of fullest co-operation, nominated their Chief Justice for membership on our Committee to fill a vacancy. President E. N. Brown immediately appointed on our Committee Chief Justice Robert S. Shields to serve until January 1st last, and thereafter the succeeding Chief Justice, Hon. Silas S. Richards, who is now serving as a member of your Committee. It was the consensus of the Appellate Judges, afterwards reiterated by Chief Justice Richards when regretting his inability to attend an important meeting of the Committee and the publishers of the rival and offending publications, held in Columbus on January 10th last, that the plans of our Committee met their entire approval and they were hopeful that a satisfactory arrangement could be made "so that there will be published in permanent form only one set of reports, and that of course, the official one. It seemed to them (the Appellate Judges) that if Mr. Randall, the State Reporter, could furnish to the law publications without expense copies or galley proofs of the opinions, and do so promptly, thus permitting the law magazines to publish the same in that form, in advance of the official bound volumes, that this would be a satisfactory adjustment of the matter. Enquiry of Mr. Randall brought forth the fact that while his office was making a charge for opinions furnished to the private publishers, yet the money received went into the general funds of the State, was of no avail to his office, and accordingly the charge would be gladly dispensed with if the publishers would refrain from issuing bound volumes in competition with the official set. We counted this as a good tentative basis for a satisfactory agreement with the publishers in behalf of the bench and bar, to end the long drawn out controversy existing since and responsible for the origin of this Special Committee on July 7th, 1915. (1915) 36 O. S. Bar Association Reports 43-48. Therefore we called a meeting with the publishers at Columbus on January 10th, 1919, as before stated, where, besides our Committee, were present the following gentlemen: E. O. Randall, State Reporter; W. J. Tossell of the Ohio Law Publishing Company, Norwalk, publishers of "Ohio Law Bulletin" and "Ohio Circuit Decisions (O. C. D.)," Vinton R. Shepard, of The Ohio Law Reporter Company, Cincinnati, publishers of "Ohio Law Reporter" and "Ohio Circuit Court Reports, New Series (O. C. C. n. s.)" amended on February 25th, 1918, to "Ohio Courts of Appeals Reports (O. C. A.);" also Hugh Jones of The W. H. Anderson Company, Cincinnati, publishers (by contract with the State as lowest and best bidder) of the official "Ohio Appellate Court Reports (O. A. C.)” In behalf of The Ohio Law Publishing Company it is only fair to remark that its representative came to this meeting with its position satisfactorily stated in advance, that it "for more than two years has been ready and willing to publish advance sheets of the decisions of the Courts of Appeal" on the basis of one uniform set of official bound volumes, but that the other publisher would not join in such arrangement. 63 Ohio Law Bulletin, 495, (issue of Dec. 30, 1918). And beginning with volume 64, Part I, issue of January 6th, 1919, the Ohio Law Bulletin has added a "Court of Appeals Supplement," similar in form to the advance sheets it includes of our Supreme Court Reports, but necessarily without the valuable official pagination, which can only be developed for the Appellate Courts when the editing of the advance sheets and official bound volumes are fully co-ordinated, as is the case with the Supreme Court Reports. This meeting developed three important facts: 1. That volumes of the several reports could not be edited, published and bound for the present price of $1.50, and therefore the publishers were hanging on against the day, and merely to preserve themselves in business; 2. That the unofficial publishers each had many regular customers for their bound volumes, and that they could not afford to supply these customers with the official volumes in substitution unless some profit was possible; and 3. That the bar of Ohio are now substantially compelled to buy all three reports of the decisions of the Courts of Appeals at a total cost of $6.50, and therefore the price of one official set might well be slightly advanced, say to $2.50, which would effect a cash saving of at least $4.00, without estimating the great relief from confusion of citations, etc., which would inevitably result. Thereupon your Committee accomplished a "gentlemen's agreement" among all parties present covering the subject about as follows: (1) To increase, by securing a change in the statute now governing the same, the price of the Reports of the Supreme Court and Courts of Appeals, from $1.50 to $2.50 per volume; (2) That the volumes of these reports when published and printed be furnished by the concern publishing the same, to The Ohio Law Publishing Company, The Ohio Law Reporter Company and The W. H. Anderson Company, at $1.50 per volume; (3) Securing by change in the statute now governing the same, the reduction of the number of volumes of each report to be furnished by the Publisher to the Clerk of the Supreme Court; (4) That The Ohio Law Publishing Company and The Ohio Law Reporter Company agree to discontinue the publication of bound volumes of the opinions of the Courts of Appeals, to the end that there be only one bound volume edition of these reports, viz.: the Official edition; (5) That the Ohio Law Publishing Company and The Ohio Law Reporter Company publish in the Ohio Law Reporter and Weekly Law Bulletin magazines the opinions of the Supreme Court and Courts of Appeals, manuscript for same to be furnished by the Supreme Court Reporter without cost to such publishers; (6) All copies of opinions of the Courts of Appeals which are designated by a court to be published, whether sent direct by the court or by attorneys, to The Ohio Law Publishing Company and The Ohio Law Reporter Company, are upon receipt and before publication to be forwarded by the above named companies to the Supreme Court Reporter, who will thereafter furnish proofs in accordance with Proposal 5 above. All copies of opinions of the Courts of Appeals received by the law