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Criminal Law-Manslaughter-Effect Of Violation Of Statute Or Ordinance On Criminal Negligence, C. E. Becraft

Michigan Law Review

Defendant was convicted of the crime of negligent homicide and appealed, alleging that the Louisiana statute, making violation of a statute or ordinance presumptive evidence of criminal negligence, was repugnant to the due process clauses of the state and federal constitutions. Held, affirmed. The effect of the statute is merely to shift the burden of introducing evidence of one element of the crime charged: that of criminal negligence. The presumption does not operate as a prima facie presumption of guilt of the crime -and the state must still prove every element of the offense. State v. Nix, (La. …

Taxation--Income Tax--Nondeductible Losses--Intra-Family Transactions, Bayard E. Heath S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Petitioner managed his wife's as well as his own estate. On several occasions, to establish tax losses, he ordered his broker to sell certain stock on the Stock Exchange for his account, and then to buy the same number of shares of the same stock for his wife's account. Petitioner claimed losses derived from these sales when filing his income tax return, but the commissioner disallowed these deductions on the authority of section 24 (b) of the Internal Revenue Code. On the taxpayer's application to the Tax Court, it held section 24 (b) inapplicable. The circuit court of appeals reversed …

Trade Restraints--Anti-Trust Laws-Tying Contracts--Right Of Selection Of Customers, John F. Buchman, Iii

Michigan Law Review

Defendant, one of the country's largest producers of salt for industrial uses, held patents on two machines for utilization of salt products. It leased these machines on condition that the lessee purchase from defendant all the salt (an unpatented product) to be used with the machines unless salt should become available elsewhere at a lower price. The federal government brought suit under the Sherman and Clayton Acts to enjoin the continued observance of these provisions of the lessee. The district court granted the injunction and ordered that defendant, if offering any machines at all for lease, offer the same to …

Wills-Validity Of A Statutory Compromise Of A Will Contest Which Alters Or Reduces Possible Interests Created Under The Will, John M. Veale S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Testator's will created a trust of realty and personalty worth about nine million dollars. Small life annuities, subject to spendthrift provisions, were given to various heirs, with remainder on the death of the survivor of two grandsons to T's "legal heirs." Several years after T's death the heirs filed a bill to construe the will, claiming that it gave them vested remainders in the trust estate. Pending decision, all the present heirs executed an agreement to compromise the controversy which provided for immediate distribution to themselves of six million dollars from the corpus. The agreement was submitted to …

Notes, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

The information given in the notes is derived from inspection of the books, publisher's literature, and the ordinary library sources.

Monthly Periodical Index, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This department lists the articles and comments which appear in twenty-four leading law reviews. The index embraces material published since the last issue of this REVIEW.

Corporations-Effect Of Merger Upon Apparent Rights Of Stockholders Under Preferred Stock Contracts, Charles M. Soller S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

It is the purpose of this comment to examine the effect of merger upon some of the provisions of the preferred stock contract.

Front Matter, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Front Matter for Volume 46, Issue 3 of Michigan Law Review

Some General Aspects Of Michigan Community Property Law, William E. Burby

Michigan Law Review

The common law, in recognition of the fact that one spouse is entitled to some economic security in the property of the other spouse, evolved the interests known as dower and curtesy. These interests, of course, apply only with respect to land. The husband enjoyed an additional economic advantage that came from the management and control of his wife's property. This latter advantage has disappeared with the advent of Married Women's Property Acts that confer upon married women the right to manage their own estates. Statutes have also expanded on the concept of dower and curtesy by providing for a …

Application Of The Law Of The Absent* Sovereign In Territory Under Belligerent Occupation: The Schio Massacre, Eric Stein

Michigan Law Review

On July 6, 1945, in the village of Schio, a small community in the northern Italian Province of Vicenza, fifty-four persons confined in the Schio jail were shot to death by masked men who had forced their way into the prison. A large majority of the persons held in the Schio jail at the time of the shooting were suspected of collaboration with the Germans, and other political crimes. No formal charges were pending against one-third of the prisoners. At the time of the massacre the area was under the rule of the Allied Military Government.

Seven former partisans were …

Constitutional Law--Due Process And The Bill Of Rights--Self-Incrimination, F. William Hutchinson

Michigan Law Review

In the course of evolving workable doctrines which give substance and meaning to the skeletal phrase "due process of law" as used in the Fourteenth Amendment to limit state action, the Supreme Court has frequently been called on to determine the scope of the several prohibitions and guarantees of the Bill of Rights of the federal Constitution. This general problem, and more particularly the application of the Fifth Amendment self-incrimination clause to state criminal proceedings, was again presented in a recent case and resulted in a sharp division of opinion within the Court.

