PROCEEDINGS.

ever, that when employers and defendant's attorneys look only to these considerations for the explanation of the increase of this litigation they fail to look to the real source. In practically every case brought there has been a real accident-the plaintiff has been hurt, or his intestate killed. An examina tion of such fragmentary statistics of accidents as are at hand discloses startling results. There are no reliable figures to be had as to the number of accidents in factories or on the streets from street cars and other vehicles, but some idea of their extent can be surmised when it is realized that fully sixty per cent of the actions brought for personal injuries in the courts of Cook county during the past six months were against the companies operating surface lines and the city of Chicago.

In the State of Illinois for the year ending June 30, 1901, by the steam railroads alone there were injured 2,694 persons and killed 739, making a total of casualties of 3,433 (Rep. of the R. R. & W. Commission, Ill., 1901, pages 178-182).

As appears from the table, subjoined as Appendix B, in the year 1900, there were killed in the city of Chicago alone by railroads 330 persons, by machinery 20, by falling bodies. 14, by explosions 10, by unclassified accidents and injuries 109.

During the year 1900, for every 10,000 persons of population in Chicago there were killed 2.98 from dislocations, explosions, falling bodies, fractures, machinery, railroads and unclassified injuries. This is .17 of a person more than in the city of New York and one person more than in the city of San Francisco.

In the United States in 1899 there were killed 2,210 and injured 34,923 railroad employes. This is one killed for every 420 men employed and one injured for every twenty-seven employed. (Bulletin U. S. Department of Labor No. 32, Vol.

6, p. 8.)

In 1897 there were sixty-nine fatal and 518 non-fatal accidents in the bituminous coal mines of Illinois; in 1898,

PROCEEDINGS.

seventy-five fatal and 438 non-fatal accidents. This is 2.14 men killed for every 1,000 employed in 1898, or one killed in every 467 employed.

(Ibid., p. 20.)

In the coal mines of the United States and Canada, in 1899, there were killed 1,200 employes, or 2.99 for every 1,000 employed. (Ibid., p. 18.)

These figures show the death rate lower in Illinois than for the whole country, but on the other hand it is much higher than in Ohio, where, in 1897, it was only 1.39 for every 1,000 employes. The wanton destruction of life and limb has become so much of a matter of course that we are all callous to its shocking cruelty and waste. How often do we read in our morning paper the head line, "Another Grade Horror; A Street Car Crashes into a Passenger Train; ten killed and thirty injured," or "Mine Horror in Colorado; Fire Damp Explodes; 383 Miners Imprisoned; No Hope for their Recovery." Such abominations are so frequent that they scarcely arrest the eye, and the morning coffee is sipped in security without the sick gulp that would take the appetite if we paused to consider the agony of the injured, the tortures of the dying, the heartrending grief of the bereaved, the pain and misery through long days of those left without support and comfortless.

These figures I have compiled from the most reliable sources known to me, but it must be said that they are far from satisfactory. The table from which Appendix B was compiled bears internal evidence of inaccuracy and, from the nature of things, must be full of fault. It is most unfortunate that reliable statistics are not to be had on the whole number of casualties. The factory inspection law of Illinois does not require reports of accidents, nor are the street car companies compelled to make public disclosure. In the first few numbers of the report of the factory inspector, after the enactment of the factory inspection law of Illinois, this defect was alluded to and deplored, but the legislature seems not to have

PROCEEDINGS.

heeded the recommendations. In other states, noticeably Ohio, New York and Massachusetts, fairly reliable figures are to be had. By comparing, however, the number of actions brought against railroad companies, with reference to which the figures may be considered fairly accurate, with those brought against municipalities, street car companies, other public utility corporations and large employers generally, some adequate idea may be obtained of the horrible slaughter that occurs every year in this city. In the year 1900 practically half of the deaths from railroad accidents which occurred in Illinois were in the city of Chicago (Appendix B). If one-half of the railroad casualties in the State of Illinois during the year ending June 30, 1901, were in Chicago, there were 1,716 deaths and injuries in this city alone caused by railroads. From my checking of the bulletin for the past six months I estimate that not more than ten per cent of the actions brought are against the steam railroads. At this rate there would be about 17,000 casualties in the city of Chicago, in the course of a year, occasioned directly, or indirectly, by public utility corporations, the municipality and larger employers. With this number of casualties it is not startling that there should be brought close to 4,500 actions to recover damages for injuries in the course of a year.

