state, and make all kinds of insurance on A material difference in either respect may, goods, merchandise and other property in the course of transportation whether on land or water, or any vessel or boat wherever the same may be.

The charter of the British and Foreign Marine Insurance company, as amended July 31, 1891, authorizes that company to "make or effect insurance on all objects of insurance, against, appertaining to, or connected with all risks of transit, whether partly by land, or partly by water, or wholly by land or wholly by water, including lakes, inland rivers or waters, and including all risks by post whether alone or in connection with any other mode of transit."

With the above statute expressly authorizing insurance of all kinds upon property of every class, in the course of transportation, whether on land or water, and the said company having charter rights to do such class of insurance, I think your department is fully justified in licensing such company under the laws of Ohio, to transact within this state the business of insurance risks of inland transportation.

CHOICE OF THE FORUM

in a given case, be productive of widely varying results, the consideration of which is a part of that honorable fealty which the relation of attorney and client imposes.

It will, perhaps, not transcend the limits of a paper of this character to consider one of the many phases of this subject-one of the most frequent recurrence, and, therefore, one of the greatest interest to the Ohio lawyer: Where and under what law should' actions for personal injury arising from negligence, he tried. If the nerligence occur in Ohio, the injury or death results within this state, and suit may be brought in an Ohio court, no question of conflicting laws can arise to challenge the ingenuity of counsel in the choice of a forum, and the problem usually degenerates into a consideration of whether to give security for costs and thus court the reputed favor with which juries in certain counties of our state are supposed to look upon damage suits, or to remain at home and save expenses.

But in the numerous and constantly increasing class of cases in which suitors are thronging to our courts for redress because of injuries inflicted in other states by persons or corporations upon whom services can be had

[Address of Hon. James P. Wilson, before the Ohio in the courts of Ohio. The question "By what State Bar Association, Put-in-Bay, July 17.]

In the most ancient Greece there was but one forum, Areopagus, of Athens, upon the hill of Mars. It was before this court that Paul, formerly Saul, a Jew hailing from Tarsus, having been arrested for heresy, was brought for examination. Upon the hearing, however, pleading his own cause, he converted one of his judges, Dionysius, and was discharged by

the court.

The advocate of ancient Greece had no choice of forum. With us, my brothers of the Ohio bar, it is different; in the last 2,000 years times have improved. In many cases we now enjoy a wide discretion as to the soil wherein we will advise a client to plant his suit and expect to see it flourish. It has often been a matter of regret that we cannot exercise the further privilege of deciding where we would have our clients sued.

law shall their rights be governed and determined," looms into startling materiality. Shall the question whether the conduct of the defendant complained of was such as to amount to a breach of legal duty and give rise to a cause of action, be determined by the laws of Ohio, or shall the case be tried under the laws of the place where the injury was inflicted? Is the fact that the plaintiff was or was not a resident of Ohio, temporarily absent from home at the time of the injury, material in the solution of this question? Is the fact that the plaintiff was or was not, at the time of his injury, engaged in the performance of an Ohio contract of employment made with the defendant, material in determining the question of what law shall govern? These and similar questions lie at the threshold of those transitory actions which are every day knocking for admission to our courts, especially in border counties of our state. They must be met and answered by counsel in de

That there should be a possible advantage to b. gained in one court, which could not be hoped for in another court of concurrent juris-termining his choice of a forum. diction, implies either fundamental differences in the laws which those courts administer, or a difference in the methods of practically ad1inistering the same law.

A moment's reflection will reveal their vital materiality. While it is the cherished tradition of our profession that we are servants of one common law, uniform and beneficent in

its principles unvarying in its application, humanity of her laws in the direction of a tending constantly to achieve the perfect sym- greater indulgence for the injured and a wider metry of an actual science, yet to the briefmaker, groping perplexedly as he follows his slender thread of principle into the tangled skin of conflicting decisions, the effect is disillusionizing.

tween master and servant is entered into. The sole question is, where was that contract actually in the course of performance when the injury was inflicted, for by the law of that place the rights should be governed-the

Here, then, would seem to be a key to the solution of this problem. While for an injury occurring outside the state of Ohio the plaintiff may have the advantage of our courts and our remedial procedure, he may not derive his cause of action itself from our laws. How-validity, of the contract, the validity of an ever, our lower courts have wavered upon this subject. The utterance of our supreme court is decisive so far as it goes, but in the only two cases ever before it-the Knowlton case in the 19 Ohio State and the Alexander case in the 48 Ohio State Reports the law is declared, and yet is limited by the particular facts in those cases, in both of which the plaintiff was injured while in the performance of a contract made outside of the state to be performed wholly outside of the state.

express stipulation contained therein, the meaning of the contract-all of these are to be determined by the law of the place where the contract was made; but so far as the implied duties of the master and of the servant are concerned, the duties imposed by the place of its execution will be recognized, but the personal duties, obligations and liabilities incident to the relation are such as exist under the law of the jurisdiction in which an act is done or committed, as to the legality, effect or consequence of which the question arises.