publications herein named, other than the opinions above designated may be by said publications published unofficially, but these opinions shall be printed only in the regular editorial, eight point, double column, pages of the respective publications and are to appear in the law journals with or without syllabi; if accompanied by syllabi said syllabi shall be designated either as "unofficial" or "syllabus by Editor." This agreement, as it states, required legislation in order to be workable, and accordingly a bill was drafted by your Chairman, Hon. E. O. Randall, State Reporter, and Mr. George A. Edge, Chief of the Legislative Reference Bureau, and introduced in the Legislature in March last by Representative Sylvester Spidel, of Montgomery County-the so-called "Spidel Bill," (House Bill No. 382). It passed both branches unanimously, after certain vicissitudes, and was approved by Governor Cox on May 10th, 1919. Your Committee was ably assisted in putting the bill through by Hon. C. C. Middleswart, Chairman, and Hon. Freeman T. Eagleson, of your Committee on Legislation. The difficulties we encountered in the passage of the bill were largely engendered by an apparent unwillingness on the part of The Ohio Law Reporter Company to stand by the verbal compact entered into on January 10th, as before stated. This compact was the very next day approved over the signature of the Editor of that law magazine in a letter to your Chairman, in which among other things he said: "I was much pleased by the spirit exhibited by the Committee, and by their method of approach to the solution of a difficult problem," and yet when the Spidel Bill was introduced the same publisher printed it without mentioning the facts concerning its introduction, and certainly made no argument in favor of its becoming a law. 16 Ohio Law Reporter, Part 52, issue of March 24th, 1919. I could not pass unnoticed such an attitude, peculiar to say the least, and wrote them a sharp letter, which they printed the following week, as follows: "I am surprised at the wording of your editorial in connection with above Bill, as found in your issue of the 24th instant. It would appear that you are only half-heartedly in agreement with us on this subject, although in early January you whole-heartedly entered into the gentlemen's agreement, providing for the amendment of the law in the form now phrased by the Spidel Bill. "I hope that I have misapprehended the meaning of the language you use, but it is odd, to say the least, that you failed to mention the fact that this Bill has the backing of the American and Ohio State Bar Associations, and represents only what the bench and the bar have for years insisted upon, and the several publishers, including yourselves, recently finally agreed to. "Please publish this letter prominently in your next issue of the Ohio Law Reporter." 17 Ohio Law Reporter, Part 1, issue of March 31st, 1919. The Spidel Bill passed and became a law on May 10th, last, as before stated, and yet we find the Ohio Law Reporter in its issue of June 16th, 1919, (17 O. L. R., Pt. 12), beginning the publication of a new volume, 30 O. C. A. It may be that they have the material on hand which they will exhaust in the current volume, and then stop further volumes and conform to the law. It is to be assumed that this is their plan, as defiance of the new law is certainly hardly to be believed. Furthermore, the law itself is not in actual force until the 90 day period has elapsed, which will not be until August 10th next; and still further, the "gentlemen's agreement" has not yet been reduced to written and signed form. This could not be done until the Spidel Bill became a law, but it is now in order. If all we have done has your approval, your Committee further plans a letter to each Appellate Judge apprising him of the new law, and asking his co-operation in its strict enforcement; stating the necessity for the passage of the law, the criticism, not only in this State, but the awful and rightful criticism out of the State, of the way the decisions of the Appellate Courts have been published; also saying a word as to the great value and importance of the decisions of the Courts of Appeal, and how under this law the decisions of such Courts, inasmuch as they will be reported by the Supreme Court Reporter, are put on the same level as the decisions of the Supreme Court. We will also ask everyone of the Appellate Judges to comply with the law by discontinuing the sending of their decisions to either of the magazines and to do all in their power to prevent others from sending opinions to them. The magazines will have the advance opinions secured from the State Reporter without cost, and they will be brought out in a dignified and proper way. We will also point out that one publisher is already complying with the law, to its credit; and that the other publisher must be made to do so, if he fails to keep the agreement. Surely none of these publishers are bigger than the Ohio State Bar Association, and none that will wantonly override the statute law of our State. Ohio must have only one set of Appellate Court Reports, officially edited and published on the same high standard as our respected Supreme Court Reports. The Spidel Bill, which we have been discussing, reads as follows, the new matter added by way of amendment being italicized: 83RD GENERAL ASSEMBLY, REGULAR SESSION, 1919. A Bill to amend sections 1483, 1488 and 1520 of the General Code, to provide for the reporting of cases in the courts of appeals and the publication of official court reports. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Ohio: SECTION 1. That sections 1483, 1488 and 1520 of the General Code be amended to read as follows: SEC. 1483. When requested by the Supreme Court, the reporter shall attend its sessions and consultations and under its direction he shall report and prepare its decisions for publication. He shall also prepare for publication and edit, tabulate and index such opinions and decisions of any court of appeals as any such court may designate and furnish him for publication, and such opinions and decisions of any of the inferior courts of the state, as may be designated by him and approved by the chief justice of |