In the number of accidents, therefore, and not in the chicanery of cheap lawyers, should we look for the first explanation of the number of cases. From the great, and comparatively recent, increase in the use of dangerous machinery, railroads, trolleys, and electric wires and the growth of the cities with their crowded streets, there has come an inevitable increment in the number of casualties. With the growing independence and education of the laboring man there has come to him a greater knowledge of his rights and a stronger will to assert them. The past litigation has brought decisions which teach him that the law is for him as well as for his employer. These suggestions explain a natural increase in this class of cases.

PROCEEDINGS.

De

These considerations, however, are not of themselves sufficient to explain the immensity of this litigation. fendants are accustomed to attribute their ills to contingent fees. It would seem hardly pertinent at this day to spend time justifying this necessary and humane device by which the poor-rendered poorer by the wrong for which he seeks redress-is enabled to secure competent counsel. The sys

tem is certainly open to, and suffers from, some abuses, but who will suggest another method by which the able and experienced advocate can be induced to work for one who can not pay, unless he gives a proportion of his recovery?

It is my belief that a large part of the litigation in our courts, which can not be accounted for by natural and honest difference between sensible men, is caused by the defendants' own short-sighted policy. They have been wounded so often. they fight savagely and blindly. A policy of fighting everything and delaying whenever possible is adopted. The blockade in our courts makes a fruitful field in which the defendant may sow his seeds of delay. The congested condition is at once the cause and the effect. If the defendant were not so sure of delay he would not so often compel the plaintiff to sue. If the plaintiff were not so often compelled to sue there would be fewer causes pending and less delay. The cure, at least partial, for this may be hoped for from such legislation as has been recommended by the Practice Commission, by which procedure will be simplified and time of the courts saved. Cure also, I believe, may be hoped for from the gradually improving standards of legal education, which should result shortly in a higher average of legal attainments among members of the bar, and a diminution of those halfeducated members of the profession whose mistakes and ignorance are so often causes of delay.

That I am not exaggerating or speaking without ground when I imply that defendants defend unnecessarily and for the sole purpose of delay, is shown beyond a doubt by the

PROCEEDINGS.

figures in the table, Appendix A. The article already referred to in the North American Review argued the hopelessness of the defendants' case by pointing out the small percentage of cases in which the defendant was successful on appeal; and the author was right, not, however, because, as he implied, the courts were wrong, but because his clients were. From the table it will be seen that of the 713 cases in the Appellate Court in the last fifty-four volumes, eightyone per cent have been appealed by the defendant and nineteen per cent by the plaintiff; that the plaintiff has been successful in twenty-eight per cent of his appeals and the defendant in forty-one per cent. In the last five volumes the plaintiff has been successful in forty per cent of his appeals and the defendant in thirty-six per cent. In the Supreme Court for the last twenty-six volumes, ninety per cent of the appeals are by the defendant, who has succeeded in only twelve per cent, while the plaintiff has been successful in twenty-four per cent. In the last five volumes the plaintiff has succeeded in thirty-three per cent of his appeals, and the defendant in only ten per cent. Out of 221 appeals to the Supreme Court by the defendant, judgments of the Appellate Court were affirmed in 198. It is not believable that these appeals were all prosecuted in good faith by competent lawyers in the belief and expectation of reversal. The small number of judgments, too, compared with the number of cases brought suggests, what every practitioner knows to be the fact, that many cases are settled shortly before reached for trial, or, sad to say, that the game of delay has been successful and the plaintiff is dead or his witnesses scattered.

If all the honesty, uprightness and highminded zeal for justice were on the side of defendants, we should have only the vice and ignorance of plaintiffs and their counsel to explain the cases not accounted for by honest difference of opinion. But wealth does not make honesty, business ability