Digital Commons Network^™

International Recognition And The National Courts

Michigan Law Review

The extending of international recognition to a new government or a new state is a political function which belongs exclusively to the political departments of government. It follows that whenever the question of recognition or not is really involved in litigation the court should inform itself as to the course pursued by the appropriate political department and decide accordingly. This much, if it ever needed to be settled, may now be regarded as settled beyond peradventure. See 18 MICH. L. REV. 531.

Foreign Marriages And The Conflict Of Laws, Herbert F. Goodrich

Michigan Law Review

It is common these days to speak of marriage as a contract. Not only do we use the term "marriage contract" as meaning a promise to marry in the future, but also to describe the contract or expression of consent by which the parties take each other for husband and wife. The statutes of many of our states declare marriage to be a "civil contract." A moment's thought will show great differences between marriage and the ordinary civil contract. A marriage contract can be contracted only between a man and a woman; it has no validity if one of the …

A Critique Of Methods For Alteration Of Women's Legal Status, Gladys Wells

Michigan Law Review

A case was appealed because all women electors were excluded from the jury. Held, the Nineteenth federal Amendment merely prohibits discrimination, leaving the states to confer the right of suffrage. Moreover, jury service is distinct therefrom; and the state constitution excludes women by providing for juries of twelve "men." If being an elector ipso facto entitled to jury service, the legislature could prescribe no other limitation. No question of violation of the Fourteenth Amendment can be raised since the accused does not belong to the excluded class.

Boycott--Conclusions Or Emotions

Michigan Law Review

One fertile source of friction growing out of the eternal struggle between capital and labor is the boycott. Standing out in definite relief for scarcely more than a generation, its effectiveness has led to interminable litigation. As might be expected, the boycott pronouncements of the courts in this formative period have had to undergo the most searching challenge and scrutiny. That this scrutiny will be focused upon the results of the recent first impression case before the Iowa supreme court cannot be doubted. See Ellis v. Journeyman Barbers I. U. of America (Iowa, 1922), 191. N. W. III.

Recent Important Decisions

Michigan Law Review

A collection of recent important court decisions.

Book Reviews

Michigan Law Review

A collection of book reviews by multiple authors.

Fundamental Tendencies In Modern Jurisprudence, Rudolf Stammler

Michigan Law Review

The reception of Roman law presented new problems to jurisprudence.

At the end of the fifteenth century the reception of Roman law and canon law, together with the Lombard feudal law, was complete throughout the entire continent of Europe.

As a matter of fact, Roman law had come northward in the East from Constantinople at the same time that it was coming into Germany from the South and West; but that is for our question of no particular importance. The chief point is that everywhere there was the need of becoming familiar with this foreign law, so far as that …

Fraudulent Bills Of Lading, Merton L. Ferson

Michigan Law Review

Station agents, without receiving goods, have frequently signed bills of lading purporting to bind their company. When a bill of lading thus issued has been transferred to an innocent purchaser for value, the question arises whether such person may recover against the carrier company. The question is obviously one of the .agent's ability to bind his employer.

Rights Of Finders, Ralph W. Aigler

Michigan Law Review

Much of the confusion and uncertainty in the law regarding the topic indicated above is due to a failure to distinguish between several types of situations and to appreciate the applicability of certain fundamental principles. The words "lost" and "find" are used in such widely varying senses that the all too common method of reaching a conclusion by first applying a name to a thing or situation has 'in this particular field led to special difficulty.

Constitutional Law--Equal Protection Of The Laws--Imposition Of Penalties On Common Carriers For Fialure To Settle Claims

Michigan Law Review

A Nebraska statute provided that common carriers should settle properly presented claims for loss of and damage to freight within sixty days from the presentation thereof, and in case such settlement was not made and more was recovered in a subsequent suit than had been tendered by the carrier, the amount found due should carry as a penalty seven per cent interest from the presentation of the claim and reasonable attorney's fees. In case of appeal, an additional attorney's fee might be included if the plaintiff succeeded. The plaintiff company presented a large number of freight claims, which were all …

Search And Seizure--Reasonableness

Michigan Law Review

Prohibition has rendered more than ever acute the problem of law .enforcement. Search for and seizure of contraband liquor as forfeited to the state is a very essential part of enforcement, and there is immediately raised the question: What constitutes a legal search and seizure?

