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Judge: Poor boy - poor boy - blind. Put him on a chair so that the jury can see him. Counsel: Perhaps your Honour would like to have the boy passed around the jury box. Judge: That is a most improper remark. Counsel: It was provoked by a most improper suggestion. Judge: Mr Smith, have you ever heard of a saying by Bacon - the great Bacon - that youth and discretion are ill-wedded companions? Counsel: Yes, I have. And have you ever heard of a saying by Bacon - the great Bacon - that a much talking Judge is like an ill-tuned cymbal? Judge: You are extremely offensive, young man. Counsel: As a matter of fact, we both are, and the only difference between us is that I am trying to be, and you can't help it. [Exchange between a judge and a young barrister (briefed by a tramway company) in a case in which a boy was claiming damages for blindness sustained when run over by a tram.]
A Solicitor's account:
To my professional charges for crossing the street to greet you, and on discovering that it was not you, crossing the street again: 25 guineas.[Anonymous]
It is illegal to make liquor privately or water publicly.
[Lord Birkett]
Reason is the life of the law: nay, the common law itself is nothing else but reason . . . The law which is the perfection of reason.
[Sir Edward Coke]
It is far better that ten guilty persons escape than one innocent suffer.
[Sir William Blackstone]
Judge: I have listened very carefully, Mr Smith, to what you have said, but I am none the wiser. Counsel: None the wiser, perhaps, my Lord, but far better informed. [The same judge and the same young barrister]
I do not object to people looking at their watches when I am speaking. But I do strongly object when they start shaking them to make sure that they are still going.
[Lord Birkett]
Judge: What do you suppose that I am on the Bench for, Mr Smith? Counsel: It is not for me to attempt to fathom the inscrutable workings of Providence. [The same judge and the same young barrister]
A judge is not supposed to know anything about the facts of life until they have been presented in evidence, and explained to him at least three times.
[Lord Chief Justice Parker]
A witness cannot give evidence of his age unless he can remember being born.
[Judge Blagden]
This argument about the novelty of the action [for negligent misstatement] does not appeal to me in the least. It has been put forward in all the great cases which have been milestones of progress in our law, and it has always, or nearly always, been rejected. If you read the great cases . . . you will find that in each of them the judges were divided in opinion. On the one side were the timorous souls who were fearful of allowing a new cause of action. On the other side there were the bold spirits who were ready to allow it if justice so required. It was fortunate for the common law that the progressive view prevailed.
[Denning LJ, dissenting in Candler v Crane, Christmas & Co, 1951]
I am not concerned with defending the existing state of the law or contending that it is strictly logical - it clearly is not. I am merely recording what I think it is. If this relegates me to the company of "timorous souls", I must face that consequence with such fortitude as I can command.
[Asquith LJ, in the majority in the same case]
[Counsel] has prayed in aid the doctrine of dependent relative revocation. The name of this doctrine seems to me to be somewhat overloaded with unnecessary polysyllables. The resounding adjectives add very little, it seems to me, to any clear idea of what is meant. The whole matter can be quite simply expressed by the word "conditional".
[Langton J, 1942]
[Counsel] pled, and pled briefly but strenuously, in favour of a principle of elasticity - elasticity, that is to say, in the construction of a contract which provides for punctuality. My lords, my mind cannot comprehend the elasticity of punctuality. I know of no method of construction of a contract by way of contradiction of it.
[Lord Shaw of Dunfermline, 1921]
It is necessary . . . that I should, first, say something of the word which has been the subject-matter of the argument. It is "oomphies". In speaking of it as a word, as one must, one is, I think paying it a compliment, because it barely deserves an appellation which makes it part of articulate speech, which is said by some to be the only distinguishing feature between the human race and brute beasts.
[Evershed J, in a case concerning registration of a trade mark (1946)]
It is perhaps necessary to dwell for a moment or two upon the respective characters of the parties to the suit. [The respondent] is a most unruly, ungovernable, and egotistical individual. In spite of forty years' practice as a solicitor, he proved a garrulous and most unsatisfactory witness. His volubility is only equalled by his volatility, he loves publicity and luxuriates in litigation, but his abiding interests in life are his health, his money and himself.
[Langton J, in a nullity suit (1940)]
The whole value of the legal system - the integrity of the rule of law - is at once destroyed if it becomes possible for officials by arbitrary decisions made, not in the public court rooms but in the private offices of officialdom, without hearing the parties, without taking evidence, free of all obedience to settled legal principles, and subject to no appeal, effectively to overrule the Courts and deprive a Canadian citizen of a right he has established by the immemorial method of a trial at law.
