date

6 Feb y 1808 Appeals 26 continued
6 Feb y 1808

Appeals

26 continued

the more simple the form in which a question can be presented to any judicatory, and especially to a judicatory of which a Jury form a part, unquestionably the better. In a quick example for a Jury to form an estimate of the timw[?] that on the score of compensation ought to be allowed, supposing the money paid on the very day of the wrong done. A Judge of the subordinate class who has nothing to do /whose functions are performed without communication/ with the Jury, is employed to tax costs: the same Judge might with equal propriety, and much less difficulty be employed to compute interest on damages.

27. Under the fee-gathering system So compleatly irreconcilable are the ends of justice with the ends of judicature, that after the exception made for the few instances in which in the chance /random/ [...?] process of compensation money under the name of damages avoided by inexperienced and uninstructed men without the aid /benefit/ of a simple[?] rule of instruction laid down /framed/ by authority for their assistance, the sum awarded happens instead of falling short of the mark is going beyond it, happens to hit it, it may with confidence and safety be affirmed, that an instance of adequate satisfaction made is without example in English practice. 28. The assertion might moreover be extended to the observance of the rule which /forbids/ forbids the suffering to man to profit by his vast[?] wrong, even it act[?] for the loss inflicted under the name of costs a check the force of which is in an[?] equal degree the [...?] of fashion, and bears no proportion to the end prevented out by that rule.
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  • Title: [26 Dec r 1806 Scotch Reform To L d]
    Description: 26 Dec r 1806

    Scotch Reform To L d Grenville (3

    Resolut. 14

    Costs

    When costs are given, the word costs being employed in the original and proper sense of the word, what is it my Lord that is done? a sum is put by the unsuccessful into the hands of the successful party, equal or, if greater in some way or other running in proportion either to the sum which on the occasion of the suit he has been actually out of pocket, or else be the greatest sum which it is conceived he was justified in disbursing under the /any such/ expectation as that of being thus eventually reimbursed: in the first case are costs when taxed as between Attorney and client; on the other case costs taxed as between party and party.

    Meaning to do substantial justice /Activated by the love of justice/, free /pure[?]/ from the /superior to the stream of/ corruption which gives motion and direction to the machinery /system of mechanisms/ of the inferior regions /level/ - unprovided at the same time with every subordinate official establishment adequate to the adjustment of detail /liquidation of such minute matters of moment/ the House of Lords, having every now and then fallen into the practice of giving under the /this/ name of costs, by a sort of random guess /cast/, round and tempting sums, such as one hundred, two hundred pound. Bearing no /neither having nor aiming at any/ proportion to the sum actually disbursed, intends to operate in the way of compensation for the delay, damages rather than costs would on this occasion have been the proper means[?]. Why then not employ that name? For this reason: because damages had by long usage been considered as having become appropriated to such compensation as it belongs to a Jury and a Jury only, to award: the [...?] damages was therefore avoided, but it should present to the corruption of a suitor public and at the hand of a [...?] House of Commons, the idea of an [...?] from above, in the presence[?] /function/ and prestige of a Jury.
  • Title: [6 Feb y 1808 Appeal Principle]
    Description: 6 Feb y 1808

    Appeal

    Principle

    25 But whether money be or be not commensurable with the wrong, if on the score of compensation money be allowed, the distinction between principal and interest ought still to be observed, interest ought to be allowed in addition to principal: otherwise the influence of the principle which forbids the supposing a man to take advantage of his own wrong, will fail[?] of extending itself to cases /not extend itself to these cases as to others /of this sort /to these incommensurable cases/.

    26. Let ,1,000 for example, be the compensation money allowed to a father for the seduction of his daughter, allowed as in English practice, by the verdict of a Jury: and let a year be ther interval length if time betweeen the day of the wrong committed, and the day of the verdict formed. In this case even supposing the money paid on the day of the verdict found, and the rate of interest allowed the non-commercial rate, not ,1,000 only but in the case of simple interest ,1,050 ought to be the sum paid: But in practice, the money never is paid on so early a day as that on which the verdict is delivered. Therefore to interest up /down/ to the time on which the verdict is delivered ought to be added interest up /down/ to the time on which the money is paid.

    To make a distinct allowance in the score of interest as above would to a Jury, though in practice never done, not be physically impracticable /impossible/: but to render /compleat/ the compensation compleat by continuing the interest dwon to the time of payment would be impossible.
  • Title: [1 Feb y 1808 Lords time But]
    Description: 1 Feb y 1808

    Lords time

    But it is to the malâ fide Appeals and those alone, that these regulations have any application. The appeals struck off by them will be those in which success being hopeless, delay with its profit is the only object in view. From the number of bonâ fide Appeals it will not strike off a single suit: at least not one of which if it were asked of the framers of the Bill whether it be desirable it should be struck off, their answer would be in the affirmative.

    From the number of bonâ fide Appeals, if the effect of the regulation were to make any defalcation, the greater the defalcation, so much the worse. Between the nature of the part defalcation and the nature of the part left undefalcated, no distinction being perceptible, if in regard to any part defalcation were a benefit, a fortiori so would it be in regard to the whole.

    Lessening the degree of uncertainty, so to the main body of the law, lessening the danger and suspicion of misdecision in the subordinate judicature, whether on the ground of law or on the ground of fact - it is only when thus produced that in defalcation from the number of Appeals presented to the supreme and imperial judicatory can be placed to the account of public benefit - regard being had to the ends of justice.

    Multiply the amount of the expence of applying for the remedy administered in the supreme judicatory, you will cut off the Appeals of all those bonâ fide suitors who, being able to bear the simple amount and not able to bear the multiple amount, would thus be excluded from the faculty of "adding to the burthen of the House of Lords": and by multiplying the amount of costs in the subordinate judicatories, the like effect might be produced at an earlier stage.