the United States, is to have more and more private civil litigation based on diversity.

I think every recommendation which the Judicial Conference has made is not only warranted but is very, very conservative.

These additional recommendations which the Committee on Statistics and the Committee on Court Administration will make to the Judicial Conference, itself, on March 10, I believe, are equally well justified and I should hope to be able to furnish the chairman and the members of these committees, both in the House and Senate, with the approval of the suggested changes and increases which the Committee on Statistics and the Committee on Court Administration will advocate.

Mr. ROGERS. Thank you.

Mr. TOLL. Mr. Chairman, may I say that I am sorry that I didn't have a chance to listen to the presentation of the chief judge of the eastern district of Pennsylvania, Judge Ganey, because I answered the rollcall on a vote very important to the city of Philadelphia which unfortunately was not won.

Judge BIGGS. It was not won?

Mr. TOLL. No, unfortunately but the Philadelphia delegation was there to try to win it. I am well aware of the excellent job that Chief Judge Ganey is doing in Philadelphia in an effort to cut down the volume and to cope with the volume. He is fortunate in having an excellent group of associates, very able and competent.

But I told my colleague from Philadelphia that Chief Judge Ganey and Chief Judge Biggs from the circuit court of appeals were here and we are very happy that our chairman, Congressman Green, and Congressman Byrne of the Third District, and Congressman Nix, were here to listen to excellent and persuasive presentation by the chief judges of the third circuit.

Thank you very much.

Judge BIGGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Toll. I appreciate the very kind words. I shall be glad to answer any questions but I don't think there is anything very much that I can add.

Mr. LIBONATI. Mr. Chairman, I was very sorry that we had business on the floor and I was not able to hear our eminent jurist from Illinois. We look to him for advice and I will be happy to peruse the record indicative of his desires in this matter. We will take up with our dean, Mr. O'Brien, and the other members of the delegation. I am sure we will give great weight to whatever he states.

Mr. ROGERS. Thank you very much.

Now our next witness. Thank you, Judge Biggs.

Judge BIGGS. Thank you.

Mr. ROGERS. Our next witness is Mr. H. Stuart Klopper, representing the Queens County Bar Association of New York. Come forward, Mr. Klopper.

Mr. KLOPPER. Yes, sir.

Sorry you had to
You are doing

Mr. ROGERS. Glad to have you, Mr. Klopper. wait so long. But you know how these things are. a public service representing a bar association.

54935-60- -19

STATEMENT OF H. STUART KLOPPER, ESQ., REPRESENTING QUEENS COUNTY BAR ASSOCIATION

Mr. KLOPPER. Mr. Chairman, I am happy to be here. I am grateful for the opportunity that is given to the Queens County Bar Association and to me as an individual to appear before this committee at this time.

I am quite certain after sitting here all afternoon and reviewing some of the work that has gone on before that the committee is just full of statistics and I am not going to endeavor to repeat a great deal of statistics at this time.

I would, however, like to submit for the record a memorandum that I have prepared which embodies a great deal of statistics which would be useful for the committee.

Mr. ROGERS. The memorandum will be received for the record.
(The memorandum of Mr. Klopper is as follows:)

LEGISLATION PROVIDING FOR ADDITIONAL FEDERAL JUDGES SHOULD BE
IMMEDIATELY ADOPTED

I am very grateful for the opportunity to appear before the Committee on the Judiciary and to express the views of the Queens County Bar Association, as well as my own in support of the bill which provides for two additional judges in the eastern district of New York and two additional judges in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. I am especially pleased to be here today, not only in my capacity as a member of the Queens County Bar Association Committee on the Federal Courts, but as an attorney that has spent many years practicing before the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York and in the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

The need for the additional judge power is tremendous and the passage of the proposed bill cannot be too strongly urged. The number of judges in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York was raised to six in 1936. Since that time the changes in the eastern district of New York which brought about the need for the additional judges have been phenomenal. At the outset, let me demonstrate the tremendous change that has taken place in the population of the five counties, to wit: Kings, Queens, Richmond, Nassau, and Suffolk, which comprise the eastern district of New York. In 1930 the combined population of the counties of the eastern district was 4,420,489. By 1957 this gross population had risen to 6,286,173. These gross figures, however, do not tell the entire story. May I demonstrate the increase of the population of each county; the figures are taken from the U.S. census:

The 1957 figures for the counties within the city of New York were taken from a special U.S. census prepared at that time. The 1957 figures for Nassau and Suffolk Counties were taken from estimates of the Long Island Lighting Co., a utility serving those counties.

