At the Courthouse: Mrs. Hotchkiss is set clear; Not in contempt, and the citation dismissed. She and Her Husband, the Colonel, hit back at young lawyer in affidavits and from the witness stand. The Los Angeles Times, Feb. 20, 1904. p. A2
Mrs. Mary A. Hotchkiss, accompanied by her husband, Col. Hotchkiss, was before Judge Conrey yesterday in response to an order to show cause why she should not be punished for contempt.
Faultlessly dressed and with a plaintive look upon her face that might be interpreted as one of the after-effects of the illness she and Col. Hotchkiss swore she had suffered but that hadn't prevented her making a skip from her sick bed to the Arcadia Hotel at Santa Monica--it was scarcely possible to imagine her in contempt of court. And Judge Conrey dismissed the citations; but not before there had been a lot of affidavits filed and some evidence taken.
Attorney W.R. Leeds went upon the stand and told of his attempts to serve Mrs. Hotchkiss in a suit pending in which she is the plaintiff against an insurance company. Then Col, Hotchkiss toddled to the witness stand and swathed Leeds good and hard, as a kind of reinforcement to the hard things his wife had said about the young attorney, in one of the affidavits filed.
He stated that Leeds came to the Hotchkiss home and informed Col. Hotchkiss and his wife that he was about to be married. They didn't "flop" at the information, and then Leeds went on to say that he would like very much to be engaged by Mrs. Hotchkiss in any negotiations with the insurance company looking toward a compromise. He said that he was going to pass the honeymoon at San Francisco, and he could undertake to confer with the insurance people there with great advantage to himself. Col. Hotchkiss said the young man was very urgent and said what an advantage it would be to him.
"Then Mrs. Hotchkiss said to me," continued the witness: "Papa, if you think well to help the young man, he is just getting married and we might do something for him, why, just say so."
"You know we always like to help young men beginning for themselves, though I didn't know the young man save by sight," and Col. Hotchkiss bulged out his eyes and twisted his fact as if he were doing a turn as a contortionist. "Then on the day of his marriage the young man came to us for his instructions, and Mrs. Hotchkiss and myself showed him a number of vouchers and papers in connection with the case. We told him we might give way a little bit, but not on the award. We had $7,000 as the sum fixed by the arbitrators and it was a just claim. Then Leeds went to San Francisco and I never saw him again until he was figuring on the other side of this case, and went to lampooning me in the newspapers."
Col. Hotchkiss leaned back and gave his face another twist, as if he fumed inwardly.
"Are you sure, colonel, that Mrs. Hotchkiss was present at the second interview," inquired Attorney Appel, who appeared for Mrs. Hotchkiss.
"Oh, yes, sir," was the response. "You know Mrs. Hotchkiss is a business woman, and she's always on time."
Then Jud R. Rush took a hand in the examination. He didn't ask many questions, but they were pointed.
"Doesn't Mr. Leeds want you the show those vouchers for furniture burned up to Mr. Landers, the San Francisco agent of the insurance company7" was asked
"No, sir, no," was brusquely answered: "It was a jay attorney up there that wanted to see the vouchers, but I told Mr. Landers that I would bring the vouchers with me when I went to San Francisco.
"Did you pay Mr. Leeds anything?" Attorney Rush asked in a silvery voice.
"No sir," he said that he'd get his pay out of the other fellow.'
''Oh, I see," said Rush, innocently: "it was a case of working for you and the other fellow paying him."
In her affidavit Mrs Hotchkiss said she was very ill and went in Santa Monica to escape the annoying importunity of Leeds.That at the Arcadia Hotel she say him in the "distance" but he never served any subpoena upon her or even engaged in conversation with her. Then she went on to allege that by reason of Leeds being engaged by her, and never having been released, he is disqualified from . . . eting as attorney for the other side.
But this kind of spatting back and forth was not gone into by the court, the citation being merely ordered dismissed.
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