Digital Commons Network^™

Sales Taxes, Interstate Trade Barriers, And Congress: The Gulf Oil Case, M. R. Schlesinger

Michigan Law Review

The capacity of the federal government to deal with the increasingly irritating problem of interstate trade barriers is an important question high-lighted by the recent Supreme Court decision in McGoldrick v. Gulf Oil Corp. The Court there decided that in view of the superior federal authority over foreign commerce Congress could validly prohibit an otherwise legal city sales tax on imported petroleum manufactured into fuel oil and sold for use on foreign-bound ships.

Insurance - Fraternal Benefit Policy - Who Is A "Dependent'', Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Deceased was an inmate of an old age home, having paid an entrance fee and signed an entrance contract in which the home reserved the right to discharge inmates at any time without reason upon refund of a proportionate amount of the entrance fee. Deceased lived in the home until his death. He had taken out a policy in a fraternal benefit association whose by-laws provided that "In the event of the death of all beneficiaries named in a certificate . . . the benefits shall be paid . . . [to the] . . . person or persons upon …

Front Matter, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Front Matter for Volume 39, Issue 5 of Michigan Law Review

Any More Light On Haddock V. Haddock? The Problem Of Domicil In Divorce, Harold Wright Holt

Michigan Law Review

AT first glance it seems a work of foolhardiness or of supererogation to embark upon a rediscussion of any problems arising from Haddock v. Haddock. True, the decision of the majority of the Supreme Court in that case has not won wholehearted support from the bench or legal profession. True it is, also, that collusive divorces still flourish. These considerations alone might, perhaps, lead the reader to concede that it would not be unfruitful to speculate upon an eventual modification of some of the principles which the Court in that case approved. If, however, further justification is demanded of …

Neutrality And The European War 1939-1940, Josef L. Kunz

Michigan Law Review

Obviously it is still impossible and will be impossible for some time to make a definitive legal research into the problem of neutrality during the present European war. Most important facts and documents are still unpublished, inaccessible or shrouded in the fog of contradictions and propaganda. The duration and the outcome of the war are still uncertain and nobody can foresee what type of world will emerge from this war and what the future of neutrality in this type of world will be.

Constitutional Law - Regulation Of Small Business, Alfred G. Ellick Jr.

Michigan Law Review

Ever since the development of the guild system the small tradesman or shopkeeper has attempted in various ways to reduce the number of his competitors. The time-honored method, in theory at least, has been to give better service for less money. The more modern method is to select a delegation from the trade itself whose duty it will be to proceed to the state capitol, there to urge the passage of "protective legislation." As a result, legislators have found themselves beseiged by lobbyists who show altruistic concern for the health, safety, and welfare of the general public. Strangely enough, the …

Injunctions - Power To Restrain Foreign Divorce Proceedings Declaratory Judgment As Adequate Legal Remedy, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff petitioned a New York court to restrain her husband from prosecuting an action for divorce in a Florida court, alleging that the parties were married in New York, had lived there as husband and wife for twelve years, were still residents of New York, and that the defendant's business was located in the state. The complaint also alleged that the defendant had abandoned the plaintiff without cause; that plaintiff could not bear the expense of defending the Florida action and, in the event of judgment, would lose her status as wife and her concomitant property rights. Held, this …

Workmen's Compensation - Injury By Accident - Compensation For A Contagious Disease Contracted From A Fellow Employee, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

P and X were both employed by D. Their work made it necessary that they be in close proximity to one another. X, who was infected with tuberculosis, frequently coughed in P's face and on one occasion the spray and sputum went into P's face and mouth. Within several months P was forced to leave the employ of D. Applying for relief under the North Carolina Workmen's Compensation Act, P made a showing that he was disabled with tuberculosis, and the Workmen's Compensation Commission, finding that P had been in contact with no other source …

Parties - Representative Suits As Res Judicata- Rejection Of Doctrine Of Class Suits In Successive Actions To Enforce Mutual Covenants In Land, Gerald M. Lively

