Legal History Commons^™

Fundamentos Del Derecho Procesal Civil, Edward Ivan Cueva

Edward Ivan Cueva

No abstract provided.

Lawson: A Common Lawyer Looks At The Civil Law, F. S. C. Northrop

Michigan Law Review

A Review of A Common Lawyer Looks at the Civil Law. By F. H. Lawson.

The Seaman As Ward Of The Admiralty, Martin J. Norris

Michigan Law Review

The seaman has a peculiar status in American law. He is in most instances a mature individual, sui juris, and therefore capable of entering into his own contracts but nonetheless his contractual dealings with shipmasters and owners are as carefully watched by our admiralty courts as though he were a minor or a young heir. He is in contemplation of the maritime law a ward of the admiralty courts.

The seaman's position in a legal and economic sense is unique. Singled out by the Congress of the United States as one of a class of workers requiring special consideration …

Historical Development Of The Law Of Contracts To Devise Or Bequeath, Bertel M. Sparks

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Law Of Belligerent Occupation In The American Courts, Morris G. Shanker S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

This comment will investigate the extent to which the law of belligerent occupation has actually become a part of the American municipal law, and thereby attempt to determine whether it was properly applied in this case.

Coming Into Equity With Clean Hands, Zechariah Chafee, Jr.

Michigan Law Review

The most amusing maxim of equity is "He who comes into Equity must come with clean hands." It has given rise ,to many interesting cases and poor jokes. The maxim has been regarded as an especially significant manifestation of the ethical attitude of equity as contrasted with the common law. Pomeroy, for instance, argues that the principle involved in this maxim is "merely the expression of one of the elementary and fundamental conceptions of equity jurisprudence." Pomeroy's theory is that chancery has power to force a defendant to comply with the dictates of conscience as to matters outside the strict …

De Minimis Non Curat Lex, Max L. Veech, Charles R. Moon

Michigan Law Review

An age-old maxim often applied but infrequently rationalized is that of de minimus non curat lex. In the recent case of Steve Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Company, the United States Supreme Court focused attention upon the doctrine by ruling that it should be applied in determining whether "walking time" and other "preliminary activities" constitute "work" for which employees are entitled to compensation under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. The so-called "portal-to-portal" problems which have arisen as a result of the last mentioned ruling make timely a discussion of the origin, meaning, function and application of …

Contracts -- Right Of A Physician To Recover On An Implied-In-Fact Contract, Seward R. Stroud

Michigan Law Review

At one time, under the Roman civil law, neither a physician nor an advocate could recover in an ordinary action at law for services rendered. The philosophical interpretation put upon such services was that, each case being sui generis both as to the value of the service to the patient and as to the skill and attainment required of the physician, a fixed and invariable salary could not be predicated upon this basis and therefore the compensation must depend upon the case. This compensation was not a matter of right but a gratuity or honorarium, as it was called, paid …

Gratuitous Promises-A New Writ?, Warren L. Shattuck

Michigan Law Review

Under the early common law, the fact situations which presented actionable wrongs were limited in number and stereotyped into various writs which issued from the Lord Chancellor. Only as new writs were devised by him was it possible for new fact situations to achieve the dignity of justiciability and so raise legal rights and duties. But with the liberalization of pleading the recognition of new legal rights and duties became a judicial function. In consequence, the constant struggle of new fact patterns for a place in the law is now principally waged before the courts. In this struggle some fail, …

The Effect Of Inflation On Private Contracts: United States, 1861-1879, John P. Dawson, Frank E. Cooper

Michigan Law Review

The Northern inflation coincided almost exactly in its early stages with the inflation in the South, and was produced by the same basic factor - a budgetary deficit due to war expenditure. The financial mobilization of the North was handicapped at the outset by a deficit inherited from the previous administration and by an impaired national credit. The prompt response of the Northern banks enabled the Treasury to overcome this initial handicap and to finance the greatly increased expenditure through the early months of the war. How long orthodox methods of borrowing would have sufficed has been ever since a …

The Effect Of Inflation On Private Contracts: United States, 1861-1879, John P. Dawson, Frank E. Cooper

Michigan Law Review

The American Civil War provides ample material for studying the legal consequences of currency depreciation. The sudden demands of war on government budgets made it necessary in both North and South to issue a large volume of paper money, which produced a general rise in prices, a premium on gold, and all the other indices of major monetary inflation. American history had already illustrated the dangers in the use of unstable monetary standards and in too rapid an expansion of the monetary supply. The period of the Civil War is of peculiar interest to lawyers, however, because the record of …

Commercial Instruments, The Law Merchant And Negotiability, Ralph W. Aigler

Articles

“Until recently apparently no serious attempt had been to make a comprehensive examination into the origins and history of commercial instruments or to explain the special doctrines attached to negotiability….