Labor Law-Torts-Liability Of Labor Union For Inducing Breach Of Contract, Ira M. Price, Ii S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

During the past fifteen years the law as a whole has moved rapidly in the direction of favoring union activity. A labor policy expressed in numerous federal and state laws and important judicial decisions has generally recognized and protected in the courts the workers' right to be free from employer interference, to strike, to engage in peaceful picketing, and to conduct primary boycotts. Within this liberalizing judicial concept of the rights of labor, the present status of the action against labor unions for inducing breach of contract presents an interesting study of the tenacity of an early common law theory …

Pooling And Unitization Of Oil And Gas Leases, A. Allen King

Michigan Law Review

Not so many years ago the oil industry faced utter collapse and ruin, a situation brought on by operations under legal rules developed in the early days of the industry when knowledge of the physical characteristics of oil and gas and their underground reservoirs was limited as compared with present day knowledge. In the late 1920's and early 1930's discoveries of great new oil fields that were developed and operated under the Rule of Capture and the Offset Drilling Rule caused a flood of oil on a market unable to absorb it. This not only had an adverse effect upon …

Community Property-Constitutionality Of The Pennsylvania Community Property Act, Richard J. Archer

Michigan Law Review

After the effective date of the Pennsylvania Community Property Act the husband used income from his separate property to pay part of an advance installment on a life insurance policy acquired before the act. He afterward assigned the policy to the plaintiff. The insurance company refused to recognize the validity of the assignment without the wife's consent on the basis that the income from separate property became community property so as to give the wife an interest in the policy. The Pennsylvania Community Property Act provided, inter alia, that: (1) the separate property of each spouse shall consist of that …

Constitutional Law-Civil Rights-Denial Under Color Of State Law Of Right To Serve On Federal Jury, William J. Schrenk, Jr.

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff, a probationary high school teacher, was dismissed by the Board of Education of New York City upon the complaint of Keyes, the principal of her school, that she was absent from her duties for almost a month while serving on a federal jury. The state commissioner of, education and the state court denied her appeal for reinstatement, on the ground that her status under New York law was merely probationary. Plaintiff sued defendant Keyes in the federal district court, to recover damages under the Civil Rights Act for the deprivation of a right secured to her by the law …

Contracts--Effect Of Stipulation For Re-Negotiation Upon Stated Contingency--Impossibility Of Performance, John F. Buchman, Iii

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff, popular star of "western" motion pictures, was under contract to defendant, extended by successive options through March 6, 1944, to act in eight pictures per year, at a graduated salary which would become $14,000 per picture during the last year of the contract. In May, 1942, a further contract was made, by which defendant secured an option on plaintiff's services for another year, which option it duly exercised. This later contract provided that if plaintiff went into military service, the parties would "agree upon their mutual rights and obligations" under the two contracts in view of that fact. This …

Criminal Law-Search And Seizure-Admissibiliy In State Court Of Evidence Illegally Seized By Federal Authorities, Andrew W. Lockton, Ill

Michigan Law Review

Two federal narcotic officers accompanied by two state officers went into the defendant's residence, under the authority of a search warrant which authorized search only for marihuana. The search was fruitless. Observing an automobile in front, the two federal officers said something to the defendant, to which he replied, "why sure-look it over; you won't find anything in there." The federal officers were already searching the automobile when the state officers approaching the automobile saw a bottle of whiskey on the floor-board of the car. So far as can be gathered from the opinion, the state officers did not participate …

Labor Law-Constitutionality Of Statutes Prohibiting "Hot Goods" And "Secondary" Boycotts, Jerry S. Mccroskey

Michigan Law Review

In a contempt action against the business agent of an A.F.L. furniture and van workers local for violation of an injunction based on statutes prohibiting "hot goods" and "secondary" boycotts, held, petitioner discharged; the statutes are violative of the Fourteenth Amendment of the federal Constitution in prohibiting peaceful picketing or other publication of the facts concerning a labor dispute in pursuance of an "agreement or combination to cause" any employee to stop handling certain goods or to put pressure on his employer to do so. ln re Blaney, (Cal.1947) 184P. (2d) 892.

