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Articles 1 - 20 of 20
Full-Text Articles in Law
Assignments - Effect Of Assignment Of Contract By Receiver Of Liquidating Insolvent Corporation
Assignments - Effect Of Assignment Of Contract By Receiver Of Liquidating Insolvent Corporation
Michigan Law Review
The Chicago Tribune contracted to furnish the Washington Post with four comics and two features at a stipulated price per week. The Post went into the hands of a receiver who continued the contract and eventually assigned it to the Washington Post Publishing Company, plaintiff, along with "all assets of said company [the Post] of every kind, character, and description, except cash." The Post then went out of existence. The plaintiff, assignee, sued to enforce the contract, tendering payment in cash. Held, that the contract was assignable, that there had been a valid assignment, and that the contract remained …
Contracto-Impossibility As An Excuse For Failure To Perform Conditions In Insurance Policies Requiring Notice Of Loss
Michigan Law Review
Policies of insurance invariably contain provisions to the effect that, upon occurrence of the event insured against, notice thereof shall be given to the insurer. As in the normal contract, such condition qualifies the undertaking of the promisor unless its performance is legally excused. In actions for breach of promise, impossibility of performance has been held to constitute a good defense to the suit for damages in certain instances, though the early rule was that payment of damages was never impossible and hence impossibility of performance was no defense in an action for breach. It is to be noted that …
Estoppel And Statutes Of Limitation, John P. Dawson
Estoppel And Statutes Of Limitation, John P. Dawson
Michigan Law Review
Among all the spheres of its activity estoppel probably performs no more useful service than in the alleviation of hardship caused by statutes of limitation. Here as in other places the elements of estoppel and its relations to more basic legal concepts are exceedingly hard to define. At some points its effects on limitation acts could be described in terms of express contract; at other points it merges into "fraud"; in general it provides the medium for official expressions of disapproval where civil litigation exceeds the permissible limits of private warfare.
Equity - Rescission Of Contract Induced By Fraud - Money Judgment As An Alternative To Specific Restitution
Michigan Law Review
Plaintiff entered into an agreement for the exchange of interests in real estate with one of the defendants. After payment of part of the boot money agreed upon, the plaintiff defaulted and sued to have the agreement rescinded for fraud. The trial court rendered a money judgment for the amount at which the plaintiff's property had been taken on the trade. Held, that defendant's wife, to whom the property had been conveyed, should have been joined, and that the decree should be modified to order a reconveyance to the plaintiff. Bacon v. Fox, 267 Mich. 589, 255 N. …
Contracts - Effect Of Agreement That Instrument Shall Be Without Legal Effect
Contracts - Effect Of Agreement That Instrument Shall Be Without Legal Effect
Michigan Law Review
Defendant gave one of its employees a certificate stating that in case of the death of the employee while still in defendant's employ, defendant would pay to the beneficiary designated by the employee a stated sum of money. The certificate contained this further provision: "The issue and delivery of this certificate is understood to be purely voluntary and gratuitous on the part of this Company and is accepted with the express understanding that it carries no legal obligation whatsoever or assurance or promise of future employment, and may be withdrawn or discontinued at any time by this company." In a …
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 …
Conditional Sales -Tort Liability Of Vendor For Recaption Of Property Conditionally Sold
Conditional Sales -Tort Liability Of Vendor For Recaption Of Property Conditionally Sold
Michigan Law Review
Defendant transferred a piano to plaintiff under a conditional sales contract retaining the right in case of any default in payment "to peacefully or forcibly, and without process of law, enter the premises where said property is . . . and to take . . . possession thereof." Plaintiff de-faulted in payment. Employees of defendant, entering the house of plaintiff in his absence and without notice, removed the piano. Held, plaintiff may not recover for a conversion, but may recover for a breaking and entering whether defendant's agents broke into the house with actual force, or mere technical force, …
Deeds-Instrument In Form Of Contract For Sale Of Land As Gift
Deeds-Instrument In Form Of Contract For Sale Of Land As Gift
Michigan Law Review
Decedent executed and delivered to his sister, the petitioner, in a sealed envelope an instrument in the form of an executory contract for the sale of land by the terms of which the decedent promised to convey to the petitioner his undivided two-thirds interest in a certain building and lot. The execution of the instrument was not the result of any agreement and no consideration was paid, although receipt of payment in full was endorsed on the back of the instrument. After decedent's death the envelope was produced and the probate court under a statutory authority ordered a conveyance to …