“The bill of exchange, it is said, developed as a bit of machinery to give effect to the medieval contract of cambium which was concerned with the special case of the exchange of money for money. With the growth of foreign trade the difficulties and dangers of payments multiplied. Naturally those whose business it was to exchange monies were resorted to in this connection. They, in turn, out of necessities …

What Is Consideration In The Anglo-American Law Of Contracts?, Hugh Evander Willis

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Some Greek Legal Papyri From The Michigan Collection, A Er Boak

Michigan Law Review

The documents which form the subject of this paper are part of the Michigan Collection of Papyri recently acquired by Professor F. W. Kelsey in Egypt and secured for the University by the generosity of the Regents and certain friends and alumni, among the latter Mr. J. W. Anderson, of the Law Class of 189o. A large proportion of these documents are of a legal nature, and from these I have selected for translation four, which may be regarded as typical specimens of their respective classes.

Book Reviews, Burke Shartel, Grover C. Grismore, S C. Ho, S M. Ho, Evans Holbrook, Henry M. Bates

Michigan Law Review

History of the San Francisco Committee of Vigilance of 1851. By Mary Floyd Williams. University of California Publications in History, Volume XII. "Berkeley: The University of California Press. 192I. Pp. xii, 543.

Book Reviews, Robert T. Crane, Edwin D. Dickinson, Grover C. Grismore, Henry M. Bates, Joseph H. Drake

Michigan Law Review

Among all the writings that have appeared on the problem of preserving the order of world society, the most searching and the most illuminating is Hart's Bulwarks of Peace. Particularly in connection with any consideration of the plan of the Paris Covenant of the League of Nations, it compellingly arrests attention.

Forms Of Anglo Saxon Contracts And Their Sanctions, Robert L. Henry Jr

Michigan Law Review

Including (a) Warranty of Title, and (b) Warranty of Quality. Perhaps the most primitive commercial transaction affecting legal rights was the executed barter; in a more 'advanced state when money had been introduced, the executed sale.

Forms Of Anglo Saxon Contracts And Their Sanctions, Robert L. Henry Jr

Michigan Law Review

The several forms of contract will be taken up in the following order: I. the Surety Contract, including (a) the creditor's rights against the debtor, (b) the creditor's rights to sue the surety, and (c) the surety's right of reimbursement; 2. the Warranty Contracts, including (a) warranty of title, and (b) warranty of quality; 3. the Contract of Court Record; 4. the Coitract of Plighted Faith; 5. the Pledge Contract; 6. the' "Delivery-Promise"; 7. the Written Contract; and 8. the "Earnest" Contract.

The History Of Contract In Early English Equity, W. T. Barbour

Books

“Mr. Barbour’s contribution to the Studies is an attempt to characterize with some precision and detail the functions of the Chancery in the fifteenth century. The court was gradually differentiated from the King’s Council, and the writs of Edward III’s time calling on persons to appear under penalty of a fine or imprisonment (subpoena), and other special injunctions, was generally framed in terms which leave it undecided whether proceedings were to be taken by the King’s Council, or by the Council under the chairmanship of the Chancellor himself with or without the aid of assessors. By the time of Richard …

Debt, Assumpsit, And Consideration, W S. Holdsworth

Michigan Law Review

Lord Mansfield is said to have remarked that "nothing in law is so apt to mislead as a metaphor;"' and if the remark is applied to branches of the law, the principles of which are fully developed and abundantly illustrated by decided cases, it is doubtless very true. But the historian of law, who looks at the efforts of the courts to create these principles 'by the expansion and adaptation of a few narrow remedies, will not be inclined to undervalue the use of the metaphor or analogy, 'when used to give effect to the requirements of public policy, and …

Trusts And Duties Of Trustees: Instruction Paper, George L. Clark

Books

“Trusts and Duties of Trustees: Instruction Paper” is an overview of the history and current [1912] practice regarding express trusts. Chapters: Chapter I. Origin and Requisites of Expressed Trusts; Chapter II. Nature and Requisites of Express Trusts; Chapter III. Nature of Cestui Que Trust’s Interest; Chapter IV. Resulting and Constructive Trusts; Chapter V. Transfer of Trust Property; Chapter VI. Relinquishment of a Trust; Chapter VII. Duties of a Trustee. Included is an “Examination Paper” for self-testing -- the material is designed to facilitate distance learning under the auspices of the American School of Correspondence based in Chicago, Illinois, as of …

An Historical Development Of The Contract Theory In The Dartmouth College Case, R. N. Denham Jr.

Michigan Law Review

The theory enunciated in the famous Dartmouth College Case may be said to date back to the very beginnings of corporations. Just when were the beginnings of corporations and corporation law is, however, a question that has long been a much mooted one, some claiming that they were not known until the middle ages, while others put their inception as far back as the time of Solon in Greece; still others name Numa as the true founder of corporations, by reason of his classification of the Romans into societies according to the manual trade each followed, but the first really …

Contracts: Dalhousie Law School, D Frank Matheson, First Year, Donald Frank Matheson

Thompson Rare Book Collection

This notebook was used by D. Frank Matheson, an alumnus of Dalhousie Law School, Class of 1901, in his first year Contract Law class.

The Matheson Notebooks are a collection of seven bound notebooks used by Frank Matheson during his time at Dalhousie School of Law between 1898 and 1901. In 2018, they were found in the basement of a Lunenburg law firm and donated to Schulich School of Law. There are two or three notebooks from each year of Matheson’s studies, ranging slightly in size and style. The notebooks have pages made from linen rags, are bound with paper …