Law Commons^™

Constitutional Law-Chain Store License Tax As Applicable To Gasoline Filling Stations

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Law-Contempt Of Senate

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Law - National Industrial Recovery Act

Michigan Law Review

Defendants conducted wholesale poultry slaughterhouse markets. They had been convicted in a District Court of violating the following provisions of the "Live Poultry Code," promulgated under Section 3 of the National Industrial Recovery Act: (1) Minimum wages; (2) Maximum hours; (3) Requirement of "straight killing"; (4) Requirement of compliance with the inspection ordinances of the City of New York; (5) Requirement of filing of true reports of volume of business, etc., to the Code Authority; (6) Requirement of sale to dealers licensed by the City of New York. On a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court of the United …

Constitutional Law--Mortgages--Frazier-Lemke Act

Michigan Law Review

In 1922 and 1924 appellee mortgaged property worth $18,000 to secure a loan of $9,000 from appellant which was to be repaid in installments over a period of thirty-four years. Default being made on the covenants in the mortgage, the mortgagee declared the full amount due and brought a suit to foreclose. Proceedings were stayed when the appellee sought relief under Section 75 of the Bankruptcy Act, but he was unable to obtain the requisite majority in number and amount to the composition proposed. The state court entered a foreclosure judgment and ordered a sale. The mortgagor then sought relief …

Constitutional Law-Presidents Power To Remove Federal Officers

Michigan Law Review

The Federal Trade Commission Act provided that, "Any commissioner may be removed by the President for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office." The President, in removing a commissioner who had been appointed with the consent of the Senate for a seven-year term, disclaimed any reflection upon the commissioner personally or upon his services, but stated that the removal was made because " . . . I do not feel that your mind and my mind go along together on either the policies or the administering of the Federal Trade Commission, and, frankly, I think it best for the …

Special Assessments - Constitutionality Of Legislation Modifying Means Of Enforcement Of Special Assessment Liens

Michigan Law Review

An Arkansas statute, affecting the mortgage securing certain special assessment bonds, provided, inter alia, for the extension of the interval between default in payment and sale under foreclosure from sixty-five days to at least two and a half years, reduced the penalty for non-payment from twenty per cent to three per cent, and provided that the possession of the delinquent property owner be undisturbed for four years after sale on foreclosure, thus modifying the law existing at the time the bonds were issued. The United States Supreme Court held the statute to be invalid as violating the constitutional prohibition …

Has The Constitution Gone?, John A. Fairlie

Michigan Law Review

As far back as 1828, Chief Justice Marshall is quoted as saying: "Should Jackson be elected, I shall look upon the government as virtually dissolved." A few years later, when Taney was appointed Chief Justice by Jackson, Daniel Webster wrote: "Judge Story thinks the Supreme Court is gone, and I think so too." Soon afterwards, when the newly constituted Court rendered decisions upholding statutes from which Story dissented, the latter wrote to Judge McLean: "There will not, I fear, ever in our day, be any case in which a law of a State or of Congress will be declared …

Admiralty-Power Of Congress To Extend Jurisdiction Constitutional Limitations

Michigan Law Review

"The judicial Power shall extend . . . to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction."

"The Congress shall have Power . . . To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution . . . Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States."

These clauses of the Constitution of the United States provide the foundation for the exercise of jurisdiction in admiralty causes by the federal courts. The recent decision of the United States Supreme Court in the case of The Thomas Barlum, upholding the constitutionality of the Ship …

Constitutional Law - Reinstatement Of Attorney - Constitutionality Of Pardon Statute - Legislative Encroachment On Judicial Power

Michigan Law Review

In proceedings based on the record of his conviction for attempted extortion, the petitioner was disbarred. Having received a full pardon from the governor, he sought reinstatement, relying on a statute which purported to make reinstatement mandatory on the court upon proof of the pardon. Held, the statute is unconstitutional in so far as it directs the court to reinstate a disbarred attorney without a showing of moral rehabilitation. It is an encroachment by the legislature upon the inherent power of the court to admit attorneys to practice and in effect vacates a judicial order by legislative mandate. In …

Constitutional Law -The Railroad Retirement Act - Interstate Commerce - Due Process

Michigan Law Review

Serious obstacles were placed in the path of social legislation by the Supreme Court's decision holding the Railroad Retirement Act unconstitutional.1 To what extent the narrow view taken of the permissible field of regulation of interstate commerce will interfere with other legislation based on the commerce power remains to be seen. The majority of the Court, speaking through Mr. Justice Roberts, found the Act objectionable both as violating the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution and as not being a regulation of commerce under the commerce clause. Before taking up these two aspects of the case, …

