The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-05-21

lvantageously to the city One personal injury suit that is now being investigated is that recently entered by man who claims s40,000 damages for permanent dis ability, on account of stumbling into an excavation.
 As it happens this plaintiff is said to have been an invalid most of his life Three or four days after the accident in question he took long walk over Red mountain, he stating to an acquaintance he met on the way that he never felt bet ter in his life.
 Soon after this walk suit was filed against the city for S40000, the party claiming spinal injury and permanent in- validism as a consequence of the acci- dent
 Associate Commissioner Lane said, in speaking of damage suits of the fake and trivial order: The best means to put an end to them is simply through the press Wide publicity should be given every case of this order The public should be in- formed. And, furthermore. all shyster lawyers should be disbarred That is the surest means, and I believe it will be done here by the representative attorneys as time goes on, if conditions do not change"
 Degeneracy of Damage Suit Business iiN cpliiLr lO IOlu up tHe rG1llOduS, the city, the corporations, the street rail- way company and every little industrial concern in the Birmingham district has been gaining ground in recent years As Commissioner Weatherly stated in The Age-Herald of May II, the damage suit business here has simply run to seed | The other day an incident in point oc- cured. A boy, the son of a prominent business man here. was riding a bicycle. He swerNed out of the way of an auto mobile and ran his wheel into an excaya- ton made by the Birmingham Railway, Light and Power company, in doing some track work, not completed The bov's suit of clothes was damaged and he was considerably sprained and shaken up. His father took up the case at once. He called I on the companys adjuster and explained ! the case, asking for settlement, stating the company ought to pay the boys doc itors bill, and for the suit of clothes He asked for S75 and got it. His young son
 had worn the suit all winter observed a neighbor of the family ''and l know it wasn't more than a s10 suit The family had had chicken pox,, or something. ana as the boy himself was not laid up from the accident more than a day or so. !,-, morally certain some of that s75 went for the chicken pox bill. Anyhow. heard that Mir. Blank, in telling the incident. re- gretted very much that he had asked for so little as s75. He said he wished he had asked for s4O0 instead, since it was so easy to get.'
 That, of course is very minor incl dent, indicative, however, of the hold-up spirit with some people
 What Shows Up This investigation into the various phases of the damage suit business re- veals altogether most reprehensible state of affairs existing in Jefferson county.
 Owing to the fact that there still exists in many minds a misunderstanding as 70 the purpose of this series of articles it is again repeated that this fight is being
 made solely and entirely against the fake i and the trivial damage suit case. Ii is hot aimed at the meritorious case, nor a: the personal injury suit proper.
 The, citizens and tax payers of .Jefrer- son county are paying out thousands of dollars every year in maintaining the trivial damage suits; the business men or this community are summoned from their daily work to attend to what fre- duently amounts to bijou-comedy stunts the industrial interests of the whole of Greater Birmingham are threatened by this plague; the cause of the injured worEmen themselves is hurt far more than it is helped by shyster practice, and the hgitimate damage suit firms are like wise injured.
 The Age-Herald opens it's columns 70 a perfectly frank, free and unbiased discus- sion of this problem in the interests of the public A few months ago there was emphatic and public protest against this campaign Each shot was replied to-. There is still sufficient ammunition in