Michigan Law Review

Some 500 frontage owners in a certain described residential district entered into mutual covenants which stipulated against the sale to, or occupation of, such land by negroes. In an action to enjoin a breach of one of these covenants the defense was asserted that a condition precedent requiring ninety-five per cent of the frontage owners to sign the agreement had not been performed. On a trial of the merits it was found that only about fifty-four per cent of the frontage owners had actually signed. However, in a prior action, an owner, on behalf of herself and other like property …

Interstate Commerce - Motor Carrier Act Of 1935 - Power Of States To Regulate Interstate Carriers As To Sizes And Weight, Spencer E. Lrons

Michigan Law Review

The Motor Carrier Act of 1935 provides, in section 204 (a) (1) and (2), that the Interstate Commerce Commission, in performing its duty of regulating interstate motor carriers, shall have power to "establish reasonable requirements with respect to . . . safety of operation and equipment." In section 225, the act authorizes the commission "to investigate and report on the need for Federal regulation of the sizes and weight of motor vehicles. . . ." These two sections, when read together, indicate that Congress felt that sizes and weight regulations deserved consideration apart from general safety regulations. The former are …

Appeal And Error - Order Granting A New Trial As An Appealable Order, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

By an Ohio statute a final order might be reversed, vacated, or modified on appeal. After verdict was returned plaintiff filed a motion for a new trial claiming misconduct on the part of the jury. The trial court granted the motion and the defendant appealed. Held, the granting of a motion for a new trial is not a final order and, therefore, not subject to review, except in cases where it clearly appears from the record that the trial court has abused its discretion in granting the motion. Petro v. Donner, 137 Ohio St. 168, 28 N. E. …

Book Notes, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This department undertakes to list and, when possible, describe briefly current books on law and matters closely related thereto.

Monthly Periodical Index, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This department lists the articles and comments which appear in twenty-five leading law reviews.

Front Matter, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Front Matter for Volume 39, Issue 4 of Michigan Law Review

Labor Law - Constitutional Law - National Labor Relations Act- Right Of Employer To Disparage Labor Unions And To Advise His Employees Against Joining Them, William C. Wetherbee

Michigan Law Review

In the spring of 1937 the respondent distributed anti-union literature to its employees. Some of the material specifically denied any design on the part of the employer to prevent the employees from joining a union, and none of the literature pretended to be more than the advice and opinions of the employer. Nevertheless, the unions were thoroughly condemned as rackets, controlled by Communists, which deprive the workingman of his economic freedom and force him to pay for the privilege of working. The National Labor Relations Board found that the distribution of this literature interfered with, restrained, and coerced the employees …

Council And Court: The Handbill Ordinances, 1889-1939, James K. Lindsay

Michigan Law Review

The extent to which a municipality may regulate or prohibit the distribution of handbills and circulars on its streets and from house to house has been thoroughly considered by the courts in the last two years. These recent cases reveal one phase of a battle historically rich and presently important to the American people. It is the thrust of a principle-the right of free speech and press-against the encroachments of municipal governing bodies concerned with the practical problem of keeping their streets clean. The municipal official sees the problem thus: "One of the small but aggravating nuisances which most cities …

The Right Of Privacy, Louis Nizer

Michigan Law Review

It is only during the last half-century that the law has recognized the "right to be let alone"-the right under certain circumstances to protect one's name and physiognomy from becoming public property.

