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Torts-Liability Of Negligent Driver To One Who Goes To His Rescue, Margaret Groefsema S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Where plaintiff went to the aid of defendant who lay pinned beneath the wheel of his car after a collision caused by his own negligent driving, the Michigan Supreme Court held that plaintiff could recover for injuries sustained when the car rolled back upon her as she was attempting to remove defendant. Brugh v. Bigelow, (Mich. 1944) 16 N.W. (2d) 668.

Current 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.

Abstracts, Katharine Loomis

Michigan Law Review

The abstracts consist merely of summaries of the facts and holdings of recent cases and are distinguished from the notes by the absence of discussion.

Book Notes, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This department undertakes to list and, when possible, describe briefly current books on law and related subjects (e.g.. economics, business, finance, sociology, government, etc.) which are of possible value to the legal profession.

Front Matter, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Front Matter for Volume 43, Issue 4 of Michigan Law Review

Maximum Prices With Respect To Agricultural Commodities, Robert H. Shields

Michigan Law Review

As we all know, prices of agricultural commodities during this war have been directly and substantially affected by Government controls and will probably continue to be so affected in the immediate future. These controls take two forms: First, there are those relating to price floors, that is, minimum support prices with respect to agricultural commodities; and, second, there are those relating to price ceilings, that is, maximum prices with respect to agricultural commodities.

Trade-Marks: Monopoly Or Competition?, Leslie Davidson Taggart

Michigan Law Review

Three articles have appeared in the Georgetown Law Journal in which the thesis is asserted that trade-marks are monopolies in restraint of trade under the Anti-Trust Acts. Their publication seems to have been caused in part by the proposed revision of the United States Trade-Mark Statutes, which was started by a bill originally introduced into the House on January 19, 1938. The thesis of this present article is that a trade-mark in fact distinguishes one man's product from the products of his competitors, with the result that the consumer can make a choice among them.

The Administration Of A Decedent's Estate As A Proceeding In Rem, Lewis M. Simes

Michigan Law Review

For over a century American courts and text writers have referred to the administration of a decedent's estate as a proceeding in rem. Indeed, it has recently been asserted that a probate proceeding is "universally recognized as a proceeding in rem." But more cautious persons have been content to suggest that it is at least "quasi in rem," or have carefully skirted the fog which is wont to envelop this area of the law and given it silent treatment. Thus, the American Law Institute Restatement of the Law of Judgments ( which purports to include the law of probate decrees) …

Construction Of Private Instrument's Where Adopted Children Are Concerned: I, J. Wesley Oler

Michigan Law Review

The institution of adoption is of ancient tradition, knowing primitive origin and tracing its history through many civilizations. Today its universality still bespeaks the human needs from which it springs.

Recent growth of statutory reforms, procedural and substantive, in our adoption system reflects the increasing social interest of the state in this field. Procedurally, extensive strides have been made to safeguard those directly concerned in adoption, and through them to protect the public in general. Substantively the lagging but nonetheless noticeable trend is toward complete legal equivalence between relationship by adoption and relationship by blood. At present, however, such equivalence …

Law And Administration In Military Occupation: A Review Of Two Recent Books, Wolfgang H. Kraus

Michigan Law Review

Unlike the First World War, the Second World War has already produced at this stage of its progress significant publications concerning the problems of military government which may well assist interested students and practitioners in cutting a path through this thorny field. Occupying the area of enemy countries is a task of which by all odds the most difficult part, that of the occupation of both Germany and Japan, still lies ahead. Two recently published studies, both of them by jurists with a European legal background who are at present engaged in the service of a war agency of the …

The Federal Constitution Today-Important Decisions Of The Supreme Court In The Last Eight Years 1937-1944 Inclusive, Burke Shartel

Michigan Law Review

In recent years one often hears lawyers say that the Constitution is gone; or one hears them echo the remark of Charles E. Hughes, made while he was Governor of New York, "We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is," and then perhaps add that lawyers can no longer determine with any assurance what the judges will do or will say the Constitution is. Such expressions and reactions are not unnatural in any period of rapid doctrinal change. All contain a large element of truth. Certainly much of the Constitutional Law is gone …