Real Property-Tenancy By Entireties-Estate Created By Parol Gift Followed By A Voluntary Settlement, Ralph J. Isackson

Michigan Law Review

Prior to his death in 1892, X made a parol gift of 60 acres in a 360 acre tract to his daughter, W, or to W and her husband, H, and put them into actual possession but gave them no deed to the land. No evidence was shown to indicate that either W or H had paid the taxes or made any improvements on the land during X's lifetime. X died intestate and left surviving him five children, including W. All the heirs, except W, conveyed the 60 acre tract to W and H in …

Patterson: Presidential Government In The United States. The Unwritten Constitution, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of PRESIDENTIAL GOVERNMENT IN THE UNITED STATES. THE UNWRITTEN CONSTITUTION. By C. Perry Patterson

Link: Wilson: The Road To The White House, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of WILSON: THE ROAD TO THE WHITE HOUSE. By Arthur S. Link.

Monthly Periodical Index, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This department lists the articles and comments which appear in twenty-four leading law reviews. The index embraces material published since the last issue of this REVIEW.

Constitutional Law--Investigatory Power Of Congress--Validity Of The Un-American Activities Committee Inquiries Into Professional And Political Affiliations, Charles M. Soller

Michigan Law Review

The recent probe into the motion picture industry by the House Committee on Un-American Activities and the resulting indictment of ten witnesses for contempt of Congress have served not only to keep this controversial committee in the publicity spotlight, but have also raised some constitutional questions which have long gone unanswered. The indictment of the ten recalcitrant witnesses under Title 2, section 192, of the United States Code followed their citation for contempt by the House of Representatives for refusal to give direct answers to the Committee's questions: "Are you a member of the Screen Writers Guild?" and "Are you …

Injunctions-Power Of A Court To Modify A Final Permanent, Injunction, Charles B. Blackmar S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

A court which has issued a permanent injunction may, under certain conditions, open and modify or dissolve the injunction even though the decree in the original action has become final. This power is said to be justified by the continuing operation of the injunction, which regulates future conduct as well as determining the rights of the parties as of the date of rendition of the decree. The same proposition can be restated by saying that injunctions are issued to protect existing rights, but provide no immunity against modification of those rights because of later changes in the applicable law or …

Trusts--Constructive Trusts--Effect Of Inter-Vivos Transfer Of Land On Oral Trust To Reconvey To Transferor, Ira M. Price, Ii S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff, who had courted defendant for six years and had proposed marriage, conveyed a lot and house to defendant after various discussions and immediately upon the written suggestion of defendant. Later their romance terminated when she went abroad and plaintiff turned his attention to another woman. In a suit to cancel deed to the premises, held, that because of the confidential relationship which had existed between the parties and in order to prevent defendant from "completing her fraud," defendant held title as constructive trustee for plaintiff. Kausky v. Koten, (Wash. 1947) 179 P. (2d) 950.

Notes, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

The information given in the notes is derived from inspection of the books, publisher's literature, and the ordinary library sources.

Monthly Periodical Index, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This department lists the articles and comments which appear in twenty-four leading law reviews. The index embraces material published since the last issue of this REVIEW.

Taxation-Income Tax-Exempt Reorganizations-Recapitalization As Device For Distributing Earnings, Bayard E. Heath S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Petitioner owned more than three-fourths of the stock in a corporation whose shares had a par value of $100. Except for one share, his wife owned the remainder. Under a plan of recapitalization the stockholders received in exchange for each old share, five shares of no par stock with a stated value of $60 per share plus a portion of $400,000 worth of callable debentures issued by the corporation. At the time of this exchange the earned surplus of the corporation exceeded $850,000. The commissioner held that the full value of the debentures received was chargeable to the taxpayer as …

Mr. Justice William Johnson, Jurist In Limine: The Judge As Historian And Maker Of History, A. J. Levin

Michigan Law Review

In the year 1822 A. E. Miller of No. 4 Broad-street, near the Bay, Charleston, South Carolina, "Printed for the Author" the Sketches of the Life and Correspondence of Nathanael Greene, Major General of The Armies of The United States, In The War of The Revolution. The fly-leaf announced that the work was "Compiled Chiefly from Original Materials" and that it was in "Two Volumes" by William Johnson of Charleston, South Carolina. It was, indeed, a substantial publication "grown to a bulk . . . never anticipated" of some nine hundred thirty-eight pages exclusive of numerous pages in small …

Sales Rationale Of Durable Product Distribution, Kenneth K. Luce

Michigan Law Review

This paper has been prepared to add the writer's bit to the long term struggle for uniformity in the commercial law, and particularly to point to some of the statutory changes in the law affecting distribution of durable goods which have added confusion where once the common law appears to have been on its way to a system more uniform and in accord with business practice and understanding.