Law Commons^™

Personal Property And Sales -- 1960 Tennessee Survey, Gilbert S. Merrit, Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

A foreigner given to rash generalizations would quickly conclude upon reading this year's sales and personal property cases that the three most flourishing and litigation-producing institutions in Tennessee are the automobile, the General Motors Acceptance Corporation and bootlegging. The automobile is responsible for all five of the cases covered in this survey; in four of the five the General Motors Acceptance Corporation is the defendant; and two of the five grow out of bootlegging activities.

Overlapping Coverages In Liability Contracts; Subrogation, John A. Appleman

Vanderbilt Law Review

Within the last twenty-five years, approximately, a considerable transition has taken place in approaching the coverages of automobile policies. At one time, liability insurers used to require their policy-holders to pledge that they did not carry other insurance of like character. It is difficult to understand why this situation ever arose. It may have been an outgrowth of fire coverages, or health and accident provisions, in which a moral hazard actually might exist where excessive protection is carried. Thereafter, instead of making this a matter of warranty, policies frequently provided that in the event there should be any other valid …

Insurance -- 1960 Tennessee Survey, William R. Andersen

Vanderbilt Law Review

One of the most delicate problems in insurance underwriting is that of describing the events whose occurrence is the primary condition of the insurer's obligation to pay. Several interesting cases were decided during the survey period involving disputes over whether or not an insured event had occurred.

Restitution -- 1960 Tennessee Survey, William Wicker

Vanderbilt Law Review

Only two Tennessee restitution decisions were reported in the Southwestern Reporter during the year covered by this survey. One involves a question as to the liability of an intestate's estate for burial expenses which were not ordered by either the administrator or the sole heir and next of kin. The other involves a question concerning indemnity or contribution as between unintentional tort-feasors who were guilty of different degrees of negligence.

Remaining Tort Liability Of Employers And Third Parties Under Workmen's Compensation Statutes, Ben F. Loeb, Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

Workmen's compensation is a mechanism designed to provide cash benefits to employees to recompense for loss of wages due to injuries sustained in work-connected activities. Theoretically, the cost of the program is charged to the consumer by increasing the price of goods and services sold to the public. An employee, covered by a compensation act, is entitled to payments if he is injured by an accident arising out of and in the course of his employment; and the fact that such employee was at fault or guilty of negligence himself is normally of no consequence.

Compensation benefits, in contrast to …

Negligence Liability Of Artisans And Tradesmen, Jerry L. Moore

Vanderbilt Law Review

The purpose of this Note is to examine certain aspects of the tort liability of nonprofessional persons who engage in a trade or craft which requires skill and abilities not ordinarily possessed by the average man. Since, with such a wide range of subjects, an adequate treatment of all the problems peculiar to each trade would require volumes, it is necessary at the outset to place rather narrow limitations on the scope of this analysis. Perhaps it is best to define the outside limits in the form of two "issues" as follows. When a person engages in a certain trade …

Torts--1959 Tennessee Survey, Dix W. Noel

Vanderbilt Law Review

As usual, a considerable number of cases involving tort law were decided during the survey period. One of the decisions involves a point of first impression in this state, the matter of whether an unborn child comes within the scope of the wrongful death statute. A number of the decisions serve to clarify existing rules, or to carry these rules a step further in applying them to new situations. There were also some significant statutory developments, including the changes in the Railroad Precautions Act.

The Care Required Of Medical Practitioners, Allan H. Mccoid

Vanderbilt Law Review

"Into whatever houses I enter, I will go into them for the benefit of the sick, and will abstain from every voluntary act of mischief and corruption." -Oath of Hippocrates.

These words, allegedly formulated by the "Father of Medicine,"define the duties which physicians and surgeons over the years have sworn to perform toward those whom they undertake to treat. Like many oaths, however, the noble sentiments of the Greek physician are not sufficient to provide protection for the public. This is evidenced by the fact that over the twenty year period from 1935 to 1955, according to a survey made …

The Attorney's Liability For Negligence, John W. Wade

Vanderbilt Law Review

The concept of negligence was late in developing in the common law. Perhaps the first group of cases in which the idea began to take shape involved the liability of persons who professed competence in certain callings.' One of these "callings" was that of the attorney,and cases as early as the middle of the eighteenth century hold an attorney liable on this basis.

Liability Of An Insurance Agent Or Broker In Procuring Or Maintaining Insurance For An Owner, Jack D. Mcneil

Vanderbilt Law Review

The insurance agent or broker is vulnerable to legal attack on several grounds and may incur liability on a variety of theories ranging from breach of implied warranty to fraudulent misrepresentation. The basic fact situation here discussed arises when one desires insurance and the agent sought for the purpose of procuring that insurance fails to do so through a lack of reasonable care. The nature and origin of the duty owed by such an agent or broker, the various instances in which liability arises, the measure and amount of damages collectible, and the defenses available to the agent are discussed.