[Wilson J, a Canadian judge (1946)]
By the laws of this country, every testator, in disposing of his property, is at liberty to adopt his own nonsense.
[Shadwell, V-C (1840)]
. . . [T]he testator made his will by the expedient which so many testators adopt of buying a sixpenny or shilling form and filling it in. [He then] signed the will and no doubt thought he had done a good day's work, as, for the legal profession, he had.
[Harman J, in a will construction case (1951)]
All for mother.
[The full wording of a will which was admitted to probate in 1906 and held validly to have revoked an earlier will and left the testator's entire estate to his wife]
Income tax, if I may be pardoned for saying so, is a tax on income.
[Lord Macnaghten (1901)]
My Lords, of recent years much ingenuity has been expended in certain quarters in attempting to devise methods of disposition of income by which those who were prepared to adopt them might enjoy the benefits of residence in this country . . . without sharing in the appropriate burden of British taxation. Judicial dicta may be cited which point out that, however elaborate and artificial such methods may be, those who adopted them are "entitled" to do so. There is, of course, no doubt that they are within their legal rights, but that is no reason why their efforts, or those of the professional gentlemen who assist them in the matter, should be regarded as a commendable exercise of ingenuity or as a discharge of the duties of good citizenship.
[Lord Simon LC (1943)]
No doubt those who, like Viscount Simon, regard it as a patriotic duty to pay the largest amount of taxes lawfully exactable will so arrange their transactions as to attract a maximum of liability . . . and those who . . . recognise no such duty will order their affairs so as to incur liability for no more than is legally necessary. We are not, however, concerned with the desirability or morality of the course taken in the present case, but only with its legal operation and legal consequences.
[Jordan CJ (1944)]
The statement that time is infinitely divisible was said to be a scientific fact. I should prefer to call it a metaphysical conception. No doubt, when a bevy of angels is performing saltatory exercises on the point of a needle it is always possible to find room for one more, but propositions of this character appear to me to be ill suited for adoption by the law of this country which proceeds on principles of practical common sense.
[Lord Greene MR, 1944]
What is the argument on the other side? Only this, that no case has been found in which it has been done before. That argument does not appeal to me in the least. If we never do anything which has not been done before, we shall never get anywhere. The law will stand still whilst the rest of the world goes on; and that will be bad for both.
[Denning LJ, 1954]
The state of a man's mind is as much a fact as the state of his digestion.
[Bowen LJ, 1885]
This case bristles with simplicity. The facts are admitted; the law is plain; and yet it has taken seven days to try - one day longer than God Almighty required to make the world.
[Bacon V-C]
Having had doubts upon this Will for 20 years, there can be no use in taking more time to consider it.
[Lord Eldon LC, 1805]
I have found in my experience that there is one panacea which heals every sore in litigation, and that is costs. I have very seldom, if ever, been unfortunate enough to come across an instance, where a person has made a mistake in his pleadings which has put the other side to such a disadvantage as that it cannot be cured by the application of that healing medicine.
[Bowen LJ, 1884]
The House of Lords is an infallible interpreter of the law. . . . The House of Lords has a perfect legal mind. Learned Lords may come or go, but the House of Lords never makes a mistake. That the House of Lords should make a mistake is just as unthinkable as that Colonel Bogey should be bunkered twice and take eight to the hole. Occasionally to some of us two decisions of the House of Lords may seem inconsistent. But that is only a seeming. It is our frail vision that is at fault.
[Lord Sands (a Scottish judge), 1932]
In the course of three days hearing of this case I have, I suppose, heard section 4 [of the British Trade Marks Act, 1938] read, or have read it for myself, dozens if not hundreds of times. Despite this iteration I must confess that, reading it through once again, I have very little notion of what the section is intended to convey, and particularly the sentence of two hundred and fifty three words, as I make them, which constitutes sub-section 1. I doubt if the entire statute book could be successfully searched for a sentence of equal length which is of more fuliginous obscurity.
[MacKinnon LJ, 1940]
The appearance in our courts of these learned gentlemen of the law, who can make black appear white and white appear black, is forbidden.
[Andorran decree of 1864 (still in effect)]
Now, then, all ye blackguards that isn't lawyers, out ye go!
Court Crier at Ballinloe, when directed by the Judge to clear the courtroom