Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 176, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 August 1918 — ALL BECAUSE JUDGE SMOKED [ARTICLE]

ALL BECAUSE JUDGE SMOKED

County of New,York Is Threatened With Action Which May Cost the People Money. Three lawyers have declined to bring suit for a prominent New York bus!-, ness man upon the ground that it would be “unethical,” yet each admits that the injury in the case cannot be disputed and that there ought to be some way in which the business man could secure just relief. Should a lawyer be -found willing to bring the suit, some extraordinary precedent rulings may be expected. Recently, says the New York correspondent of the Cincinnati TimesStar, the business man bought a built” motorcar. He found, first, that it wouldn’t run; second, that it differed, mechanically, from a specific promise in the bill of sale, and, third, that the car delivered to him was not the one shown him by the salesman. He sued to recover the money he had paid and the jury in the case, after being out one minute, returned a judgment in full for the amount claimed. The firm which had sold the car appealed for a new trial solely upon the ground that the judge had left the bench for.a few minutes while the lawyers were summing up. After the usual delay, the court of appeals passed on the appeal and granted a new trial. Meanwhile, the witnesses necessary for the proof of the plaintiff’s case had disappeared, the most important having gone into the army. For years it had been the custom of New York judges to go out into their private office to smoke during the summing up of unimportant civil cases. No one had thought of making that a ground for an appeal until about two months before the trial of the automobile case, at which time an appeal had been based on that ground and had been granted. The judge in the automobile case hadn’t read about this other case in the newspapers and no one had happened to mention it to him. Therefore, he went out to smoke as usual. The business man now proposes to sue the county of New York for damages sustained through the incompetence and carelessness of one of its servants —the judge.