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Witnesses, Competency, Husband And Wife, Illegitimacy. [Russell V. Russell (1924) Ac 687], Edward W. Hinton

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No abstract provided.

Case Note, United States V. Grossman, James Parker Hall

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No abstract provided.

Tort Obligations And The Conflict Of Laws, Herbert F. Goodrich

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"This article is an extract from a textbook on 'The Conflict of Laws,' by Professor Goodrich, now in course of preparation, and is here published by permission of the West Publishing Company."--Footnote

Recognition Of New Types Of Negotiable Instruments, Ralph W. Aigler

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“The expression ‘negotiable instrument’ is one of variable meaning, and what is meant thereby often can be determined only by the context… Primarily ‘negotiable’ indicates transferability with a certain facility…..

“It may be not without interest to consider how instruments gain the negotiable quality and to trace, sketchily perhaps, the process of recognition.”

Return To Service After Departure, Floyd R. Mechem

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No abstract provided.

What The American Law Institute Means To The Law School, Herbert F. Goodrich

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"While in no sense a law school affair, the American Law Institute is so intimately connected with the progress of the law and legal education that it justifies mention here. The Institute was organized at a meeting of judges, lawyers and law teachers, held in Washington in February, 1923.... The Law School of the University of Michigan is and will continue to be intimately connected with this movement for the improvement of the law...."

Revival Of Moot Courts At Michigan, Herbert F. Goodrich

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"Clubs formed for the purposes of argument of moot cases exist in varying numbers at several of the best law schools in the country. From the students of the Law School at Michigan has come a movement for the establishment of such clubs here...."

The Michigan Law Review: A Survey, John B. Waite

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"The Michigan Law Review was instituted as a means of special education for those seniors in the Law Department who proved themselves particularly capable of profitting[sic] therefrom. It stands also as an extremely valuable service of the Law School to its alumni and to practicing lawyers in general."

The Future Of Michigan's Law School, Henry M. Bates

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An article penned by Dean Bates in anticipation of the opening of the Law School's Lawyers' Club buildings in the following year. Bates does not mention by name the "distinguished alumnus of the University" whose "vision has developed the best-conceived and most effective plan in the history of the legal profession and the interests which it serves." A general narrative "travelogue" of the Law School in 1924.

Insolvency Of Firm And Partners, Marshalling Of Assets, Joint And Several Claims, Floyd R. Mechem

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No abstract provided.

Substituted Service On Non-Residents, Edward W. Hinton

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No abstract provided.

The Reform Of Civil Procedure, Edson R. Sunderland

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Professor Sunderland addresses the pernicious involvement of legislators in legal reform, contrary to the English model. This duty should be left to those who know the Law better than any: "The courts constitute the judicial department of the state, and the judges who preside and the lawyers who practice in them are the selected group of trained men charged with the responsibility for administering the law."

Some Observations On The Law School Curriculum, James Parker Hall

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No abstract provided.

Rights Of Finders, Ralph W. Aigler

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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.

Trade Competition - Effect Of Motive, Herbert F. Goodrich

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Does the motive with which one enters into what is ostensibly trade competition with a business rival have any significance in the law? Motive is used, following Judge Smith's careful limitation of the term, to signify the feeling which makes the actor desire to obtain the result aimed at. A conclusion that motive is immaterial in this connection can be sustained by formal logic. A man has a "right" to engage in business, even though his rival be injured thereby. One may exercise a legal right, regardless of his motives in doing so. Therefore, business competition, if the methods be …

Public Utility Valuation, Edwin C. Goddard

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It has been so often remarked that the "valuation" of public utilities is determined by no rule of thumb, that there are no fixed rules or formulas to guide courts or commissions, that determination of value as a rate base is matter of judgment and discretion in each case, Minnesota Rate Cares, 230 U. S. 352, 434, that the statement has come to be believed by reason in part of its much repetition. It is usually accepted as axiomatic. The glorious uncertainty resulting from such an admission will continue so long as judgments of one man or set of men …

Unrecognized Government Or State In English And American Law (Part 1), Edwin D. Dickinson