Taxation - Delinquency Statute - Constitutionality Of Provision Remitting Back Taxes

Michigan Law Review

Mandamus proceedings were begun to compel a county auditor to accept four-fifths of the taxes as originally assessed on certain land in full payment and discharge of those taxes for the years 1929 and 1930, in accord with the tax remission provision of Minnesota Laws 1933, c. 414, sec.1. Held, that allowing discharge of past taxes during the redemption period by payment of a fraction of those originally assessed was contrary to the uniformity clause of the state constitution as an unreasonable and arbitrary classification, since it resulted in allowing a lower tax rate to delinquent taxpayers than was …

Constitutional Law -Validity Of State Mortgage Moratorium Statutes - Effect Of Emergency

Michigan Law Review

A Maryland statute provided that mortgagees holding less than a 25 per cent interest in a mortgage could not have recourse to summary remedies for sale of mortgaged property during an emergency period declared to exist until June 1, 1935. Plaintiff, the holder of such an interest in a mortgage providing for summary proceedings for sale upon default, had the right to foreclose in this manner, mortgagor having defaulted, if the statute did not bar his action. Held, the remedies denied were so interwoven with the rights contracted for that the abolition of such remedies impaired the right, and …

Taxation - Constitutionality Of Graduated Sales Taxes

Michigan Law Review

A Kentucky statute of 1930 levied a tax on gross retail sales at rates varying from 1/20 of one per cent on gross sales up to $400,000 per year, to one per cent on all gross sales over $1,000,000 annually. For the purpose of this tax all retail stores under the same ownership, operation or control, directly or indirectly, were treated as a unit; hence, the heavier rates of the tax fell upon the chain stores and large department stores. A group of chain and department stores sought to enjoin the collection of the tax, as contrary to the state …

The Control Of Industry In A Federal System: A Chapter In Australian Constitutional Development, Eric Armour Beecroft

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Law-Indirect Criminal Contempt-Publications

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Law--Freedom Of Conscience--Compulsory Military Training In Land Grant Colleges, Ralph M. White

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Law - Eminent Domain - Power Of Federal Government To Condemn Land For Slum Clearance Project

Michigan Law Review

In proceedings by the United States government to condemn certain lands in the city of Louisville for the purpose of a slum clearance and low cost housing project, several property owners demurred to the condemnation petitions as being beyond the constitutional powers of the federal government. Although the United States contended that the property was being taken for a public use, in the sense of general public advantage, and that the project was a valid expenditure of public funds for the general welfare, it was held that this condemnation was not within the power of the federal government. United States …

Taxation - Constitutionality Of Chain Store Taxation

Michigan Law Review

The plaintiff corporation filed a bill asking a permanent injunction against the enforcement of the Michigan chain store tax, which imposes a graduated levy, the amounts increasing from ten dollars per year per store for two stores owned, to two hundred fifty dollars per year per store for stores in "chains" of twenty-six or more. The plaintiff contended that the statute was unconstitutional under the "uniformity" clause of the state constitution and the equal protection of the laws clause of the federal Constitution. Held, the act is constitutional. C. F. Smith Co. v. Fitzgerald, 270 Mich. 659, 259 …

Constitutional Law--Contract Clause-Emergency Legislation

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Law - Agricultural Adjustment Act - Validity Of Milk Licenses Under Section 8 (3)

Michigan Law Review

Pursuant to the authorization of Section 8 (3) of the Agricultural Adjustment Act, the Secretary of Agriculture issued a blanket license in the Baltimore Sales Area whereby the distributors of fluid milk or its products in the current of interstate or foreign commerce were subjected to detailed regulation of production and purchase and resale prices. The plaintiff dairy company, handling milk produced and consumed exclusively within the state, sought an in junction against the enforcement of the license. Held, in granting a final decree, that the plaintiff's activities were not in the current of and that they did not …

Constitutional Law-Service Of Process-Jurisdiction Over Non-Resident Acquired By Service Upon Resident Agent, Maurice S. Culp

Michigan Law Review

Henry L. Doherty, a non-resident of the State of Iowa, did business within the state under the name of Henry L. Doherty & Co., with a district manager in charge of the office at Des Moines. Under the manager were clerks and salesmen engaged in the business of selling securities. One of these salesmen made an illegal sale to Goodman, and for damages resulting from the transaction Goodman brought suit in 1931, serving in the regular manner in accordance with the provisions of section 11079 of the Iowa Code the district agent at the Des Moines office. Doherty appeared specially …

