Legislation Commons^™

Unclaimed Property And Due Process: Justifying 'Revenue-Raising' Modern Escheat, Teagan J. Gregory

Michigan Law Review

States have long claimed the right to take custody of presumably abandoned property and hold it for the benefit of the true owner under the doctrine of escheat. In the face of increasing fiscal challenges, states have worked to increase their collection of unclaimed property via new escheat legislation that appears to bear little or no relation to protecting the interests of owners. Holders of unclaimed property have raised substantive due process challenges in response to these modern escheat statutes. This Note contends that two categories of these disputed laws-those shortening dormancy periods and those allowing states to estimate a …

Legal Interpretation And A Constitutional Case: Home Building & Loan Association V. Blaisdell, Charles A. Bieneman

Michigan Law Review

The approaches of Hughes and Sutherland are but two extremes in constitutional interpretation. Though only two results were possible in the case - either the Act was constitutional or it was not - there are more than two methods by which an interpreter could reach those results. This Note explores possible ways of deciding Blaisdell, using the case as a vehicle for delimiting the boundaries of a positive constitutional command. As a sort of empirical investigation of legal philosophy, the Note examines how various interpretive theories affect an interpreter's approach to the case, and the results these theories might …

Rolling Down The Curtain On "Roll-Ups": The Case For Federal Legislation To Protect Limited Partners, Kenneth R. Hillier

Michigan Law Review

This Note examines roll-ups and the lack of alternatives available to reluctant limited partners. Part I focuses on existing judicial remedies for limited partners, such as injunctions and actions for damages, and explains why these courses of action provide inadequate protection. This Part then reviews recent attempts at statutory protection and points out the shortcomings of these remedies. Part II examines safeguards afforded analogously situated corporate shareholders and sets forth arguments why limited partners should receive similar protection. After demonstrating the need for legislation, Part III suggests a workable structure for this statutory protection. Then, the Note discusses the relative …

Easment Holder Liability Under Cercla: The Right Way To Deal With Rights-Of-Way, Jill D. Neiman

Michigan Law Review

Responding to growing public concern about the accumulation of toxic wastes, Congress in 1980 passed the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA). CERCLA authorizes federal action to clean up, or to require others to clean up, leaking hazardous waste sites. Congress placed the financial burden for this cleanup on those responsible for the problem and on those who benefited from improper methods of hazardous waste disposal. Through this liability scheme, Congress also intended CERCLA to encourage responsible or benefited parties to respond voluntarily to the hazardous waste problem.

Part I asserts that CERCLA's legislative history, when read against …

Public Control Of Land Subdivision In Michigan: Description And Critique, Roger A. Cunningham

Michigan Law Review

Michigan seems to be unique in having three separate subdivision control statutes. The Plat Act of 1929, like the Subdivision Control Act of 1967 which will soon replace it, is largely mandatory, prescribing standards and procedures required in all cases of land subdivision (as defined in the statute), whether the municipality in which the land is located has a planning commission or not. The Municipal Planning Act, on the other hand, is simply an enabling act, permissive both with respect to establishment of a planning commission and with respect to the exercise by that commission, once established, of the power …

Sabbatino Doctrine Modified In Foreign Assistance Act Of 1964, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Prior to Banco Nacional de Cuba v. Sabbatino, one of the United States Supreme Court's most controversial recent decisions touching on matters of international law, it had been held that American courts could not question titles to property acquired by virtue of a public taking decreed by a recognized foreign government and carried out within its territory. This concept of judicial abstention, embodied in the "act of state doctrine," was held applicable in Sabbatino even though it was alleged that the asserted claim to the property stemmed from a confiscation that violated customary international law. This decision led Congress …

Simes & Taylor: The Improvement Of Conveyancing By Legislation, W. Barton Leach

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Improvement of Conveyancing by Legislation. By Lewis M. Simes and Clarence B. Taylor.

Future Interests - Rule Against Perpetuities - Recent Statutory Amendment In New York, Paul K. Gaston S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

After 128 years of criticism and confusion and enormous amounts of litigation, New York has amended its statutory rule against perpetuities. The old rule provided that the absolute power of alienation could not be suspended for longer, than "two lives in being" at the creation of the estate plus a minority exception in some cases. Under the new rule the absolute power of alienation can be suspended for a period measured by any number of "lives in being" at the creation of the estate so long as they are not "so designated or so numerous as to make proof of …

Legislation - Future Interests - Extinguishment Of Contingent Remainder Interests In The Unborn, Edward B. Stulberg

Michigan Law Review

Under the somewhat misleading title of "An Act To Permit the Dissolution of Estates Tail and To Permit the Conveyance of Contingent Remainder Interest and To Provide Procedure Therefor," Arkansas has enacted legislation which partially revitalizes an ancient common law rule that other legislatures and courts have been trying to eliminate for some hundred and fifty years-the doctrine of the destructibility of contingent remainders. Arkansas' Act 163 is thus unique among the modern statutes designed to increase the alienability of estates fettered with outstanding future interests.

Future Interests - Rule Against Perpetuities - Legislation Exempting Options To Purchase In Leases, Edward A. Manuel S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

A recent West Virginia statute provides that in all leases subsequently executed, an option to purchase the whole or any part of the leased premises-exercisable during or at the end of the term is not subject to the rule against perpetuities. The statute also provides that the rule against perpetuities shall not constitute a defense to a suit to enforce such an option against the lessor. W. Va. Code (Michie, Cum. Supp. 1957) §3541(3).