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From the decision of this novel case, reported as Pelzer v. United Dredging Co., we may infer that the New York courts regard unrecognized Mexico as a sort of legal vacuum. In granting the corporation's motion for judgment on the pleadings, the Supreme Court said: "The administratrix plaintiff is an officer of a foreign court. It is syllogistically true that if the foreign court has no recognized power here she may not assert a right derived through her appointment therefrom. The Mexican government is not de facto here, since recognition alone can make it so. It may have all the …

Divorce Problems In The Conflict Of Laws, Herbert F. Goodrich

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Divorce may be considered as the termination of the legal relationship between husband and wife by an act of the law. With the purely local aspect of legal questions regarding divorce, Conflict of Laws is not concerned. If a husband and wife are married and have their home in one state, legal questions concerning their divorce are local matters only. These will include the grounds for divorce, the particular court in which the action is brought, the procedure to be followed from commencement to termination of the action. In such a case it is only when some question concerning the …

Declaratory Judgments, Edson R. Sunderland

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The Connecticut legislature passed an act in 1921 authorizing courts to make binding declarations of rights. The act was attacked as unconstitutional on the same ground raised by the supreme court of Michigan against the Michigan Declaratory Judgment Act in the case of Anway v. Railway Co., 211 Mich. 592, 12 A. L. R. 26i namely, that declaring rights was not a judicial function. But the Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut sustdined the act as in no way contravening the constitution.

Challenges To The Array, Edson R. Sunderland

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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 …

International Aspects Of Prohibition Enforcement, Edwin D. Dickinson

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The Eighteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution prohibits "the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes." 40 Stat. io5O, 1941. In the National Prohibition Cases. 253 U. S. 350, 386, the amendment was said to be operative "throughout the entire territorial limits of the United States." As originally enacted, the National Prohibition Act did not in terms define its territorial field, but a supplemental provision afterwards enacted declares that the act "shall apply not only to …

Teaching Of International Law To Law Students, Edwin D. Dickinson

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A point to be noted at the outset, in any discussion of the teaching of international law to law students, is the relatively unimportant place which the subject occupies in the law student's program of study. The students in our law schools are tolerant of the interest which others manifest in international law. Indeed they are themselves greatly interested. They concede freely that it occupies an important place in the general scheme of things. But most of them feel that professional students cannot afford the time for even an introductory course. It results that courses in international law included in …

International Recognition And The National Courts, Edwin D. Dickinson

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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.

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

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Procedure has always been the bete 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 …

Change In The Meaning Of Consortium, Evans Holbrook

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LAWYERS have long boasted of the flexibility of the common law, of its ability to adapt itself to the needs of changing conditions of society, of its responsiveness to sociological progress. And while eager reformers have often-and with much reason complained that the law is laggard in its response to the needs of the people, yet it is clear that sooner or later the courts generally bring themselves into accord with "what is sanctioned by usage, or held by the prevailing morality or strong and preponderant public 'opinion to be greatly and immediately necessary to the public welfare." This responsiveness …

Perpetuity Statutes, Edwin C. Goddard

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THE common law of perpetuities is one of the most interesting examples of almost pure judicial legislation. De Donis, The Statutes of Uses and of Wills, but gave wider scope to the development by the courts of rules of law to thwart the attempt of the great landowners to tie up their landed estates in their families in perpetuity. One body of rules to this end limited restraints upon alienation, another the creation of future interests vesting at too remote a period. Restriction of restraints upon alienation, and the rule against perpetuities, these two were developed for the same end, …

Unrecognized Government Or State In English And American Law (Part 2), Edwin D. Dickinson

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PROBABLY no one in the British Empire or the United States would question the doctrine that it belongs exclusively to the political departments to recognize new governments or states. The difficulties involved are those which arise in the application of a doctrine so broadly stated. Not every situation involving an unrecognized government or state requires the decision of a question of recognition. If the decision of a political question is not involved, then it is entirely proper for the courts to take cognizance of a mere de facto government or state. In what situations may the courts appropriately take account …

Is A Municipal Fuel Yard A 'Public Service Plant'?, Evans Holbrook

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In Consumers' Coal Co. et al. v. City of Lincoln, et al. (Neb. 1922) 189 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 brought …

Legislation In Vague Or General Terms, Ralph W. Aigler

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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.