heretofore a fountain of prompt and speedy
justice.