No mention of such a right will be found in the works of the great political philosophers and tract-writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries-Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Spencer, Paine. In discoursing on "natural rights," "the state of nature," "social contract," and "the inalienable rights of man," they were concerned only with the power of the state to abridge the liberties of the people. Society had not yet …

Appeal And Error - Bad Faith Of Counsel As A Basis For Granting A New Trial Where Fact That Defendant Was Insured Was Brought To Attention Of Jury, Raymond H. Rapaport

Michigan Law Review

It is generally agreed that the jury in a personal injury action should not be informed that the defendant is covered by indemnity insurance. The reasons for the rule are that the matter of insurance is irrelevant, and that the exposition of its existence is prejudicial. The jury is likely to grant more and larger verdicts for the plaintiff when it is known that an insurance company, rather than the individual defendant being tried, will have to pay the judgment. However, the fact that the defendant is insured reaches the jury in a multitude of ways. While direct evidence of …

Boundaries By Agreement And Acquiescence, Harold M. Street

Michigan Law Review

An accurate summation of the present-day status of the doctrines of boundaries by agreement and acquiescence is contained in the, following statement made by an eminent text writer: "There are, in this country, a great number of decisions bearing upon the effect of an agreement by adjoining owners as to the boundary line between their lands, or of their recognition of a certain line as the boundary without any express agreement in relation thereto. These decisions are frequently most unsatisfactory in their discussion of the principles involved, and, purporting, as they variously do, to be based on principles of agreement, …

Constitutional Law - Due Process - Federal Price Control Under Commerce Clause For Milk And Coal Industries, Stark Ritchie

Michigan Law Review

As a natural concomitant of the prevailing laissez-faire economic philosophy, a strong feeling against any governmental regulation of business prevailed in American legislatures until well into the second half of the nineteenth century. Prices were considered to be especially immune to governmental tampering. The first step in the breakdown of the notion that government had no power over prices was the case of Munn v. Illinois. This decision introduced the doctrine that the legislature had the right to regulate prices in any business which the courts should find to be "affected with a public interest." Posed as a deceivingly …

Bankruptcy - Effect Of Discharge - Suspension Of Driver's License For Non-Payment Of Judgment As Conflicting With The Bankruptcy Act, Walter Muller

Michigan Law Review

Under section 94-b of the New York Vehicle and Traffic Law, as amended in 1936 and 1939, if a judgment entered against a driver for 'damages for injury to person or property remains unpaid for fifteen days, the clerk of the court where the judgment was entered must (but only upon written demand of the judgment creditor) forward a copy thereof to the commissioner of motor vehicles, whose duty it then becomes to suspend the driving license of such judgment debtor; further, section 94-c provides (a) that such suspension shall continue for such part of three years as the judgment …

Labor Law - Existence Of Labor Dispute Under Norris-La Guardia Act - Relation Of Norris-La Guardia Act To Sherman Act, Philip W. Buchen

Michigan Law Review

Action was brought in a federal court to enjoin the Chicago local of the A. F. of L. Mille Wagon Drivers' Union from picketing and committing acts of violence in violation of the Sherman Act against retail stores that sold milk produced out of the state, processed by the plaintiff dairies and distributed by "vendors" belonging to the plaintiff C. I. O. union of dairy workers. "Vendors" were individuals owning their own trucks who purchased milk from the dairies and sold it to the retail stores, which charged prices lower than those charged for milk supplied by dairies employing the …

Labor Law -- Injunctions -- Permissible Objects Of Strikes -- Prevention Of Use Of Labor-Saving Devices, Reed T. Phalan

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff, a travelling grand opera troupe, used recordings for orchestral accompaniment. The American Federation of Musicians opposed use of mechanically reproduced music wherever orchestras could be hired, and, in support of such opposition, the stagehands' union forbade its members to work for plaintiff. As a result, since most of the theaters throughout the country were "closed shop" theaters, plaintiff's business was greatly restricted: Plaintiff brought an action for an injunction against the musician's union and the stagehands' union, and the lower court granted the injunction. Held, in a three-two decision, the stagehands' union had sufficient direct interest to act …

Labor Law - National Labor Relations Act - Necessity Of A Written Contract To Meet Requirement Of Good Faith Collective Bargaining, Rex B. Martin

Michigan Law Review

Having found that the petitioner, by refusing to sign an agreement reached with the union, was refusing to bargain collectively, the National Labor Relations Board ordered it to bargain by signing a written agreement. The Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit directed enforcement of the board's order. On certiorari to that court, held that the board's order should be enforced. H.J. Heinz Co. v. National Labor Relations Board, (U. S. 1941) 61 S. Ct. 320, affirming (C. C. A. 6th, 1940) 110 F. (2d) 843.