The recent decision of the Michigan Supreme Court in People v. Case (Mich., 1922), 190 N. W. 289, may well serve as a starting point. There, officers without permission and without warrant entered defendant's automobile truck as it stood upon a public fair-ground, searched and found liquor therein, and arrested defendant when he appeared and …

Recent Important Decisions

Michigan Law Review

A collection of recent important court decisions.

Book Reviews

Michigan Law Review

A collection of book reviews by multiple authors.

University Of Michigan Law School Annual Announcement 1923-1924 And Catalogue Of Students 1922-1923, University Of Michigan Law School

Law School Announcement and Bulletins

The Law School; Library; Summer Session; Directions to Candidates for Admission; Requirements for Admission; Admission as Candidates for a Degree; Admission of Special Students; Admission to Advanced Standing; Combined Curriculum in Letters and Law; Requirements for Graduation: Degrees; Regulations Applicable to all Degrees; The Law Curriculum; Special Courses in Jurisprudence by Sir Paul Vinogradoff, F.B.A., Corpus Professor of Jurisprudence in the University of Oxford; Additional Special Courses; Fourth Year Course; The Practice Court; Public Speaking; Oratorical Associations; Fees and Expenses; Michigan Law Review; The Howard B. Coblentz Prize; Order of the Coif; University Health Service; The Michigan Union; Summer Session; …

Challenges To The Array

Michigan Law Review

Trial by jury demands impartial jurors as the indispensable basis for public confidence. And the first requisite for obtaining impartiality is indifference on the part of those who select the jury. This was fully recognized at the common law, and ever since the days when jurors ceased to be witnesses and became triers of facts, it was a good objection to the entire panel that the sheriff was not indifferent between the parties in the selection and summoning of the jury. Prejudice on the part of individual jurors could be met by challenges to the polls, but when favor lurked …

The Supreme Court's Adjudication Of Constitutional Issues In 1921-1922, V, Thomas Reed Powell

Michigan Law Review

By the terms of Article III of the Constitution the federal judicial power extends to cases and controversies of various kinds, and it is established that no dispute, even though otherwise cognizable, can be brought before the federal courts unless they are technically a case or a controversy. In illustration of this, Fairchild v. Hughes held that a private citizen with no other interest at stake than his personal opposition to woman suffrage can not bring a bill to restrain the Secretary of State from issuing a proclamation declaring the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment.

Landowner V. Intruder; Intruder V. Landowner. Basis Of Responsibility In Tort., Leon Green

Michigan Law Review

The struggle of the concept of moral blameworthiness to supplant the primitive notion that a person acts at his peril as a basis of responsibility in the field of tort touches every nook and cranny of the common law. The necessity of making use of the same procedure by which the older concept was developed has proved a great hindrance in the way of a quick and complete conquest by the notion of responsibility based upon fault. Negligence cannot yet claim a complete mastery over trespass in the field of unintended violent harms. Nevertheless, in so far as a change …

Recent Important Decisions

Michigan Law Review

A collection of recent important court decisions.

Constitutional Law--Police Power, Regulation, And Confiscation

Michigan Law Review

Whether the power be taken away directly, or be deadened and atrophied in its action by adverse criticism and demagogic clamor, when the judiciary no longer feel at liberty to construe the provisions of the fundamental Law 'in the light of reason,' constitutional government, in the sense in which it has been understood for a century and a half, will be at an end, and the doctrine of the police power will have been swallowed up in the capacious maw of unrestrained democracy." 27 HARV. L. REV. 316. Mr. Wickersham penned this warning during the period when the swell of …

The Juristic Philosophy Of Justice Holmes, John C.H. Wu J.D.

Michigan Law Review

Philosophy in the full sense," says William James, "is only man thinking, thinking about generalities rather than about particulars." In the same sense, we may describe juristic philosophy as man thinking about generalities in connection with law.

It is to be noted that I do not say "generalities of law;"--law itself being nothing more than a particular object-matter of knowledge, its generalities are to be handled by general jurisprudence rather than by juristic philosophy. By "generalities in connection with law", I mean the general problems of philosophy considered in relation to the study of law.

