Court Opinion

ID: 9539335
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:02:33.572734+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:58:44.025482
License: Public Domain

MOORE, P. J., Dissenting.
I dissent. The beneficial results of the court’s attempt to conciliate controversies are obvious to those who have participated in many and various litigious disputes. “It is a function of a good judge” wrote Coke (4 Coke, 15b) “to adjust disputes.” While it would violate all proprieties and transgress recognized judicial ethics for a judge or other arbiter to become an active agent on behalf of one of the parties to negotiate with the other for a compromise settlement (Livermore v. Bainbridge, 44 Howe, 357), yet when, in the presence of counsel for both parties, he suggests the expediency and practical value of adjusting their differences, he is performing a function of the judicial office. (Kentucky Law Journal, vol. 18, page 330.) How far the judge should go in suggesting why a full trial and a formal judgment should be avoided is a matter to be *373governed by sound judgment in view of the nature of the ease and the disposition of the parties. But, in the absence of a showing of a pernicious activity against a party, and when all of the court’s suggestions are made in the presence of all counsel, his indiscreet admonitions alone should not warrant a reversal. (In re Nevitt, 117 Fed. 448 [54 C. C. A. 622]; Atherton v. Atherton, 82 Hun, 179 [31 N. Y. Supp. 977]; Harrington v. Boston Elevated Railway Co., 229 Mass. 421 [118 N. E. 880, 2 A. L. R. 1057].)
In the Harrington case, where the judge had suggested to defendant’s counsel alone that he ought to be willing to pay anywhere from $3,750 to $5,000 to settle the case, the supreme judicial court of Massachusetts affirmed the judgment and remarked: “The conduct of the presiding judge did not violate the justly strict and lofty standard of our constitution. ’ ’
In the Nevitt case, it was assigned as error that the judge had for many years endeavored to persuade the parties to compromise. But the appellate court’s reply was that “his earnest and systematic endeavors to effectuate a compromise of this controversy bespeak for him emphatic commendation. The policy of the law has always been to promote and sustain the compromise settlement of disputed claims.”
The fact that the judge in the trial of a suit involving attorney’s fees suggested a figure which might form the basis of negotiations for a compromise is not proof that he did not hear with patience and with an open mind the testimony of the defense witnesses.
A petition for a rehearing was denied by operation of law, and respondent’s petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied August 14, 1941.