But there are other false lights which have influenced the choice of plaintiffs and tended to render our courts a favorite forum for their resort. These latter causes, however, will all be seen in a last analysis to result directly from the first-they are legitimate results of wide disparity and strong conflict of law between our state and its neighbors.

But what matters it where a contract is made by an employe with his employer, provided The uncertainty, however, prevailing upon that in the performance of any part of it he this question in our state is an ignis fatuis, passes beyond the jurisdiction of our courts luring the damage claimant who cannot preand is injured in some foreign state? And vail at home, across our borders, groping for what matters it in the determination of this the illusory hope of prevailing here; it is a question, whether his cause of action for neg-will-o'-the-wisp to the damage attorney in his ligence sounds in contract or in tort. In either choice of a forum. event his cause of action arose because of the breach of some duty which his employer owed to him at the time of his injury. What that duty was depended upon the law of the place where he was at the particular moment serving his master, because the conduct of the master toward him must at all times be governed and determined by the law of the place which the master is at that moment bound to obey. The conduct of the master is regulated by the law of the place where, in contemplation of law, he is, and where the servant actually is laboring. If his conduct is not negligent by that law, or if that negligent act of a subordinate servant by that law, is not the master's act then another subordinate servant injured there, by that act, is limited in his remedy to a suit against that It is probably an exaggeration to say, as was fellow servant. It is indeed difficult to under- alleged' by a recent text writer upon the substand how, if no cause of action arose against ject of negligence, to quote his language: “It an employer at the place where the injury was is a matter of public notoriety that (a cerinflicted, because the employer's act was an in-tain great trunk line, naming it), runs the nocent one there, a servant can find a cause of legislature of this state with the same action by going into some other jurisdiction. Once concede that fact, and it matters not into what jurisdiction the servant proceeds, or into what state, wherever the law would have given him a remedy, if the injury had been inflicted there, in that forum he may sue and recover, provided he may procure service upon the defendant.

It would seem to be of no material consequence then, where the contract of hiring be

Whether the reputation acquired by the lawmaking and law-administering branch of the state of Pennsylvania be deservedly gained or not, it is nevertheless, a matter of general opinion that as to the rights of servants and employees, those laboring for others for hire, the law of Pennsylvania is harsh and oppressive.

regularity and dispatch that it runs its trains." Certainly to an Ohio lawyer, tinctured with that broader humanity which voiced itself in the early decisions of our courts in adjusting the relations of master and servant, the rule of the Pennsylvania courts, made necessary by their system, seem almost, in certain cases, to amount to a denial of justice.

What then is the natural-I might almost say the necessary-result? After the invisible

line has been passed and the Ohio farms begin "Upon what ground did you find the railroad

to stretch westward, what other results could be expected than that jurors drawn from those counties next adjacent to the line, educated to the theory and impressed with the belief that their Pennsylvania neighbors, maimed, crippled, paralyzed, perhaps, is denied his right, should be overzealous in his behalf, and, so far as the jury may do so, fill his cup of justice to the brim.

conrpany guilty of negligence, so as to render a verdict against it?" He was met with the conclusive reply: "Why-the devil! What else could we do, the man was dead, wasn't he?"

Another instance or two in this connection may not be amiss. In a certain case, a suit for personal injury at a street railway crossing, it became material for defendant to show how far Such has been the practical result of this the plaintiff could see along the track in the conflict in law worked out in actual experience direction from which the engine was approachterm after term in many of the outlying ing. A photograph was introduced in evicounties which fringe the border of our state. dence by the defendant, taken at a point Speaking of the eastern portion of the state eleven feet from the track looking eastward, to which the experience of the writer has been which plainly showed a building standing limited the reaction against supposed griev-alongside of the track and half a mile away. ances arising out of the supposed Pennsylvania The other witnesses testified that by careful method of administering the law of negligence, measurement, standing eleven feet from the sets in strongly the moment the state line is passed. Whether or no it may at all times be urged a just reproach to our jury system, especially in actions for negligence, that the average juryman is swayed more strongly by compassion than by reason and is prone to be more zealous in dispensing the charity of a corporation to the unfortunate than in the accurate adjustment of the relative rights of employer and employee, certain it is that with the allied incentive of correcting on this side of the line what seas to be a popular evil upon the other, and thus evening up matters between employer and employee, the invariable and excessive verdicts rendered by the juries in these localities in recent years has given to the opponents of the jury system a strong and forceful argument for its abolition. The reaction borne in public sentiment and guided only by individual caprice has gone widely to the other extreme-the pendulum has swung to its opposite height. The reputation gained by certain counties because of this tendency of the juries, while it cannot but make the judicious grieve, is yet the magnet which continues to attract the foreign litigant hither, and to determine his counsel in the choice of a forum.

track, a view for one-half mile could be had. The plaintiff offered no evidence whatever on this point. The jury, by special verdict, in answer to the inquiry: 'How far could a person, standing eleven feet from the track, see along the track to the east?" gravely answered, "About 100 feet." In the same case it was not disputed that the headlight was burning brightly, and in reply to the interrogatory, "What prevented the plaintiff's seeing the headlight of the locomotive ?" the jury, after serious deliberation, answered "Darkness." It is needless to say what the verdict of the jury was; it is equally unnecessary to say what became of it.