Liability For Negligence Of Pharmacists, George S. King

Vanderbilt Law Review

The purpose of this article is to discuss the liability of pharmacists for professional negligence.' Thus it will be limited to that conduct which arises out of their professional activity and is to be distinguished from liability which may arise out of their activity as a storekeeper or a druggist, using the latter term in the general sense to include all those who operate a drug store or in any fashion engage in the business of supplying drugs, whether licensed pharmacists or not. For example, the pharmaceutical manufacturer may well be classed as a druggist, but his legal responsibilities would …

Professional Negligence Liability Of Public Accountants, Carl S. Hawkins

Vanderbilt Law Review

At least since 1905, in this country, accountants have been recognized as "a skilled professional class ... subject generally to the same rules of liability for negligence in the practice of their profession as are members of other skilled professions."' The question, then, is not whether the usual concepts of professional negligence apply to accountants, but how. What situations have produced malpractice litigation? What are the specific practices or omissions which have resulted in liability? And what are the limits of liability? Like other professionals, the accountant usually gets into the position where he must exercise his professional skill as …

Liability Of Funeral Directors For Negligence, Edgar E. Smith

Vanderbilt Law Review

Funeral directing cannot be classed absolutely as a "profession."'On the contrary, the funeral director's principal concern probably is the sale of caskets and burial supplies, thus making him a "merchant"or "trader." However, for purposes of rendering services in connection with the care and burial of the dead as well as in accommodating the family and friends of the deceased, the funeral director is considered a "professional man." It is the latter capacity which is under consideration here. It is inconsequential for legal purposes whether a mortician is referred to as a "funeral director," an "embalmer," or an "undertaker." An embalmer …

Rights And Powers: What Are They?, Merton Ferson

Vanderbilt Law Review

One thing that distinguishes a lawyer from other educated persons is his facility in the use of legal concepts. And yet there is a current notion that the study of legal concepts, as such, is academic and im-practical. Professor F. H. Lawson, delivering the Cooley Lectures at the University of Michigan in 1953, notes that it is fashionable among both civil and common lawyers to disparage the use of concepts. He then goes on to say: "This is of course nonsense. The very persons who inveigh against the use of concepts have been so thoroughly educated in a system built …

Insurance -- 1958 Tennessee Survey, Robert W. Sturdivant

Vanderbilt Law Review

The case of Clinchfield R.R. v. United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co.' involved the question of whether the insured, in a suit against his insurer, is bound by findings adverse to him in prior litigation between the insured and a third person.The liability insurance policy involved covered certain vehicles of the railroad company but expressly excluded from coverage injuries to employees in the course of their employment. One Harrison, a regular railroad employee, was injured while riding in an insured vehicle with a fellow employee. He sued the railroad company under the Federal Employers Liability Act. Before he could recover …

Agency -- 1957 Tennessee Survey, F. Hodge O'Neal

Vanderbilt Law Review

Several interesting and significant decisions in the fields of agency and master and servant were handed down during the survey period. This article discusses the decisions in groups, each group being placed under a topic heading which is designed to give the reader an idea of the particular phase of agency law involved in that group of cases.

Establishing that Tort feasor is a Servant of Defendant: It is elementary law of course that a master is liable for the torts of his servant acting within the scope of his employment. A question often arises, however, as to whether a …

Insurance -- 1956 Tennessee Survey, Robert W. Sturdivant

Vanderbilt Law Review

In Pennsylvania, etc. Ins. Co. v. Homer,' it appeared that Homer had struck a parked vehicle but failed to stop. His identity was later established and he signed a statement admitting that the accident was his fault and assuming all responsibility in connection therewith, including damage to the vehicle and hospital and medical treatment to any person suffering injuries as a result of the accident. It was not until five months after the collision that Homer's insuror received any notice of the accident. The insuror thereupon filed this action in the chancery court for declaratory judgment to determine its rights …

Personal Torts Within The Family, Val Sanford

Vanderbilt Law Review

If a person, while under the influence of intoxicants, drives his automobile at excessive speed, loses control of it, jumps the curb and strikes a pedestrian, injuring him severely, there would be little question, nothing else appearing, that he would be liable to the injured pedestrian in an action for damages. The premises underlying a conclusion of liability in such cases are obvious. It is in the interest of society that injured persons be compensated and rehabilitated; and our conceptions of justice are such that ordinarily it seems fair that the party who was at fault, whose action caused the …

