date

29 June 1807 *1 Note Judge
29 June 1807

*1

Note Judge

Letter V

II. Litigation

Directions and Instructions from Lord Coke to his disciples, shewing how to give existence and encrease to litigation viz. to profitable litigation: serving at the same time for the retrenchment of that which is unprofitable: communicated to the editor in a vision, by the patriarch and taken down from his own mouth.

For giving encrease to litigation, and more especially to civil litigation being that which is most profitable, it is before all things necessary to give birth and encrease to wrongs, viz. to civil wrongs: as litigation is the source of profit, so are wrongs the source of litigation: no litigation no profit; no wrongs, no litigation. Wrongs ( civil wrongs) are twofold: bonâ fide wrongs and malâ fide wrongs again are twofold: 1. those which precede and lead to litigation: and those which accompany or follow litigation: litigation itself being the very instruments by which they are produced.

For the accomplishment of this good and pious work, in all its branches, providence offers to put into your hands four main engines or instruments: 1. uncertainty, delay, expence and vexation. Concerning each of these supports to our veritable[?] profession, I will give you instructions, my disciples not only for the using it, but for the making it.
Similar Items
  • Title: [PRIVATE 17 June 1807 B 7]
    Description: PRIVATE

    17 June 1807

    B 7

    1 o

    Letter V

    II. Litigation

    In so far as the civil i.e. non-criminal quarter of the field of law is concerned, the policy of Judge and C o may be comprehended by this general expression - promotion of wrongs and litigation: litigation for the sake of the lawyer's-profit of which it has been made the source; wrongs (in the present case civil wrongs) as being, in two of the three modes of litigation the sources of the litigation, and thence of its lawyers'-profit in a less immediate way; in the third mode, themselves the immediate source of that profit, litigation being the instrument employed at one and the same time for the working of the wrong, and the extraction of the profit: for the working of the wrong for the benefit of the outdoor partner, the malâ fide plaintiff and wrongdoer; for the extraction of the lawyers' profit, by and for the benefit of the indoor partners, Judge and C o.

    Howsoever it may be regarded as a sort of metaphysical abstraction, it may however throw some light upon the subject to observe, that as it is only in virtue of the connection thus intimately established between wrongs and litigation, as well as between litigation and lawyers profit, that, under the fee-gathering system Judge and C o possess the interest they have in the promotion and multiplication of wrongs, it follows, that, were it at the same time true, and to their observation clear, that wrongs were not a source of litigation: insomuch that in that ideal state of things, no greater exertions of industry and genius would on their part be directed to the promotion of wrongs than to the prevention of them:- and so in regard to litigation.
  • Title: [12 June 1807 + 9 1 o]
    Description: 12 June 1807

    + 9

    1 o

    Letter V

    II. Litigation

    The master engines or instruments with which the technical system has been used to operate in the prosecution of its objects as above described, may be comprehended as under the general description of 1. uncertainty; 2. delay; 3. expence; 4. vexation.

    In this respect

    [written in columns: column 1]

    The counterpolicy of the legislator is or ought to be to reduce to their lowest possible quantity, the respective mass or degrees of uncertainty, delay, expence and vexation incident to litigation - i.e. to the application made by which the subject in his character of plaintiff, calls upon the hand of the Judge, to give execution in his, the plaintiff's, favour to this or that article in the main body of the law: he, at whose charge such service is demanded, resisting it, if the litigation goes on, in the character of defendant.

    [column 2]

    The policy of Judge and C o under the technical system has been to give incrase and employment to the utmost to the evils of uncertainty, delay, expence and vexation, in the character of instruments, whereby litigation, the source of lawyers' profit, and wrongs in some cases the source, in others the product of litigation are brought into existence: to expence more particularly, inasmuch as besides its other uses as above, it is in respect of that part which in the shape of lawyers' profit goes into the pocket of the partnership the still more direct object of such their policy.
  • Title: [[094-161v] 3 July 1807 Scotch]
    Description: [094-161v]

    3 July 1807

    Scotch Reform

    Letter V

    Letter V

    Litigant permitted[?]

    Policy of Judge and C o in regard to wrongs /civil wrongs/ and litigation: increasing /promoting/ litigation for the sake of the profit: increasing /promoting/ wrongs for the purpose of increasing litigation: wrongs in general: but more especially the wwrongs called civil, as being bad[?] dangerous and most productive: the wrongs created into criminal wrongs, having mostly for their actors the indigent, out of whom little profit is to be made.

    The Devices[?] mentioned in Letter 1 were therein[?] /no otherwise[?]/ considered then as employed in /having for their object the/ making the most of litigation when it takes place: but the same devices[?] have many of them been applied to the causes of litigation; be[?] not either immediately, or through exercise of wrongs

    Litigation its three modes or branches 1. bonâ fide litigation: (it being such on both sides); 2. litigation malâ fide in the plaintiffs side; of litigation malâ fide on the defendants side.

    I.Of Malâ fide Plaintiffs the same attentive observers could have discriminated three species:

    1. Malâ fide Plaintiff, combating for faculty of extortion, through indigence, (relative and comparative) on the other side.

    2. Malâ fide Plaintiff combating for the faculty of simple[?] oppressions through indigence on the other side; i.e. for gratification of enmity /the irrascible appetite/.

    3. Malâ fide Plaintiff combating for the faculty of oppression /for profit by oppression/, for[?] gratification of the concupiscible appetite, i.e. for consequential advantage to be derived from the mine[?] of oppression of the other side.

    4. When the malâ fide is on the plaintiffs side litigation is itself the instrument - the side instrument - of the wrong /wrong/: when the malâ fide is on the defendants side, the wrong comes first the litigation afterwards and in consequence: wrong, the seed; litigation the harvest: wrong, the flower; litigation, the fruit.