Law Commons^™

Forward, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Law Review

This is the third year in which the faculty members of the Vanderbilt Law School have prepared the Annual Survey of Tennessee Law. The undertaking is, of course, primarily for the benefit of the members of the Bench and Bar of Tennessee. We hope that they have found it sufficiently useful to justify the effort and expense involved. The first Survey was confined almost entirely to the decisions of the State Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals. It has now been expanded to provide for systematic inclusion of federal decisions involving Tennessee law and occasionally even decisions of other …

Local Government Law -- 1955 Tennessee Survey, Clyde L. Ball

Vanderbilt Law Review

Police Power: Conformity of Ordinance to State Statute: The town of Fayetteville enacted an ordinance imposing higher standards than those established by state and federal laws upon producers, of milk to be sold within the city. In State ex rel. Beasley v. Mayor and Aldermen of Fayetteville' plaintiff milk producer, having complied with state and federal requirements, was denied a permit to sell inside the city and sought a writ of mandamus to require the city authorities to issue the permit. Under the holding in State ex rel. Nashville Pure Milk Co. v. Shelbyville, a municipality could not refuse to …

The Place Of The Planning Commission And The Board Of Zoning Appeals In Community Life, E. C. Yokley

Vanderbilt Law Review

Progressive and fortunate is the city or town served by a planning commission whose membership is comprised of upstanding and public spirited citizens of known integrity, who give freely of their time and talents in such activity. When the same city or town can point with pride to a board of zoning appeals possessing the same high qualities of dedicated public service, it is doubly blessed.

The members of such commissions and boards become the city's most effective police officers when they properly perform their duties. This is literally true, because they derive all of their authority from such part …

Area-Development Authorities: A New Form Of Government By Proclamation, Ross D. Netherton

Vanderbilt Law Review

Let it be understood in the very beginning that the views of this writer regarding Public Authorities are partisan. He believes that recent years have witnessed the emergence of a new instrumentality of local government, the species of which are sometimes called "port authorities," sometimes "toll commissions," sometimes "regional boards," but all of which are capable of being described generically as "area-development authorities." He submits that these instrumentalities, while offering a unique and efficient means of performing many of the special functions which local governments in our times are called upon to undertake, have been allowed to grow away from …

An Inquiry Into The Principles Of Municipal Responsibility In General Assumpsit And Tort, George K. Gardner, Leslie M. Geller, John F. Mcgrory, William B. Shaffer Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

This paper is written in the conviction that the world is governed by natural law. It is our ambition to describe an analytical method by which the true responsibility of a municipality in respect to any given claim in general assumpsit or tort may be ascertained. It is not pretended that the method which we shall offer will yield a result in harmony with every reported judicial decision and statute, nor even that it may not differ rather widely from the system of legal rules prevailing currently in many states. It is our hope to present an exposition of basic …

Local Government In The Larger Scheme Of Things, Jefferson B. Fordham

Vanderbilt Law Review

The growing interest displayed by the law reviews in the legal problems of local government reflects a gratifying increase in research and scholarly activity in the field.' This interest on the part of law school scholarly media is especially noteworthy, since the world of legal education has a peculiar responsibility to identify and engage in thoughtful study of the great legal problems of contemporary society.

In this brief paper an effort is made to place the problem of making appropriate legal provision for local autonomy in more adequate perspective. That is a rather ambitious venture. One is moved by the …

Some Perspectives On Written Law Processes In Local Government, C. Dallas Sands

Vanderbilt Law Review

There is a wide assortment of local governing bodies which exercise some measure, more or less, of legislative authority. Municipal governments generally have separate legislative bodies in the form of a council or a commission. Legislative powers may reside in county, township, parish, or borough organizations. And some law-making power, though usually more narrowly confined, may be exercised by special purpose units of local government such as school districts, drainage districts, irrigation districts, and the like. In both volume and effect, the importance of the legislative output of all of these agencies should not be underestimated. Their impact is felt …

The Validity Of Extraterritorial Municipal Zoning, Otis J. Bouwsma

Vanderbilt Law Review

A body of law does not suddenly spring up. A period of development is required during which there is a gradual evolution of a comprehensive and coherent body of law. So, the law of zoning did not go immediately from the one extreme of completely unregulated city development to the other extreme of closely restricted city planning and zoning. Throughout the years tremendous changes in living conditions were taking place; sign board regulation was developing; and cities were prohibiting noxious uses of property for the benefit of the whole community. These things paved the way for the holding in Village …

Consolidation Of County And City Functions And Other Devices For Simplifying Tennessee Local Government, Wallace Mendelson

Vanderbilt Law Review

The growth of urban population beyond the legal boundaries of our towns and cities presents problems that are not being handled effectively by existing agencies of local government. Essentially the difficulty is that, while the suburbanites are an integral part of the central city's social and economic life, they are beyond her legal jurisdiction. As a result county government, designed primarily for rural areas, finds itself bogged down with urban problems. To meet such incongruities suburbanites often seek satisfaction of their needs in a series of uncoordinated special service districts, or other public or semi-public agencies and often ultimately in …