Constitutional Law - Power Of Congress To Punish For Contempt - Power To Punish For Completed Acts

Michigan Law Review

Petitioner was attorney for certain air lines and during the course of the "Air Mail" contracts investigation in the Senate in 1934 was ordered to produce certain correspondence. He delayed, claiming an attorney's privileges, and either he or his partner allowed clients to remove certain of the papers asked for from his files. Some of the papers were later returned by the clients, and others were destroyed. Petitioner was committed for contempt of the Senate and brought habeas corpus proceedings. Held, (1) neither the fact that an obstruction of legislative process has been removed or that its removal has …

Constitutional Law - Price Fixing - Limits Of Administrative Discretion

Michigan Law Review

An order of the New York Milk Control Board prescribed a minimum selling price to be charged by wholesale dealers to their customers and also a minimum buying price to be paid by the dealers to producers. Competition fixed the minimum selling price as the maximum obtainable. Plaintiff, a wholesale dealer, could not operate at a profit and sued to enjoin enforcement of the order as arbitrary and hence violative of due process. Held, that upon these facts only, with nothing to show that efficient dealers could not operate profitably, the price limits were not arbitrary. Hegeman Farms Corp. …

Constitutional Law-Police Power-Compulsory Military In Land Grant College

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Taxation-State Taxes Upon Federal Instrumentalities-Who May Raise Question Of Unconstitutionality

Michigan Law Review

In connection with the performance of a contract with the federal government, the plaintiff corporation was required to pay a state sales tax on lumber, cement, steel and other materials used in the construction work. An action was brought to enjoin the collection of the tax and to have it declared unconstitutional as impeding and hampering the federal government in the performance of its governmental functions, and as depriving the plaintiff of its property without due process of law. Held, the plaintiff is not a proper party to raise the question of the constitutionality of the tax: first, because …

The Gold Clause Decisions, John P. Dawson

Michigan Law Review

The gold clause decisions of February 18, 1935, have already taken their place among the great landmarks of American constitutional history. They have given a partial answer to some basic questions of constitutional law. Directly they have disposed of claims amounting to a total of many billions of dollars. But their further implications, both for public and private law, are of even greater magnitude; it may be many years before these wider implications are more fully understood.

Constitutional Law-Validity Of State Anti-Injunction Legislation

Michigan Law Review

The development of organized labor in the United States has created difficult legal and social problems with which the courts and the legislatures are required to deal. The courts were the first to deal with these problems and, rightly or wrongly, attempted to apply to them the existing rules of law. For instance, the rules of property law have been applied. Where organized labor interfered with the carrying of the mail, it was said that the federal government had a property right in the mails. Where the carrying on of a business was interfered with, it was held that the …

Practice And Procedure-Seventh Amendment-Power Of Federal Court To Increase Inadequate Verdict

Michigan Law Review

A jury in a federal court awarded the plaintiff $500 in a personal injury action; he moved for a new trial on the ground of inadequate damages. Having obtained consent of defendant to entry of judgment for $1500, the trial judge denied the motion. Plaintiff appealed. Held, this procedure was a violation of the Seventh Amendment of the Constitution; a new trial must be granted. Dimick v. Schiedt, (U. S. 1935) 55 Sup. Ct. 296.

Rights In Land - Lateral Support - Statute Increasing Common Law Rights And Duties - Constitutionality

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff sued for damages to his building which collapsed during excavating operations on defendant's adjoining land. A Michigan statute makes it the duty of land owners excavating to a depth of 12 feet or more below grade level to furnish sufficient lateral support to protect adjacent land and structures thereon from injury "due to the removed material in its natural state, or due to the disturbance of other existing conditions caused by such excavation," and imposes liability for injuries due to failure to comply with the act. The excavation on defendant's land, reaching a depth of 14 feet below grade …

Statutes- Constitutional Law - Legislative Action At Special Session Limited By Governor's Message

Michigan Law Review

At a special session called by the executive to consider, among other matters, a bill "providing for the validation of bonds issued by a municipality under sufficient popular vote regardless of technical requirements," the legislature enacted a statute permitting validation of bonds even when issued without legal power, and the bill was approved by the governor. Pursuant to the statute, the common council of Detroit, in order to refund the city's bonded debt, approved the validity of the old obligations of the municipality, and petitioned for a writ of mandamus to compel the city controller to issue the refunding bonds …