hammond trial
The greatest of the Montana copper and timber cases involved Andrew Hammond. One student of his life has written obliquely that Hammond’s “logging crews cut timber from land he had purchased from the railroad, but there is little doubt that his woodcutters also strayed onto adjacent federal lands.” In its largest suit in the Ninth Circuit, the United States attempted to establish that the “straying” of Hammond’s workers was part of a more nefarious scheme to defraud the common weal of 21,000,000 board feet of timber taken from public lands in Montana. At trial, the jury returned a verdict against Hammond, but only for one-quarter ($51,040) of the damages sought by the government. In the context of its general lack of success in pressing such actions in the West, however, this verdict represented a major victory for the federal government.[26]
In an opinion by Ross that District Judge Frank Rudkin joined, the Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded for a new trial. “[A]fter a very attentive examination of the record,” Ross ruled that the verdict could not stand. The district court had instructed the jury to find as a matter of law that, if the government prevailed, it should receive interest on the award. Because the government delayed filing suit for seventeen years, the accrued interest exceeded the value of the lumber as uncut timber. The court remanded the case for the jury to determine the propriety of such an award. In dissent, Gilbert objected to what he viewed as Ross’s heavy-handedness in devising an objection and then reversing on that ground. “It is not to be doubted,” he said, “that, if the precise objection had been pointed out and the authorities cited, the court below would have given appropriate instructions. Counsel at the conclusion of a trial ought not to be permitted to hold back an important point of objection to an instruction, and thereby mislead the trial court and secure a reversal on appeal.” After remand, the case apparently ended in settlement, the government accepting a modest $7,000 of the $211,854.10 it had originally sought from Hammond.[27]