Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-10-05
THE FRAUD OF MULTIPLIED LITIGATION

the plain position that since litigation
alone can settle the matter, the quicker it
can be settled by litigation the better. But
in order to settle it by litigation it is not
necessary to bring great number OF suits.
The assertion that it is necessary to do
this is false. The whole question can be
decided by one suit precisely as well as by
enc hundred. If the Supreme Court de-
clares that hydraulic miners must not
empty their tailiDgs into the rivers, that
decision will be accepted by all the miners.
The assumption that they will ignore the
| Judgment of the Court, and that it
will be necessary to bring a separate
suit for every mine, is simply ridiculous.
It has been put forward for no other
or better purpose than to afford the
Pigment of an excuse for the otherwise too
patent rapacity of the attorney who for
months past has been working up this
matter. The argument advanced for the
bringing of great number of suits has no
foundation in fact or reason. Every man
possessed of common sense knows that
there is only one question to be deter
mined, and that this question covers the
whole issue. The idea that the miners
would be so silly as to wait until they
were separately sued, for no possible end
than to add the cost of litigation to their
other losses, is in fact almost too prepos-
tereus to be discussed seriously. An
| adverse decision in one case will as
matter of course be held to decide the
whole question, and the miners will not
throw away their money for the dubious
satisfaction Of obtaining few months or
weeks delay.
The plain truth is that there is no JUST.
fcation of anylkind for this multiplicity of
suits. The programme was arranged for
the sole purpose of increasing the emolu-
ments OF Mr.. Cadwalader. We do not say
that he was not justified, fro:n the stand
point of his personal interests, in trying to
get as many suits brought as possible. At
all events it was perfectly natural for him
to pursue this course, and perhaps many
lawyers in his position would have done
the same. But it is not at all natural for
the public who have to pay the cost of this
litigation, to take for granted the flimsy
and absurd excuses for bringing many suits
which have been advanced. For those ex-
cuses and arguments are palpably thin and
irrational. They do not represent real
state of things at all. They rest altogether
upon supposition which is quite incredi-
BILE and fanciful. There is absolutely
nothing to support the multiplicity of suits
programme, in short, but the nonsensical
hypothesis that the miners will persist in
their operations until each miner has been
separately sued and has been separately
defeated in the Courts. No man Of the
least intelligence believes this for mo-
ment. Even the majority of the Board of
Supervisors do not believe it. It is one of
the kind of propositions which refute them.
selves.
It is probable that when this multi
plicity OF suits programme was first ar
ranged, it was thought that it would be
unnecessary to defend it at all. It was
imagined that public sentiment against
the hydraulic miners would be SO strong
as altogether to obscure the public judy
ment, and that the pretense of an ex-
trepely vigorous and comprehensive It'll
CATION, as represented by the institution
of great number of suits, would be
accepted as entirely meeting the re-
quirements of the situation. Bat the
public happened to possess cooler heads
than they had been given credit for, and
thus when this programme was preached
they at once began to ask embarrassing
questions. The Supervisors were doubt
less misled. They were made to believe
that their action in falling in with the
attorneys programme would be popular.
They too fell into the mistake of under
rating the intelligence of the COM
munity. And since the programme was
never capable of being seriously defended,
and since it was a programme which
looked worse the more closely it was
analysed, the results have been disagree
able to the chief promoters of the scheme.
At present there remains nothing to be
said in its behalf. The naked fact stands
clearly out that no human being save and
except Mr.. George Cadwalader has any
thing to hope or expect from the multipli-
cation of suits. It is equally clear that
the cost of these suits must be an uncom-
pensated loss to the Taxpayers.
That is the situation, as fully recognized
by this community. The action of the
Supervisors is heartily and generally con-
demned. It is the more emphatically
condemned because those persons previ-
ouely refused to adopt much cheaper
mode of doing the same thing which was
offered to them, and by clinging without
rhyme or reason to the original programme
justified the suspicion that they had made
some arrangement adverse to the public
interest Nobody believes that the ex-
penditure OF Sl2. 900 on this litigation by
the county of Sacramento was necessary
to the settlement of the dispute with the
miners. Nobody believes that any return
will be had for the money Nobody be-
lieves that it viii have been earned by Mr..
Cadwalader if he ever gets it. In fact
everybody believes the whole affair to be
job, and a job which reflects great discredit
upon the majority of the Board of Super
visors. 1t is not thus that the question of
litigation should have been approached.
One suit is quite sufficient to determine all
the Issues in the controversy. One suit
viii determine these issues, and then it
will be seen, even more clearly than now,
how completely fraudulent and false was
the pretense that it was in any way neces-
sary to multiply suits in order to attain
the end aimed at The RECORD UNION is
prepared to support proper method of
| LITIGATION, hut oee,,raJlx, ~ "a ,,ok praparad