Labor Law-National Labor Relations Act-Elections - What Constitutes A Majority, Charles D. Johnson

Michigan Law Review

Three mills, all under the same management and represented by the same bargaining agents, were ordered by the National Labor Relations Board to desist from refusing to bargain with the Textile Workers' Organizing Committee. On application by the board to the court for a decree enforcing the order, the company claimed that the committee was not the lawful bargaining agency at the material dates. The T. W. O. C. had been certified by the board after an election in which a majority of the employees voted and a bare majority of these voted for the committee. In no instance were …

Constitutional Law- Eminent Domain - Power Of State To Condemn Land For Low-Cost Housing And Transfer To The United States, Oscar Freedenberg

Michigan Law Review

Public low-cost housing legislation on a national scale in this country began with title II, section 202 of the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933, which authorized the administrator to embark upon a program for "construction, reconstruction, alteration, or repair under public regulation or control of low-cost housing and slum-clearance projects." But soon thereafter, in United States v. Certain Lands in the City of Louisville, a majority of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit decided that the N.I.R.A. was unconstitutional so far as it attempted to authorize the condemnation of land by the United …

Libel And Slander - Implied Representation That Plaintiff Consented To Write Her Love Story As Libel Per Se, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff brought an action for libel against defendant for publishing in its magazine a story, which it represented as being written by plaintiff, purporting to relate indiscreet intimacies between plaintiff and a certain man. Defendant admitted the false representation of authorship, but requested a directed verdict after submitting in evidence testimony given by plaintiff in a prior law suit, in which she was said to have admitted intimacies fully as capable of bringing her into disrepute as were those published by defendant. On refusal by the court to direct a verdict, defendant excepted and appealed on the ground that the …

Taxation - Federal Income Tax - Intangible Satisfaction From Gift As Income To The Donor, Walter B. Connolly

Michigan Law Review

Respondent, the owner of negotiable bonds, detached from them negotiable interest coupons shortly before their due date and delivered them as a gift to his son, who in the same year collected them at maturity. The commissioner of internal revenue ruled that the interest payments were taxable to the respondent donor. The circuit court of appeals reversed the order of the board of tax appeals sustaining the tax. Held, the commissioner was correct in including such interest payments in the taxable income of the donor. Helvering v. Horst, (U.S. 1940) 61 S. Ct. 144.

Trust Mortgages - Effect Of Foreclosure Of Subsequent Mortgage As Prior Lien Under Subordination Agreement Of Which Bondholders Had No Knowledge, Rex B. Martin

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff held bonds secured by a trust mortgage. The trustee, Moore, without the consent of all the bondholders, had agreed to subordinate the trust mortgage to a subsequent mortgage. Defendant, the assignee of the subsequent mortgagee, foreclosed its mortgage as a prior lien. Moore was properly served but did not appear, as no bondholder agreed to pay the costs of the litigation. In the present suit to invalidate the subordinating agreement and reinstate the trust mortgage as the prior lien, held, the judgment in the foreclosure action determined the issue of priority and was conclusive against all the bondholders. …

Taxation - Income Tax - Insurance - Amounts Received By Stockholders Under Life Insurance Contract, C. V. Beck Jr.

Michigan Law Review

A corporation took out several policies of insurance on the life of its president, naming itself as beneficiary. Later, reserving the right to hypothecate the policies, it assigned them to a trustee who agreed to distribute the proceeds of the policies to the stockholders of record at the time of the president's death. At the death of the president the proceeds were paid by the insurance companies to the trustee who then paid them pro rata to the stockholders. At this time the corporation had on hand earnings equivalent to the amount of distribution, and there was no showing that …