Stanley Matthews

“ There is nothing in the record, by which alone we must be governed, to show any reasonable excuse for the unusual and extraordinary delay in the progress of the suit; and that delay, as we have said, must be attributed to the defendant in error.
Interest is given on money demands as damages for delay in payment, being just compensation to the plaintiff for a default on the part of his debtor. ”

“ The verdict was purely formal, and was entered by consent, after the hearing of the evidence, merely as a basis for further proceedings, which were to consist in an adjudication by the court of the questions of fact and law arising upon the testimony, and liquidation of the amount to be recovered in case the legal liability was found to exist. No step for this purpose was taken by the plaintiff after January, 1857, when he served upon the defendant the case made, until January, 1883, when he procured the order to bring into court and file it,-a period of 26 years. ”

“ So far as the rights of third parties might have been affected by it, as a lis pendens, it had lost its force without such a dismissal; for, as to innocent strangers, acquiring interests to be affected by it, it would have been treated as abandoned and obsolete. ”