In addition to this resident population in the eastern district, Queens County has within its borders two great airports-La Guardia Airport, one of the busiest air terminals in the world, and New York International Airport, the aerial gateway to the United States.

New York City opened La Guardia Airport in 1939. By 1947 La Guardia handled 245,340 takeoffs and landings, or 1 every 2 minutes and 10 seconds around

the clock, accommodating a total of 5,692,000 passengers. The port authority which leased the airport from the city of New York in 1947 began a $35 million development program in 1957 which, when completed, will feature a new passenger terminal four times the size of the existing terminal which will handle 7 million passengers who are expected to use the airport by 1965.

New York International Airport, which I previously indicated was the aerial gateway to the United States, has an area of 4.900 acres and is as large as all of Manhattan Island south of 42d Street. It was opened by the Port of New York Authority in 1948 under a lease with the city of New York. It operates the world's largest air cargo center; in 1957 it served 5,200,000 passengers including 1,800,000 overseas air travelers. It is geared to handle 12 million passengers by 1965. Both of these airports can be reached only via roads and highways located in Queens County. La Guardia Airport is accessible via Grand Central Parkway while New York International Airport is accessible via Van Wyck Expressway and Southern Parkway. In fact, New York International Airport, also known as Idlewild, contains 10 miles of roadways within itself, 7 miles of taxiways, and parking space for over 6,000 cars. These tremendous facilities for industry and commerce were not existent about 25 years ago when the number of eastern district judges was increased to six. These airports have brought to the eastern district the important requisites for jurisdiction in litigation, to wit; internatonal and interstate commerce and diversity of citizenship.

In the past 25 years the jurisdiction of the Federal courts has increased immeasurably by changes in the national labor law. Waiver of sovereign immunity by the Government in the past 25 years has brought forth a wave of tort actions. In fact, litigation of all types, in matters of immigration, maritime cases, and criminal cases, has greatly increased, and during all of this time the number of judges in the eastern district has remained constant at six.

The use of modern procedures to streamline litigation and limit issues may be expedient temporarily to help alleviate congestion in the courts, but such crash programs are a poor substitute for the judge power required to dispose of pending litigation. The help of 17 visiting judges who recently assisted in a pretrial program served to remove from the calendar about 900 cases which could be easily disposed of by discussion and pretrial procedures. However, the cases of more complex nature which were not disposed of will remain on the calendar and each of them will require days and days of trial, thus tying up the resident judges after the visiting judges departed. While the number of the cases on the calendar was reduced by the help of the 17 visiting judges, the backlog is again building up for 6 judges cannot possibly do the work that 23 did and with new actions being started at a far greater rate than pending actions are disposed of a calendar delay of 3 to 4 years and longer may be anticipated.

There is one other matter I would like to mention and that is this. If the eastern district were a separate state it would be the eighth largest within the country. With one judge for each million inhabitants this district has far fewer Federal judges than other comparable districts. Additionally, I would like to point out that although Queens County, with a population of 1,762,582, according to the official 1957 census, and 19 million air passengers using its highways, there is no judge now sitting in the eastern district residing in that county. Queens County did have a representative in the court in the person of the Honorable Robert A. Inch. His resignation has left the court without a Queens resident. Should the number of Federal judges assigned to the eastern district be increased it would be most appropriate that at least one of those judges be appointed from Queens County.

I am heartily in favor of the bill creating additional Federal judgeships, and particularly creating two additional judgeships for the eastern district of New York and two for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Justice delayed is justice denied. If we do not approve this bill for the creation of additional judgeships we will be contributing to the very evil which we condemn. Immediate action is urgent.

Respectfully,

H. STUART KLOPPER,

Committee on Federal Courts and Procedure,
Queens County Bar Association.

Dated Jamaica, N.Y., February 29, 1960.
Mr. KLOPPER. I would like to point out to the committee that the
Queens County Bar Association is overwhelmingly in favor of the

recommendation of the Judicial Council that two additional judges be added to the eastern district of New York and that two judges be added to the Court of Appeals of the Second Circuit.

There have been some phenomenal changes brought about in the eastern district since the number of judges in that district has been increased to six back in 1936.