Book Reviews

Michigan Law Review

A collection of book reviews by multiple authors.

Is A Municipal Fuel-Yard A "Public Service Plant"?

Michigan Law Review

In Consumers Coal Co. et al. v. City of Lincoln, et al. (Neb. 1922) 18g N. W. 643, the supreme court of Nebraska held that a municipal fuel-yard, selling fuel at retail to the inhabitants of the city, was not a "public service plant" authorized by a section of the city charter which empowered the city to acquire, own and operate gas and electric plants, street railways, telephone plants, "and any and all other public service plants and properties, for the purpose of supplying the city and the inhabitants thereof with such service and public utilities.'' The suit was …

The Law Book Of The Future, William W. Cook

Michigan Law Review

In an article published in November, 1922, in the American Bar Association Journal on the "Power and Responsibility of the American Bar and its Relations to Democratic Institutions," the author pointed out the achievements of the profession in developing the law to meet the political and industrial needs of the American people. There is still other important work for the profession to do. Blackstone's and Kent's Commentaries have been outgrown and there is an imperative demand for a comprehensive and practical American treatise on all law for the use of law students and lawyers, legislators and the educated classes generally. …

The Separation Of Powers, John A. Fairlie

Michigan Law Review

One of the characteristics of both national and state governments in the United States is the existence of three separate departments,--the legislative, executive, and judicial, each coordinate and in the main independent of the others. The Constitution of the United States establishes three such departments,--Congress with legislative power, the President with executive power, and the Supreme Court and other United States courts to be established by law, with judicial power. Each of the state constitutions also provides for three similar departments in the state government.

Recent Important Decisions

Michigan Law Review

A collection of recent important court decisions.

The Supreme Court's Adjudication Of Constitutional Issues In 1921-1922, Iv, Thomas Reed Powell

Michigan Law Review

That contracts between private parties cannot stand in the way of exercises of the police power for the promotion of health, morals and safety is firmly established. This principle was invoked against objection to rent regulation in decisions of the preceding term, and it is reiterated in Edgar A. Levy Leasing Co. v. Siegel. In one of the cases involved in this decision a tenant was relieved of a contract made after the statute was enacted, and the landlord here encountered the further doctrine that "of course, a lease made subsequent to the enactment of a statute cannot be …

An Inquiry Concerning The Functions Of Procedure In Legal Education, Edson R. Sunderland

Michigan Law Review

Procedure has always been the bête noire of the law school teacher. No other subject has developed such divergent opinions or such endless debates. None recurs with such periodic frequency and in no field of legal pedagogy has discussion seemed so barren of results. Three different general sessions of the Association of American Law Schools during the last ten years have been devoted largely or wholly to the subject of teaching procedure, and yet no substantial progress seems to have been made toward a standardized scheme of treatment. Individual teachers and schools have their individual views and policies, and they …

Legislation In Vague Or General Terms, Ralph W. Aigler

Articles

FOR some reason, probably in part the increasing complexity of our life and relationships, but more largely, perhaps, the growing tendency to regulate everybody and everything by positive law, the courts have been called upon with increasing frequency to pass upon the effectiveness of statutes and ordinances phrased in indefinite terms. In a very interesting and valuable paper, Professor Freund has pointed out the weakness and strength, on the one hand, of legislation in general terms, and on the other hand, legislation in which the rule of conduct is attempted to be laid down with precision. His interest apparently lay …

Rights Of Finders, Ralph W. Aigler

Articles

Much of the confusion and uncertainty in the law regarding the topic indicated above is due to a failure to distinguish between several types of situations and to appreciate the applicability of certain fundamental principles. The words "lost" and "find" are used in such widely varying senses that the all too common method of reaching a conclusion by first applying a name to a thing or situation has in this particular field led to special difficulty.

Les Gouvernements Ou États Non Reconnus En Droit Anglais Et Américain, Edwin D. Dickinson

Articles

Professor Dickinson tackles the subject of non-recognition of governments or states in English and American law: "Pour conclure, voici les propositions de l'auteur. La reconnaissance d'un Gouvernement or Etat etranger est exclusivement une question politique. L'existence d'un Gouvernement ou Etat etranger est exclusivement une question de fait.... C'est une chose deja grave que de voir d'une menace dans les conflits diplomatiques..."