In every situation in life, avoid the law. Man's nature must be
changed, perhaps, before lawsuits will entirely cease; and yet it is in
the power of most men to avoid them, in a considerable degree.
One excellent rule is, to have as little as possible to do with those
who are _fond_ of litigation; and who, upon every slight occasion, talk
of an appeal to the law. This may be called a _disease_; and, like many
other diseases, it is contagious. Besides, these persons, from their
frequent litigations, contract a habit of using the technical terms of
the courts, in which they take a pride, and are therefore, as
companions, peculiarly disgusting to men of sense. To such beings a
lawsuit is a luxury, instead of being regarded as a source of anxiety,
and a real scourge. Such men are always of a quarrelsome disposition,
and avail themselves of every opportunity to indulge in that which is
mischievous to their neighbors.
In thousands of instances, men go to law for the indulgence of mere
anger. The Germans are _said_ to bring _spite-actions_ against one
another, and to harass their poorer neighbors from motives of pure
revenge. But I hope this is a mistake; for I am unwilling to think so
ill of that intelligent nation.
Before you decide to go to law, consider well the _cost_, for if you
win your suit and are poorer than you were before, what do you gain by
it? You only imbibe a little additional anger against your opponent;
you injure him, but at the same time, injure yourself more. Better to
put up with the loss of one dollar than of two; to which is to be
added, all the loss of time, all the trouble, and all the mortification
and anxiety attending a lawsuit. To set an attorney at work to worry
and torment another man, and alarm his family as well as himself, while
you are sitting quietly at home, is baseness. If a man owe you money
which he cannot pay, why add to his distress, without even the _chance_
of benefiting yourself? Thousands have injured themselves by resorting
to the law, while very few, indeed, ever bettered their condition by
it.
Nearly a million of dollars was once expended in England, during the
progress of a single lawsuit. Those who brought the suit expended
$444,000 to carry it through; and the opposite party was acquitted, and
only sentenced to pay the cost of prosecution, amounting to $318,754.
Another was sustained in court fifty years, at an enormous expense. In
Meadville, in Pennsylvania, a petty law case occurred in which the
damages recovered were only ten dollars, while the costs of court were
one hundred. In one of the New England States, a lawsuit occurred,
which could not have cost the parties less than $1,000 each; and yet
after all this expense, they mutually agreed to take the matter out of
court, and suffer it to end where it was. Probably it was the wisest
course they could possibly have taken. It is also stated that a quarrel
occurred between two persons in Middlebury, Vermont, a few years since,
about _six eggs_, which was carried from one court to another, till it
cost the parties $4,000.
I am well acquainted with a gentleman who was once engaged in a
lawsuit, (than which none perhaps, was ever more just) where his claim
was one to two thousand dollars; but it fell into such a train that a
final decision could not have been expected in many months;--perhaps
not in years. The gentleman was unwilling to be detained and perplexed
with waiting for a trial, and he accordingly paid the whole amount of
costs to that time, amounting to $150, went about his business, and
believes, to this hour, that it was the wisest course he could have
pursued.
A spirit of litigation often disturbs the peace of a whole
neighborhood, perpetually, for several generations; and the hostile
feeling thus engendered seems to be transmitted, like the color of the
eyes or the hair, from father to son. Indeed it not unfrequently
happens, that a lawsuit in a neighborhood, a society, or even a church,
awakens feelings of discord, which never terminate, but at the death of
the parties concerned.
How ought young men, then, to avoid, as they would a pestilence, this
fiend-like spirit! How ought they to labor to settle all
disputes--should disputes unfortunately arise,--without this tremendous
resort! On the strength of much observation,--_not experience_, for I
have been saved the pain of learning in that painful school, on this
subject,--I do not hesitate to recommend the settlement of such
difficulties by arbitration.
One thing however should be remembered. Would you dry up the river of
discord, you must first exhaust the fountains and rills which form it.
The moment you indulge one impassioned or angry feeling against your
fellow being, you have taken a step in the high road which leads to
litigation, war and murder. Thus it is, as I have already told you,
that 'He that hateth his brother is a murderer.'
I have heard a father--for he hath the name of parent, though he little
deserved it--gravely contend that there was no such thing as avoiding
quarrels and lawsuits. He thought there was one thing, however, which
might prevent them, which was to take the litigious individual and 'tar
and feather' him without ceremony. How often is it true that mankind
little know 'what manner of spirit they are of;' and to how many of us
will this striking reproof of the Saviour apply!
Multitudes of men have been in active business during a long life, and
yet avoided every thing in the shape of a lawsuit. 'What man has done,
man may do;' in this respect, at the least.