Los Angeles herald., 1910-02-06
1cChniCaliticS of the Law
Bv Frederic j. Haskin

| tale is competent evidence against the
jury.
If a man owes another $4,000 and
| finally is able to prevail upon his cred
itor to scale down the obligation to
| So 600 the creditor, or his heirs after
having accepted the $4,000, can recon
| slider the matter and enter suit for the
remainder of the debt, on the ground
that there was no consideration" for
the remainder of the balance unpaid.
But if the debtor bethinks himself to
add a rusty nail, red rose, fish hook
or some. other minute thing, he COM
plies with the law of consideration
and the debt is satisfied in full with
out recourse.
In some states if one man owes
another, pays the debt and then loses
his receipt, he can be forced TO pay
the money again: and If he should
afterward find his lost receipt he can
not compel the creditor to return the
money enormously collected the sec
ond time. The ground upon which the
courts hold that he cannot recover his
money, though he holds two receipts,
is that there must be an end to liti-
cation. Thus the creditor may, with
! full knowledge of the court, retain
money that he unjustly collected
through the machinery of that same
court.
Sometimes there are judges who dis
! like technicalities Not long ago
I New York judge was hearing case
! of assault and battery. The plaintiff
had addressed insulting language to
! the defendant while the latter was out
walking with his wife, and was Sc
verely pummeled therefor. In address
| ing the jury after the evidence was
| in the judge said: ''If I had been out
walking with my wife and the plaintiff
| had addressed me in such terms as it
&c Iln 10
| ant, L would have given him such
| beating that the one he got from the
defendant would have seemed like play
in comparison. But, gentlemen, that
is not law Take the case" The jury
| seemed to think it was law. however,
by the character of the verdict it re-
turned.
In most of the states the absence of
| a will makes the law of inheritance
carry out the natural desire of man
| that his property pass to his direct
descendants, but sometimes an entire
! estate or large part of 1t is diverted
to people of no blood relation what
ever. Here is case in point:
| wealthy man died leaving his prop
erty to an only daughter. She died,
and it descended to her two sons. The
one son married and had a family.
The other died without children and
to his father, who in the meantime had
married again and had children by his
| second wife. He gave the property to
the children of the second wife. Thus
| was half of q large estate diverted
from it's natural descent to alien
hands, plainly contrary to what nat
urally would have been the will of him
who had accumulated it.
! Laws are often so contradictory in
| their terms that it is impossible to OBJ
serve them all. Sometimes one Sec
| tion of statute prohibits by indirec-
| tion the very thing another section
| specifically requires. A school law in
one state provides that no school shall
| be kept open less than a given num-
ber of days in each year. Yet in the
next paragraph a limit of taxation is
| given which is too low to permit the
schools to be kept open that long,
Even the greatest of lawyers have
| sometimes been unable to comply with
! the very laws they assisted in making.
Samuel ]. Tilden, candidate for pres
| ident of the United States, and one of
| the foremost lawyers of his time,
wrote his will in such a way that 1t
| failed to pass muster when brought
| into court A mere technicality stood
in the way of the fulfillment of his
| dying desire. Many other instances OF
lawyers who made a dismal failure OF
| writing their own wills could be cited.
The DELAYS of the law are no less
proverbial than the defeats which JUS
| tice sustains through technicaIties
J An Indiana calf case is an instance
of how litigation may survive even
| the cause at issue. Two farmers be-
| came involved in a dispute over the
| ownership of calf. They could not
| settle their differences between them
selves, so they took their troubles to
! court The case went from one stage
| TO another Meanwhile the calf grew
| TO maturity and died. But still the
! case went on, and the costs became
| the issue instead of the calf itself
| Years afterward, when the court OF
| last resort was reached, it was found
| that one of the parties to the suit
| had died of old age before seeing the
end of the litigation.
| Nearly every court in the land is
| c1ogged with business. Especially IS
| this true of the courts of appeal. 1t
&c believed that over one-third of the
| coees that are carried from trial courts
! TO those of appeal are reversed, ana
| in nearly every case the reversal Is
| on technicalities. This reversal OF trlal
! courts has become so serious, in many
cases manifestly thwarting the ends
of simple justice, that many or the
! higher courts have decided that here
| after. unless it can be shown that SUD
| stantial injustice has been done by the
verdict of the trial court, its innings
will not be set aside.
Toc,orrov-DeIicate Scientific Instruments.