Future Interests - Rule Against Perpetuities - Recent Kentucky Legislation Pertaining To Administrative Contingencies, Jules M. Perlberg S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

A recent Kentucky amendment to its perpetuities statute follows the lead of Illinois in seeking a legislative solution to the problems inherent in applying the rule against perpetuities to administrative contingencies. The amendment provides, inter alia, that the vesting of any limitation of property "shall not be regarded as deferred for purposes of the rule against perpetuities or regarded as a suspension of the power of alienation of title to property merely because the limitation is made to the estate of a person, or to a personal representative, or to a trustee under a will, or to take effect on …

Transfers Of Joint Property In Contemplation Of Death: A Call For Immediate Statutory Revision, L. Hart Wright

Michigan Law Review

For years the Tax Court sided with the government and the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in asserting that the contemplation-of-death provision of the estate tax act was sufficiently elastic to include the tax concept of ownership reflected in the joint-property provision of the same act. The alliance between those tribunals on this point was recently broken, however, when the Tax Court shifted to the competing view supported by taxpayers and the appellate court for the Ninth Circuit. It now believes that the two provisions mentioned above are complete strangers even though at one time these two were …

Michigan Title Examinations And The 1954 Revenue Code's New General Lien Provisions, L. Hart Wright

Michigan Law Review

Title examiners, and more particularly their clients, have long suffered from a controversy-limited almost exclusively to Michigan- involving the methods by which the United States Treasury Department could perfect general federal tax liens. The December 1952 issue of the Michigan Law Review carried an article by the present writer pointing up the irreconcilable difference which has existed for a quarter of a century between the type of record notice which the Treasury was willing to provide prospective bona fide purchasers et al., and the quite different and more demanding type which the Michigan Legislature insisted upon if the local offices …

Mortgages-Assignment Of Rents And Profits-New Michigan Statutory Treatment, J. David Voss S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

The Michigan legislature recently approved an act which affects the validity of assignments of rents in or in connection with mortgages on industrial or commercial property. To understand the impact of the new legislation, it is necessary to refer to the general mortgage law of Michigan. In particular, a similar act passed in 1925 relating to trust mortgages is an aid in construing the new act.

Constitutional Law-Equal Protection-Validity Of State Restraints On Alien Ownership Of Land, Alfred W. Blumrosen S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

In the short period of five years, action on three governmental fronts has solved one problem of state legislation which seemed to violate a basic premise of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Congress, the Supreme Court and the courts of last resort of two states have acted to destroy the effectiveness of state laws which prohibited ownership of land by aliens ineligible for citizenship. These laws incorporated whatever classification Congress established for naturalization purposes into state statutes determining rights to own land. This process has resulted in recent years in discrimination against Orientals, particularly Japanese. The purpose …

Constitutional Law--Impairment Of Obligation Of Contract--Mortgage Moratorium--Determination Of The Existence Of An Emergency, George Brody

Michigan Law Review

In 1943 the New York State Legislature extended its moratorium legislation for another year, thereby continuing the suspension of mortgage foreclosure proceedings on real property due to default in payments on principal. The legislature declared that an emergency still existed and therefore the continuance of legislative action, first taken in 1933, was justified. The law made payment of interest, taxes, insurance and amortization charges a prerequisite to suspension of foreclosure. Appellant brought an action to foreclose a mortgage on appellee's property for the non-payment of principal, contending that the suspension of foreclosure proceedings resulted in an impairment of the obligation …

Constitutional Law - Moratory Legislation

Michigan Law Review

A Minnesota statute, in view of the economic emergency, provided, among other things, that courts might, upon petition of a mortgagor, extend the period of redemption from mortgage foreclosure sales for a definite time not beyond May 1, 1935. If a court took such action, the mortgagor was to remain in possession of the premises and pay a reasonable rental to the mortgagee. Held, by the United States Supreme Court in a five-to-four decision, that this statute did not violate the contracts, or due process, or equal protection clauses of the Constitution. Home Building and Loan Association v. Blaisdell …

Note And Comment, Edgar N. Durfee, Cyril E. Bailey, Edwin B. Stason, William C. O'Keefe, Clyde Y. Morris

Michigan Law Review

The Basis of Relief from Penalties and Forfeitures - The equitable principle of relief from penalties and forfeitures is so far elementary as almost to defy analysis. Many, perhaps most, of the judicial explanations of the principle have based it upon interpretation or construction, appealing to the doctrine that equity regards intent rather than form. Yet a logical application of this doctrine would lead to results very different from those which have actually been arrived at in the decisions. Thus, a stipulation in a mortgage that the mortgagor waives his equity of redemption can hardly be interpreted as meaning that …

Powers Of American Religious Corporations, Carl Zollmann

Michigan Law Review

Religious corporations in the United States have assumed various shapes. The original two forms, (corporation sole and territorial parish) being unsuited to our conditions, have completely passed away. In their stead have grown up four other classes, the aggregate corporation, the trustee corporation, the modern form of the corporation sole, and the Roman Catholic Church in our insular possessions. These four kinds of corporations, however diverse they may be in their history and otherwise, have a number of important qualities in common. None of them are ecclesiastical corporations in the European sense of the word. All of them owe their …

Note And Comment, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Lesson in Patriotism from Pennsylvania; The Effect of a Motion by Each Party for a Directed Verdict; The Right of Privacy; Mutual Mistake as to the Quantity of Land Conveyed; The Privilege; Riparian Owner's Title to Contiguous Islands;