Jim Moseley, a former president of The Jacksonville Bar Association, recently achieved 50 years as a member of The Florida Bar and The JBA. He reflected on his experiences practicing law and as a member of The JBA. He served as president 1975-76. This is the fourth of several installments of his reflections that will be published in the coming weeks.
The law firms in Jacksonville 50 years ago were all principally general practice firms albeit there were specialties within firms.
Most firms trained their associates in all phases of practice. In my firm, Louis Kurz was the senior partner and had a very wide-ranging practice. He would get me to work on some areas to assist him. As a result, I would do various aspects of probate in the county judge’s court, real estate and draft wills.
Kurz passed away in the late summer of 1965. Neil Taylor was a lateral transfer and took over Kurz’s area and I moved in my fields of interest. However, Kurz had a concept of being a generalist and was willing to take the patience and the time to explain these areas of his interests. All in all, it was a good way to see all areas of the law and meet members of the Bar.
Litigation in the transportation field, and particularly admiralty, was a booming one in the 1960s. The federal judges would have about 25 to 30 cases on their docket per month set for pre-trial. Normally three to five of those cases would be tried within the next month or so. They were normally seamen or longshoremen personal injury cases.
The typical longshoreman case was a longshoreman versus the ship owner because the law allowed a longshoreman who was doing the work traditionally done by a seaman to have an unseaworthiness claim. The ship owner would in turn have an indemnity claim against the longshoreman’s employer for breach of workmanlike performance.
Noah Jenerette, Lloyd Leemis and, later, Carl Staas would represent the stevedore. Steve Werber, Jack Wayman, Tom Brown and an assortment of lawyers from Texas represented the plaintiff.
There also were other accidents and contract disputes that occurred on the waterfront area where injuries and property damage occurred. They were often represented by Nathan Bedell, Chester Bedell, Earl Zehmer and Bob Smith. It was a great privilege to be able to see these great lawyers try the cases.
In one case regarding damage to a state-owned bridge, Chester Bedell represented the tug and I represented the dredge being towed. We had a weeklong trial against the State of Florida for their failure to open a bridge on Atlantic Boulevard to the proper height.
After judgment was entered for the tug and dredge against the state, it was appealed by the state to the then Fifth Circuit and where the decision was affirmed.
The lessons learned from Mr. Bedell in that litigation, including his deep concern and analysis of numerous issues that most people would never have thought of, were invaluable. I’m sure that there were numerous other members of the Bar who appreciated this education as well.
It was also a learning experience to have three cases in a row in one early December trial term. All were admiralty cases, but each was different.
One involved a ship colliding with the Wilson and Toomer dock. Thomas Biggs of Martin, Milam & Ade represented Wilson and Toomer and I represented the ship.
Tom was a most skillful lawyer who ultimately went to become general counsel for the University of Florida. The Martin Ade firm was one of the outstanding firms in Jacksonville. I had known Ralph Martin since I was a young tyke and he was always extremely kind to me as he was to everyone with whom he came in contact.
The next trial that started was a passenger being injured aboard a cargo vessel with passenger quarters. Earl Zehmer and Nathan Bedell represented the injured plaintiff. Both of them were superb lawyers and good friends of mine. We always remained good friends to the end of their days notwithstanding we had some very hard-fought cases.
The last case in that triumvirate was defended by Harry T. Gray of Marks Gray. Gray had been an artillery officer in World War I and was courtly in every sense of the word. He could distill many series of issues into the most important issue of the case and did so in our case that involved steamship agencies business relationship.
The Marks Gray firm, then as now, consisted of outstanding lawyers and Mr. Gray was most able with a character of courtesy and kindness.