Creditors' Rights-Garnishment-Contents Of Safety Deposit Box Rented To Judgment Debtor Reached By Garnishing Lessor, Craig E. Davids S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Execution against the judgment debtors having been returned unsatisfied, plaintiff secured a writ of garnishment from the municipal court against the defendant bank in November 1935. The garnishee's disclosure indicated that it held a small amount of cash with other collateral as security for loans made to the judgment debtors and the unknown contents of a safety deposit box. The box was rented by the judgment debtors in the usual manner and access to it could be gained only by simultaneous use of two keys-a master key retained by the bank and another key issued to the customer. The garnishee …

Criminal Law And Procedure-Whether Reversible Error For Judge To Give Instructions Relating To Credibility Of Defendant Witness, Edwin Boos

Michigan Law Review

Appellant who was convicted of committing a criminal abortion, moved for a new trial alleging as error an instruction given by the judge to the jury. The instruction singled out the defendant from the other witnesses, pointing to his high degree of interest in a verdict of not guilty, as reason for scrutinizing his testimony. The judge also warned the jury that it need not accept blindly the testimony of the accused. Held, reversed, new trial ordered. Swanson v. State, (Ind. 1944) 52 N.E. (2d) 616.

Evidence-Effect Of Presumption Against Suicide, Edwin Boos

Michigan Law Review

Asserting that the deceased met his death by accidental drowning, appellant sued as beneficiary to recover under a double indemnity clause of an insurance policy issued to the deceased by the defendant. The defense was that the deceased committed suicide and that a clause in the policy prevents recovery of double liability under such circumstances. The jury found for the defendant and, on appeal, the beneficiary contended that the trial judge committed prejudicial error against her by refusing to instruct the jury that there was a strong presumption against suicide and in favor of accidental death. Held, the code …

Insurance-Gratuitous Assignment Of Life Policy Where Right To Change Beneficiary Is Reserved, Craig E. Davids S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Defendant issued a life insurance policy to deceased, naming plaintiff, then insured's wife, as beneficiary. The policy reserved to the insured the right at any time to change the beneficiary without the knowledge or consent of the latter, and it further provided that no assignment should affect the rights of insurer until due notice was given to defendant. Sometime later, plaintiff divorced insured, who had indicated by personal conversation and correspondence with his sister the intervener, that he intended that the sister should receive the proceeds of the insurance. In one letter the insured referred to the policy and said, …

Trial Procedure-Note Taking By Jurors-Misconduct Of Court In Instructing Jury To Take Notes Over Objections Of Litigants, Craig E. Davids S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff suffered injuries by stepping into a hole on the sidewalk of defendant city. After a jury had been impaneled and sworn in the trial of the cause, the court, without the request of either litigant and over their objections, suggested to the jurors that they might take notes on the evidence presented, furnishing them with the necessary materials and instructing them as to how they should be kept during the progress of the trial. The trial court awarded judgment for defendant. The court of appeals, however, reversed the decision of the lower court and granted a new trial, holding …

Trusts-Statute Of Frauds-Oral Trust Of Land And Proceeds, Margaret Groefsema S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

A conveyance was made of real property impressed with an oral trust unenforceable because of the statute of frauds requiring trusts of interests in land to be in writing. The land was later sold and the plaintiff as beneficiary of the parol trust sought to reach the proceeds of the sale. Held, the statute of frauds does not apply to personal property. Therefore the oral trust may be impressed upon the proceeds even though it could not have been enforced while the trust res remained realty. Simpson v. Clark, (Mass. 1944) 55 N.E. (2d) 10.

Wills-Necessity Of Signature-Statutory Requirements Satisfied By Typewritten Name, Craig E. Davids S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Testatrix, having predeceased her husband by three hours, was believed to have died intestate, and her property passed to her husband's estate. Appellee, mother of testatrix, filed a claim against the estate for money owed by her daughter and son-in-law. A year after her claim had been settled by appellants, appellee filed for probate testatrix's will, in which appellee was named the sole legatee. The signature affixed to the instrument was not in the handwriting of testatrix but consisted only of her typewritten name, which testatrix had acknowledged as her signature before two witnesses on separate occasions. The lower court …

Abstracts, Mary Jane Plumer

Michigan Law Review

The abstracts consist merely of summaries of the facts and holdings of recent cases and are distinguished from the notes by the absence of discussion.

