Digital Commons Network^™

A Monument To The American Sense Of Justice, Wade Millis

Michigan Law Review

In this national anniversary year of profound memories we meet in a garden spot of Michigan within the boundaries of a county that possesses high distinction in being the theatre of important historical events and the home of many who have been notable for their achievements in the profession of the law and in the broad fields of statesmanship.

Book Reviews

Michigan Law Review

A collection of book reviews by multiple authors.

Recent Important Decisions

Michigan Law Review

A collection of recent important court decisions.

Passenger Tickets As Contracts, Edwin C. Goddard

Michigan Law Review

The most important right of the common carrier of passengers is his right to compensation. He carries for hire. This compensation he ordinarily collects by selling to the prospective passenger a ticket. Of these tickets there are many varieties, from the simple rectangular bit of cardboard, with the printed statement that it is good for one ride from X to Y, to the long coupon ticket, with elaborate provisions in fine print, providing for the passenger knows not what. What is the legal character of this ticket?

Early American Price-Fixing Legislation, Arthur S. Aiton

Michigan Law Review

One of the most pernicious delusions of legislators is the persistent notion that the enactment of a law is the panacea for any human ill from short sheets in hotels to the immodesty of certain styles of female apparel. The history of law-making is strewn with the wreckage of freak legislation of this character but the law-mills, heedless of the past, continue to spew forth new monstrosities and to revive old failures. That the human family cannot be legislated into a set mold of behavior and that the economic laws which underlie trade and intercourse cannot be enacted out of …

Imprisonment For Debt, Richard Ford

Michigan Law Review

Imprisonment for debt is usually thought of as a barbarous custom which declined continuously as civilization and Christianity advanced and which was totally done away with long ago. The facts, however, are otherwise. It seems doubtful if history warrants any generalization to the effect that the imprisonment of debtors has been a steadily declining practice. Certain it is, that in a greater or less degree it exists today in many parts of the United States, in England, and in some other countries. Moreover, creditors are making use of it on a comparatively large scale. It is the purpose of this …

Judicial Precedent In Mexican Law

Michigan Law Review

It is well known that precedent in the modern legal systems based upon the Roman law does not play the important role that it performs in the United States and Great Britain. A decision in an Anglo-American supreme court not only determines the point at issue but establishes a rule under which decisions may be made in the future. A decision in a Latin-American, or in a Continental supreme court has only the value of a judgment on the particular point in question. The body of decisions rendered upon the same point of law is not considered in the countries …

Book Reviews

Michigan Law Review

A collection of book reviews by multiple authors.

Restraints On Alienation-Restrictive Covenants-Racial Discrimination

Michigan Law Review

Three cases decided in 1925 in three widely separated parts of the United States, namely, California, Michigan, and the District of Columbia, raise the question: How far may one give legal effect to his racial prejudices through the medium of covenants and conditions inserted in wills and inter vivos conveyances? An attempt was made in each of these cases to restrict the use or sale of the property involved to white persons or to deny it to colored persons. Two of the cases upheld the restriction; one declared it invalid.

Contracts To Make Testamentary Dispositions As Affected By The Statute Of Frauds, Merrell I. Schnebly

Michigan Law Review

There are in the reports a surprising number of cases in which it is alleged that the owner of property has bound himself by contract to devise or bequeath that property to another. These promises have been made upon almost every imaginable consideration, but in the typical case the consideration is personal services rendered to the promiser during his declining years. Since these promises are so common, one concludes that this kind of contract must appeal to many persons as advantageous. There is little doubt that it of ten does enable one to secure attention of a sort he could …

Appeal Of Death And Its Abolition, William Renwick Riddell

Michigan Law Review

The Appeal of Death-or, as it is sometimes called, the Appeal of Murder, because it was generally invoked in cases of murder although cases of manslaughter were also within its scope-was an interesting survival of ancient law which continued its existence in England until a little more than a century ago, and which, when it fell, brought down a mass of crumbling and antiquated rubbish, which served no good purpose and might-sometimes did-do harm.

Recent Important Decisions

Michigan Law Review

A collection of recent important court decisions.

Police Legislation Under Federal Powers

Michigan Law Review

A recent case decided by the United States Supreme Court United States v. Daugherty (Jan. 4, 1926) 46 Su. Ct. 156 (Adv. Opn. 303) sustained a conviction and sentence under the Harrison Anti-Narcotic Act, 38 Stat. 785, for "making unauthorized sales of cocaine to three different persons on different days" The indictment was in three counts, one covering each sale involved. The sentence imposed was "five years on each of said three counts. * * * * Said term of imprisonment to run consecutively and not concurrently."

Jurisdiction Over Foreign Corporations, Maxwell E. Fead

Michigan Law Review

During the last century, the standing of foreign corporations in our law has been radically changed; and the law on this subject at the present day is far from being in a settled condition. According to the early view, a corporation could have no legal existence outside of the state of its creation. This view was perhaps best expressed by Mr. Chief Justice Taney in his famous dictum in Bank of Augusta v. Earle. "And this corporation can have no legal existence out of the bounds of the sovereignty by which it is created. It exists only in contemplation …

Pardons In Impeachment Cases, Maurice Taylor Van Hecke

Michigan Law Review

A year ago, Governor Miriam Ferguson, of Texas, approved an act of the legislature of that state, the gist of which reads as follows:

"That every person against whom any judgment of conviction has heretofore been rendered by the Senate of the State of Texas in any impeachment case, shall be and is hereby granted a full and unconditional release of any and all acts and offenses of which he was so convicted by said Senate of the State of Texas, upon any charge or proceedings of impeachment.