In another case the plaintiff was brought into court on a cot, ostensibly suffering from a severe spinal affection. Physicians testified that he was a hopeless paralytic and would shuffle through life dragging a pair of useless limbs. The jury thought that $18,000 ought to compensate him and rendered a verdict accordingly. A few months later the plaintiff was seen on the top of a load of hay merrily pitching the hay at the end of a fork into his hayloft like any other able bodied farmer.

Rumor, quick to spread the fame of verdicts such as these, soon establishes the delusive reputation that certain outlying counties of our state are favorable forums for the prosecution suits for negligence. Litigants flock

While it may be creditable to mankind that his God-given compassion lies nearest to the surface and is more easily reached and swayed than his sense of justice; yet it must, never-hither until it is within the truth to say that theless, have been exasperating to that counsel for a railroad company who, after having suffered the usual verdict against his client on the hands of a jury in a suit by a Pennsylvania widow to recover for the death of her husband, meekly 'inquired of some of the juryman as follows:

after many of these cases have been removed to the United States courts, on the ground of divers citizenship of local prejudice, still enough of them remain pending in several of our judicial subdivisions, to occupy fully twothirds of all the time of the common pleas and

circuit courts therein. As a result the subor-
dinate and intermediate courts of these coun-
ties wield a trenchant blade, and oftimes

"Error wounded writhes in pain,
And dies among its worshipers."

tions of right to recover-be absolutely governed and determined by the law prevailing at the place of injury.

Such a rule could work no injustice to any man. On the contrary, it would afford in What, then, is the remedy? We may confi-certain classes of cases additional statutory dently rely upon the operation of that natural law which, taking the years together, is invariable-through which every abuse tends to correct itself and work out its own reformation. Even now, in fact, there appears to be a turning of the tide, but not until the taxpaying juryman himself began to feel the drain of an increased tax, made necessary to support an enormous alien litigation. Yet, when the wave shall have receded, the conditions remaining the same, a second onrushing of the water will surely follow.

remedies for the enforcement of the existing, rights accruing elsewhere. Under its operation, however, the resident of a sister state' could gain no advantage in rights by the choice of a foreign forum. The practical effect would be more and more to confine the remedy to that jurisdiction which created the duty,, and which in reason should redress its violation. Then the courts of our state, swept, clear of that driftwood of foreign litigation which has for so long clogged the wheels of justice in these localities, would bring to our The legislature of Ohio may enact laws pro- own people a measure of relief from overviding remedies for the enforcement of rights crowded dockets and justice long delayed. Then either in behalf of our citizens or citizens of would the courts in general be free to accomother states, when those rights shall have plish their primary functions, to administer jusaccrued under the laws of other states; but it tice to those communities by which they are cannot confer either upon its own citizens or established, and from which the revenue for their others rights of action which did not accrue to maintenance is derived. Then would their them by the law of the place where the injury grinding exceed in celerity the mills of the was inflicted. The legislature then being pow-gods and the grist thereof would be “exceederless to enact a law having extra territorial ingly ine." effect and operation, the courts cannot, by a species of juicial legislation confer upon litigants causes of action which had. never accrued at the time when and the place where a supposititious right was invaded.

It is submitted, therefore, with such deference to the opinions of others as the contrariety of judicial decisions on this subject enjoins, and with as much modesty as a lawyer may, with safety, profess in the face of the general public opinion, which denies that virtue to our profession, that a correction of this perverted order of things may be worked out through the courts along the well settled rules of interstate comity.

MAINTENANCE OF PAUPERS AND IN-
SANE PERSONS.

OPINION.

claim of the city of Cleveland against the certain paupers and insane persons named in county of Cuyahoga for the maintenance of said bill, during the month of February, 1896, amounting in the aggregate to $3,296.98, and have asked my official op uion as to the legal

In addition to charges for maintainance and care, said claim contains certain charges for transportation and burial. In response to your inquiry I have to say as follows:

AS TO PAUPERS.

Let us recognize the civil rights of plain-ity of the same. tiffs-whether citizen or alien-injured abroad in person or effect to seek that remedy which our courts afford; because such actions are personal and transitory and travel with the individual,and because the courts of our sister states open their doors to redress similar wrongs inflicted here. But whether those Section 1491 of the Revised Statutes of actions so admitted to our courts sound in tort Ohio provides as follows: "The trustees of or whether they sound in contract, whether each township in this state shall afford, at the complainant be or be not, a resident of Ohio, expense of their township, public support or if the injury of which complaint is made be relief to all persons therein, who may be in sustained outside the borders of our state, let condition requiring the same, subject to the the merits of the case-the purely legal ques-conditions, provisions and limitations herein.”