Since that time the population of the eastern district has increased by 50 percent. It has gone up from about 4 million to about 6 million. But even that does not tell the entire story. The population of Queens County, itself, went up from a little over a million in 1930 to over 1,700,000 in 1957, when the last official census was taken.

The population of Nassau County went up from a little over 300,000 to 1,180,000 in the last 30 years.

Similarly there have been great changes brought about in the industry and commerce of the eastern district. For example, since the judges were increased from five to six in 1936 there were two great airports established in Queens County in the eastern district. There is La Guardia Airport, which was opened about 1939, between 1939 and 1945, and by 1957 was carying over 5 million passengers. Similarly, Idlewild was opened since the last increase in judges in the eastern district.

In 1957 that carried over 7 million passengers. Both of these airports are geared to increased passengers and it is anticipated within the next few years Idlewild will cary over 12 million passengers while La Guardia will carry about 7 million passengers.

What is outstanding about this passenger load is that all of these passengers must use the Queens highways to get to and from the city of New York proper, which means that as a matter of fact Queens County had to build an express highway to service Idlewild. It is known as the Van Wyck Expressway and is intended to bring travel from the airport to Manhattan in a very short time from going through the city streets. All of these things have created a need for judges.

We might say that litigation bears a direct ratio to population. The increase in population may not tell the entire story. The additional 19 million passengers brought about by these airports creates far greater opportunity for litigation than the residents, perhaps, of the district, themselves.

I must also bring to the attention of the committee that the eastern district is part of New York Harbor. The Brooklyn waterfront has a great deal of commerce, a great deal of the proportion of the commerce that is carried on in New York Harbor. In recent years since World War II the growth of that commerce has been tremendous, making for litigation.

Recently, in the eastern district we had the assistance of some visiting judges and with their assistance we were able to dispose of some 900 cases which were susceptible of quick settlement by conference. While this had the effect of reducing the calendar delay somewhat, now that the visiting judges have left us and we are again with six judges, the advantage of having them is slowly disappearing. The commencement of new actions is at a far greater rate than the rate of disposition of existing or pending actions, so that gradually the backlog is building up again.

At the present time, the backlog brings the calendar about 21/2 years behind. It is anticipated that with the present rate of the growing backlog it will not be very long before it will be 3 and 4 years and longer behind unless something is done about increasing the judge power.

There has been another effect of the advantage of having these 17 visiting judges. I mentioned they were able to dispose of those cases which would lend themselves to settlement by conference. But then that had the adverse effect of leaving the more difficult, the more complicated and complex issues to be tried which meant that those cases that are left for trial are going to tie up the present judges so that the calendar will fall more and more behind as a result of eliminating some of the less complex cases.

As I said before, I was happy to have this opportunity of bringing these matters before this committee and strongly urge that the need, as presented to you, will be recognized so that the recommendation of the Judicial Conference will be given its proper recognition and the bill for the addition of these judges to the eastern district and the circuit court for the second circuit be approved.

Mr. ROGERS. Thank you, Mr Klopper. We appreciate the information that you have given us.

Mr. KLOPPER. Thank you.

Mr. ROGERS. Our next witness will be Mr. Will Shafroth of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, and, I should add, a former resident of the city and county of Denver, and maybe still voting there.

Mr. SHAFROTH. Still voting there; that is right.

STATEMENT OF WILL SHAFROTH, CHIEF OF DIVISION OF PROCEDURAL STUDIES AND STATISTICS OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICE OF THE U.S. COURTS

Mr. SHAFROTH. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I am honored to be here. I think you have had a full statement of the need for these judgeships in the courts of appeal. I think it is very evident that some of the circuits have been very hard pressed. There is no question of the need for additional judges in these circuits to bring their caseload down to a normal figure, where they can give the proper deliberation to these cases. That applies to the second, the fourth, the fifth, and the seventh circuits where additional judges have been requested.

I think as far as the district courts are concerned the general situation is that the judge power provided has been too little and too late.

Beginning with the end of World War II we had a very considerable surge of litigation in the Federal courts and we did not have the judge power to meet it. At the end of 1945 we had 40,000 civil cases pending; now we have about 64,000. In spite of the fact that in the judgeship bill of 1949 you gave us 21 district judges and in 1954 you gave us 27, we now find that the pending caseload, which is what causes the delay, has increased by 24,000 cases, or 60 percent; and the time from filing to disposition has increased even more, 66 percent, from 9 to 15 months. This is definitely longer than should be