"That any and all penalties or punishment inflicted by or resulting from …

The Court Of Claims, J. H. Toelle

Michigan Law Review

The Court of Claims was established by Act of Congress in 1855. The original Act provided that at the commencement of each session of Congress, and at the commencement of each month during the session, the Court should report the cases upon which they should have finally acted, stating in each the material facts which they found established by the evidence, with their opinion in the case, and the. reasons upon which such opinion was founded, and the opinion of any judge who should dissent from the majority. It also directed the Court to prepare a bill or bills in …

Jurisdiction Over Unincorporated Associations Composed Of Nonresidents

Michigan Law Review

New York has a statute which provides for suits against unincorporated associations consisting of seven or more members. It reads as follows: An action or special proceeding may be maintained, against the president or treasurer of such an association, * * * upon any cause of action, for or upon which the· plaintiff may maintain such action or special proceeding, against all the associates * * *· Any partnership; or other company of persons, which has a president or treasurer, is, deemed an association within the meaning of this section." General Associations Law (Consol. Laws of N. Y.), sec. 13. …

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.

Constitutional Law-Compulsory Indemnity For Persons Injured By Automobiles

Michigan Law Review

The problem of protecting the public from injuries arising from the use of automobiles upon public highways has recently been subjected to a form of legislative solution that is distinctly different from the earlier attempts. The devices first employed were measures which dealt with the licensing of cars and with the regulation of their use. Later, when the need for giving financial substance to the tort liabilities of motorists appeared, steps were taken in the direction of fixing vicarious liabilities upon the owners of automobiles. This was done to some extent by the courts which announced the "family purpose doctrine," …

Trusts-Nature Of Massachusetts Or Business Trust

Michigan Law Review

The exact nature and legal incidents of the business trust, better known as the Massachusetts trust, have been put in question several times in recent years. There have been many conflicting decisions, and they represent varying degrees of hostility or favor towards a method of doing business which seems to possess many of the advantages of incorporation without carrying its burdens. It has recently been said: "The different and confusing conceptions of the law upon the subject of the Massachusetts trust, as evidenced by the many decisions of courts of the different states, and in discussions by the text-writers throughout …

Recent Important Decisions

Michigan Law Review

A collection of recent important court decisions.

The Technique Of Judicial Appointment, Harold J. Laski

Michigan Law Review

It is difficult to overestimate the significance of the judiciary in the modern state. The work of the executive has become so vast, the powers delegated to it by the legislature are so wide, that judges are, perhaps more than at any previous time, the real safeguard of personal liberty. It is only necessary to recall cases like Coppage v. Kansas, or R. v. Halliday, to realize how nearly judicial activity goes to the very heart of freedom. That is, of course, even more the case when, as with America, the constitution of the state is written, and …

The Uniformity Of The Maritime Law, George L. Canfield

Michigan Law Review

In 1871, Richard Henry Dana commenced a masterly article on the "History of Admiralty Jurisdiction in the Supreme Court of the United States,'' by writing, "After seventy yea.rs of baffling winds and cross currents in the region of admiralty jurisdiction, the Supreme Court of the United States has sailed out into deep water." In 1924, Charles Merrill Hough concludes his delightful "Admiralty Jurisdiction-of Late Years," with the statement, "The years since 1906 have not increased the certainty of maritime law, and they have impaired the tradition of enforceable customs of the sea." And others writing in current legal periodicals have …

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

Michigan Law Review

A man, domiciled in Michigan, dies. He leaves real and personal property in Michigan, and in addition a farm in Ohio, with the usual stock of animals, agricultural implements and other farm property upon it; he leaves a mercantile business in Wisconsin, and shares of stock in several corporations chartered in as many different states. What law or laws will determine the devolution of his estate?

Taxation-Bonds-Inheritance Tax

Michigan Law Review

Albert, Prince de Monaco, died possessed of bonds in two Utah railway corporations, which had been purchased and were payable at the New York office of the companies. He was a citizen and resident of France and the bonds had never been within the territorial confines of the state of Utah. The bonds were secured by a trust mortgage on all of the property of the respective corporations, only a fraction of which was within Utah. The state of Utah levied an inheritance tax on these bonds which was paid under protest, the present action being to recover back the …

Book Reviews

Michigan Law Review

A collection of book reviews by multiple authors.

Have The Bench And Bar Anything To Contribute To The Teaching Of Law?, Learned Hand

Michigan Law Review

The teaching of lawyers is indeed as distinct a vocation from the practice of law, as law is from engineering or science. You have of recent years come practically to recognize it by your increasing insistence upon the teacher's exclusive devotion to his calling, so that I suppose not only has the well-worn practitioner wholly disappeared, who from his semi-antiquation delivers a course of lectures, but the part time teacher even in the prime of his powers is more and more evidently doomed. I cannot see this change as anything but happy and advantageous. If for no other reason I …

Conflict Of Laws-Adoption-Jurisdiction

Michigan Law Review

Sociologists treat of the subject of adoption very sparsely. It is but a desired end in their work, and having its foundation in law, yields but slightly to sociological supervision. However, there exist many reports and treatises in the field of child placement and the effect thereof on the child. The most cursory examination of these works reveals that from the social point of view, at least, the work is conducted with but one end in view, i. e., the welfare of the child. Adoption, as a means to this end, has the same reason for its foundation. To this …

The Legal Position Of Foreigners In Soviet Russia, Leo Zaitzeff Dr.

Michigan Law Review

The Soviet Government has replaced the entire previous legal order by legislation of its own; it is therefore not surprising that even in well informed legal circles outside of Russia very vague and indefinite notions exist regarding the legal situation there. In the last few years moreover, many states have considered it necessary to recognize the Soviet Government. Since this recognition or even before, there have been some economic undertakings within &met territory by foreign individuals, but even these persons for the most part were entirely unfamiliar with the Soviet laws.