Hugo Black

“ When we allow the desire to reduce court congestion to justify the sacrifice of substantial rights of the litigants in cases like this, we attempt to promote speed in administration, which is desirable, at the expense of justice, which is indispensable to any court system worthy of its name. ”

“ The plain import of the Court of Appeals' opinion is, to my mind, starkly revealed when its refusal to rely upon any theory of 'want of prosecution' is considered in connection with the emphatic statements of Judge Schnackenberg in dissent: 'Defendant's counsel makes no effort to rely upon want of prosecution as a ground for the involuntary dismissal. ”

“ I must say that it appears to me to be a sort of unequal justice that would punish the plaintiff or even his lawyer for 'earlier delays' which undoubtedly were due in major part to an erroneous ruling of the trial judge with regard to the sufficiency of the pleadings, a continuance of the trial brought about at the request of the defendant, and the several motions that the defendant's counsel made along through the years in connection with interrogatories and additional interrogatories which were to be used for no purpose other than to defeat the plaintiff's actively prosecuted lawsuit. ”

“ It may not be of much importance to anyone other than the plaintiff here and his family whether this case is tried on its merits or not. To my mind, however, it is of very great importance to everyone in this country that we do not establish the practice of throwing litigants out of court without notice to them solely because they are credulous enough to entrust their cases to lawyers whose names are accredited as worthy and capable by their government. ”

“ The petitioner William Link brought an action to recover damages for alleged serious and permanent injuries suffered in a collision between his truck and a train operated by the respondent Wabash Railroad Company. The District Court dismissed that action without notice of any kind to the plaintiff Link or to his lawyer shortly after the lawyer failed to appear at a scheduled pretrial conference without what the trial judge regarded as an adequate excuse. The order of dismissal apparently purports to end petitioner's lawsuit and bar forever his right to recover compensation for his injuries. ”

“ While there may be some clients sophisticated enough in the affirs of the world to be able to select the good from the bad among this mass of lawyers throughout the country, this unfortunately cannot always be the case. The average individual called upon, perhaps for the first time in his life, to select a lawyer to try a lawsuit may happen to choose the best lawyer or he may happen to choose one of the worst. ”

“ Plaintiff's cause of action * * * was his property. It has been destroyed. The district court, to punish a lawyer, has confiscated another's property without process of law, which offends the constitution. A district court does not lack disciplinary authority over an attorney and there is no justification, moral or legal, for its punishment of an innocent litigant for the personal conduct of his counsel. ”

“ But it stretches this generalized statement too far to say that he must always do that. This case is a good illustration of the deplorable kind of injustice that can come from the acceptance of any such mechanical rule. ”