Harmon’s Histories: In Montana, football games can hasten judicial proceedings

By Jim Harmon

The wheels of justice can turn rather slowly these days. In some cases, months and months can go by between the time a complaint is filed and a case is finally adjudicated.

What we need is a good football game to speed things up!

That’s all it took in the civil case of Tinsman v. Caplice & Company on November 13, 1895 in Butte.

“Under ordinary circumstances … a trial would have lasted a day or two,” reported the Anaconda Standard newspaper.

But attorneys W.I. Lippincott (representing the plaintiff) and George Haldorn (representing the defendant) were big football fans - and, well, they weren’t about to miss an important game scheduled in two days.

“The attorneys broke the record in agreeing on a jury. The testimony was brief and the cross examinations of witnesses was very short.”

“The plaintiff’s attorney waived the opening argument to the jury and (the defendant’s attorney) Mr. Haldorn made one of the shortest talks on record. The whole trial did not take up more than an hour and a half.”

District Court Judge McHatton then read “some brief instructions and the jury retired with orders to bring in a sealed verdict to be opened” the next day.

The case involved a railcar load of dried fruit from California ordered by John Caplice & Company to sell on commission.

They claimed they paid $468 in freight charges for the 13,000 pounds of fruit - only to discover the whole shipment was “in such bad condition that it could not be sold.”

The company asked Tinsman to “do something about it,” but claimed he did nothing and the whole shipment had to be sent to the dump.

They sued for $1,000 in damages. Tinsman then countersued to recover $328 for money “actually lost on the deal.”

The jury’s sealed verdict was opened a day later and favored the defendants, John Caplice & Company.

The Anaconda Standard newspaper concluded, “If there were a football game in Butte every day, it would work a savings to the county of thousands of dollars in court expenses every term!"

Jim Harmon is a longtime Missoula news broadcaster, now retired, who writes a weekly history column for Missoula Current. You can contact Jim at fuzzyfossil187@gmail.com. His best-selling book, “The Sneakin’est Man That Ever Was,” a collection of 46 vignettes of Western Montana history, is available at harmonshistories.com.