The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-05-07

This town Is simply permeated With this business of damage suits-there IS no getting around that" said Robert Jemi- son, Jr., president of the Jemison Real Estate and Insurance company, you see it everywhere and In everythng-this dis position on the part of people in Birming- ham to file suit. And file suit for noth- ing!
 Let a man stub his toe on the side walk, he will sue the city. Or If it hap pens in or about any one of the big office buildings. the office people get it. We had just such case with the Empire building not long since.
 ''All of the owners of office buildings have to look out for this sort of thing. The railroads, express, coal and iron companies, merchants, manufacturers and the street railway company are not the only ones who suffer from the institution of fake and groundless suits. But the real estate men, insurance companies, bankers and contractors all come in for a full share here in Birmingham. And the city is as much of a target almost as the railroad.
 These groundless and trivial damage suits should not be allowed to get into court. The costs of defending cases of that order is a stupendous item in the running of a company.
 The One Way Out
 "A law requiring bond for costs of trivial damage suits to be borne by the attorney or client advocating such. should be passed by the legislature.
 That is one way out of it. And an- other is simply putting it up to reputable lawyers themselves. to shut down on this shyster business.
 'They can do it. The representative physicians of this community do not rec ognize quack doctors or shyster doc tors, either socially or professionally Why should our good lawyers here-and this city has an exceptional number oi high class men in the legal profession just as Judge Lane says-why should they be willing to put up with all that they have been up against all these years?
 q don't want to be put in any posi- ton of seeming to dictate, as it were, as to what our lawyers ought to do. They know pretty well what they are about and I don't want to seem to be putting in in their affairs or criticising.
 But, merely as a business man, look ing in, you might say from the out side, 1t has puzzled me over and over to see the big brains and acute intelligence of certain of the finest lawyers here en- gagged day after day in fighting a series of little picayunish. measy cases, not worth continental; certainly not the time and trouble or real big men.
 Made For Better Things
 Strikes me these big, brainy fellows are built for bigger things-thats all There's plenty of work to do In other directions. Why don't they do it? Why don't they dsbar more attorneys who violate the code of ethics?
 Tt is admitted by practically every lawyer in town that shyster practice existers here In Birmingham-as a matter of course, and has existed for years.
 Why, "a matter of course"
 Tt Is admitted that damage suits thrive in the atmosphere of the Jef- ferson county courthouse, as no other kinds; that even civil cases are some- times crowded out to make room for damage suits-frequently of the fake and trivial order.
 Well, to any one interested in the welfare of the Birmingham district what is the obvious thing to do? Sim