Current 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.

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.

Revocation Of Wills-Dependent Relative Revocation, L. M. S.

Michigan Law Review

Testator, after providing in his will for the payment of debts and expenses of administration, devised and bequeathed the residue of his estate "to my wife, Alice B. Houghton, if she is living at the time of my death; and if she is not living at the time of my death, then . . . to my brother-in-law, Stephen M. Stuart, of Fort Myers, Florida," The will was duly-executed in this form, but thereafter the words "my brother-in-law, Stephen M. Stuart, of Fort Myers, Florida," were lined out and the testator inserted the following: "Give to Louisa Paquin the shop …

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.

Landlord And Tenant-Leases-Option In Tenant To Cancel In Case Of Governmental Interference With Use Of Premises, Margaret Groefsema S. Ed.

Michigan Law Review

A lease of real property for an automobile service station contained a provision for termination of the leasehold at the option of the tenant in case "the use of the said premises for an oil and gasoline filling station be prevented, suspended or limited by any zoning statute or ordinance, or any other municipal or governmental action." Held, this clause applied to release the tenant when wartime rationing of gasoline and tires made it unprofitable for him to operate the filling station. Mid-Continent Petroleum Corporation v. Barrett, (Ky. Ct. App. 1944) 181 S.W. (2d) 60.

Front Matter, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Front Matter for Volume 43, Issue 3 of Michigan Law Review

Liberty Under The Fourteenth Amendment: 1943-44, John Raeburn Green

Michigan Law Review

Elsewhere efforts have been made to survey the status of the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights with respect to their protection against state abridgment. The decisions of the Supreme Court were examined, from the February term, 1790, through the 1942 term. It was observed that the struggle to obtain for these rights and liberties federal constitutional protection against state abridgment, as well as against federal abridgment, had been almost continuous since the adoption of the Constitution; that Madison had sought, unsuccessfully, to include in the Bill of Rights guaranties against state abridgment for freedom of speech and …

Research In Inter-American Law At The University Of Michigan, Hessel E. Yntema

Michigan Law Review

In the Americas, the historic trade routes have run east and west, more than north and south. Geographic necessity has decreed that, subject to possible reorientation with the future development of aviation, the dominant factor influencing the course of commerce with this hemisphere should be the open sea. Westward across the Atlantic, came the explorers, the conquistadors, the pioneers, succeeded by wave after wave of immigration to the New World, seaborne on argosies that, laden with the fabulous spoils and profits of empire, returned to the homelands the tribute of the New to the Old World. Achievement in the Nineteenth …

Mr. Justice William Johnson, Creative Dissenter, A. J. Levin

Michigan Law Review

Until the advent of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, the masterful and magnetic figure of Chief Justice John Marshall well-nigh overshadowed the whole field of constitutional jurisprudence. That Marshall made inestimable additions to our ideas of cooperative living at the very beginning of our democracy, and that his repute was well deserved, cannot be gainsaid. But one has good cause to wonder why the name of so distinguished a colleague as William Johnson, who sat on the same bench with Marshal for almost thirty years during that formative period, should have been almost completely obscured all these years. Rare, indeed, is …

The Venue Of Probate And Administration Proceedings, Paul E. Basye

Michigan Law Review

With the division of each state into counties or districts and the creation in each such subdivision of some court for the probate of wills and the administration of estates, it became necessary to designate which of such courts should undertake these functions in a particular estate. It is not the purpose of this study to consider problems arising out of conflicts of jurisdiction as between states insofar as independent determinations of domicile of a decedent may be made. That a decedent died a resident of the state undertaking an administration upon his estate will be assumed; or, if he …

Law Enforcement In Colonial New York: A Review, Albert J. Harno

Michigan Law Review

This book is a landmark in American legal history. Legal scholars have long lamented the fact that there was no authoritative work on colonial law. Historians have, to be sure, taken excursions into the field, but for the most part this, until the study here reviewed, was virgin territory. The undertaking called for more than the gifts of a historian. It demanded the talents and insight of a legal historian. The authors are legal historians. Professor Goebel particularly is a well-known figure in the field of legal history. The study covers a limited field; it is restricted to criminal procedure …