Insurance -- 1955 Tennessee Survey, Robert W. Sturdivant

Vanderbilt Law Review

If a period of three years be sufficient time to detect any trend in the field of insurance litigation, there is reflected a decrease in the number of cases reaching our appellate courts having to do with automobile liability insurance and an increase in the number of cases having to do with health and accident policies--the latter probably being the result of the extension of group insurance. In the past year there were only two reported decisions in the state courts and one in the federal court sitting in Tennessee involving automobile liability policies. During the present Survey period, there …

Dalehite V. United States: A New Approach To The Federal Tort Claims Act?, Massillon M. Heuser

Vanderbilt Law Review

The decision for the United States in "Dalehite v. United States,"'though by a closely divided Supreme Court, possibly indicates a turning point in litigation involving the construction of the Federal Tort Claims Act. The trend theretofore had been to expand the concept of suability and liability expressed in the Act. In "United States v. Aetna Casualty and Surety Co." the Court had established the right of an insurer-subrogee to sue in its own name on a portion of a claim arising in favor of the insured-subrogor, despite the Anti-Assignment Statute and the obvious procedural and administrative difficulties not dealt with …

Workmen's Compensation, John M. Cate

Vanderbilt Law Review

A review of the past year in Workmen's Compensation in Tennessee must of necessity take into account any legislative change in the Compensation Act itself' as well as trends disclosed through the decisions of the courts. The modern development and growth of this new theory, that of liability without fault, make pertinent the inquiry. Although a development of one generation, the theory of Workmen's Compensation is now almost universal in application. Under it, industry bears its fair share of the cost of injuries to workers, without any reference to fault or blame or negligence, where there is a reasonably apparent …

Business Associations, Paul J. Hartman

Vanderbilt Law Review

Use of Corporate Entity to Evade Contractual Obligations. Scott v. McReynolds afforded the Court of Appeals an opportunity to pierce the corporate veil. Plaintiff and defendant McReynolds were partners in the business of selling butane-propane gas and appliances. In a contract dissolving the partnership, McReynolds agreed not to sell gas or appliances within a specified area. Shortly thereafter, the other defendant, a corporation, was formed, and it sold gas within the exempted area in competition with plaintiff. McReynolds was president of the defendant corporation, was actively engaged in the business and was a "prime mover in the organization of the …

Joint Tortfeasors And The Conflict Of Laws, John W. Wade

Vanderbilt Law Review

Much has been written regarding tort liability and the conflict of laws and there are numerous cases in the field.' But little attention has been paid to the conflicts aspects of the many legal problems which surround the concept of joint tortfeasors. This paper attempts to collect the relatively few decisions on the subject and to analyze the problems involved.

In the beginning it should be made clear that the term "joint tortfeasors" is used, unless otherwise indicated, in the broad, somewhat colloquial sense which most American courts use today. Thus used, it includes both joint tortfeasors in the narrow …

Particularizing Standards Of Conduct In Negligence Trials, James Fleming Jr., David K. Sigerson

Vanderbilt Law Review

The general principles to be applied by court or jury in deciding whether conduct is reasonable have been examined elsewhere.' The problem to be dealt with here concerns the specific application of the law's standard of conduct to concrete cases. How, that is, may it be shown what a party or his opponent should have done, in the way of taking precautions or the like, in the situation presented by the evidence? What kinds of proof or argument are available to make this showing? When must such a showing be made by proof? Is the jury or court to determine …

The King Does No Wrong -- Liability For Misadministration, Reginald Parker

Vanderbilt Law Review

The age-old rule of the common law that a citizen may not seek redress from the government for wrongs committed by the latter is often restated in the form of two maxims. One is that "the king can do no wrong." It refers to "wrongs" in the narrower sense of the word, meaning torts and related delicts. It has its counter part if not origin in the Roman-Byzantine holding, princeps legibus solutus est.' Many modern countries and some states have abrogated the rule. The other maxim, "the sovereign cannot be sued without his consent," precludes any law suit, not merely …

Bases For Master's Liability And For Principal's Liability To Third Persons, Merton Ferson

Vanderbilt Law Review

The law with regard to principal and agent grew up as part and parcel of the law of contracts. The law with regard to master and servant grew up as part and parcel of the law of torts. Each one takes its origin far back in the history of the common law.

Agents were used in an early day to effect livery of seisin, to create covenants, and to carry on commercial transactions. The terms "principal" and "agent" may be of modern origin. But the power of one person to bind another in legal transactions was familiar in the days …

The Liability Of Public Corporations In England And America, Stanley D. Rose

Vanderbilt Law Review

The public corporation is a common device to carry on governmental activities in the British Commonwealth, Europe and the United States.' It has been the uniformly favored instrument of nationalization policies. The reason for the use of such a public body is "unquestionably due to the realization that it offers the most convenient though by no means the only method for a successful application in public enterprise of principles of business efficiency developed in the private field." The necessarily extensive dealings of private citizens with such corporations force the courts to face promptly the problem of the legal status of …