Evasion Of Mortgage Moratoria By Prosecution Of Personal Remedies, Gordon B. Wheeler, Edgar N. Durfee
Evasion Of Mortgage Moratoria By Prosecution Of Personal Remedies, Gordon B. Wheeler, Edgar N. Durfee
Michigan Law Review
For reasons political, social and economic which have never been fully analyzed, the moratory legislation of the last five years has shown special favor to the debtor whose obligation is secured by mortgage of land, and this legislation is faintly echoed in moratory decisions which have no direct statutory foundation. Granted that contracts have sometimes received similar treatment, that banks and insurance companies have also enjoyed indulgence, and that the new chapters of the Bankruptcy Act extend asylum to all and sundry, yet the mortgage is so far favored that the word "moratorium" brings to mind this case before all …
Contracts - Beneficiaries - Injured Party As Beneficiary Of Public Liability Insurance Policy
Contracts - Beneficiaries - Injured Party As Beneficiary Of Public Liability Insurance Policy
Michigan Law Review
Plaintiff recovered judgment against the insured for injuries received in an automobile accident. The judgment being unsatisfied, plaintiff sued the insurer on its public liability policy. Held, the policy by implication intended a benefit to the injured person and he may sue as a creditor-beneficiary. Ohio Casualty Ins. Co. v. Beckwith, (C. C. A. 5th, 1935) 74 F. (2d) 75.
Torts - Inducing Breach Of Contract
Torts - Inducing Breach Of Contract
Michigan Law Review
The recognition of inducement of breach of contract as a tort came only in comparatively recent times, its first clear enunciation being in Lumley v. Gye in 1853. Prior to that case there had been an accepted doctrine that interference with the relation of master and servant was an actionable wrong. Sayre finds the roots of the liability for enticement of servants in the Ordinance of Labourers passed after the Great Plague, and in a confusion of the action based on that statute and the action for forcibly interfering with the servants of another. In Lumley v. Gye the action …
The Effect Of Inflation On Private Contracts: United States, 1861-1879, John P. Dawson, Frank E. Cooper
The Effect Of Inflation On Private Contracts: United States, 1861-1879, John P. Dawson, Frank E. Cooper
Michigan Law Review
The Northern inflation coincided almost exactly in its early stages with the inflation in the South, and was produced by the same basic factor - a budgetary deficit due to war expenditure. The financial mobilization of the North was handicapped at the outset by a deficit inherited from the previous administration and by an impaired national credit. The prompt response of the Northern banks enabled the Treasury to overcome this initial handicap and to finance the greatly increased expenditure through the early months of the war. How long orthodox methods of borrowing would have sufficed has been ever since a …
Contracting By Reference To Price Indices, John P. Dawson, James Will Coultrap
Contracting By Reference To Price Indices, John P. Dawson, James Will Coultrap
Michigan Law Review
The commodity price index number has been defined as a "figure which shows the average percentage change in the prices of a number of representative goods from one point of time to another." In the preceding article it has been argued that the use of the index number in private contracts as a method of expressing stable values is not prohibited by the gold-clause resolution of June 5, 1933; that in the decisions of the United States Supreme Court sustaining this legislation there is nothing to indicate that such contracts would run counter to the Government's policies in the control …
The Effect Of Inflation On Private Contracts: United States, 1861-1879, John P. Dawson, Frank E. Cooper
The Effect Of Inflation On Private Contracts: United States, 1861-1879, John P. Dawson, Frank E. Cooper
Michigan Law Review
The American Civil War provides ample material for studying the legal consequences of currency depreciation. The sudden demands of war on government budgets made it necessary in both North and South to issue a large volume of paper money, which produced a general rise in prices, a premium on gold, and all the other indices of major monetary inflation. American history had already illustrated the dangers in the use of unstable monetary standards and in too rapid an expansion of the monetary supply. The period of the Civil War is of peculiar interest to lawyers, however, because the record of …
Taxation-State Taxes Upon Federal Instrumentalities-Who May Raise Question Of Unconstitutionality
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 …
Corporations-Trust Indenture-Notice To Security Holders Of Contents Of Indenture
Corporations-Trust Indenture-Notice To Security Holders Of Contents Of Indenture
Michigan Law Review
Ever since corporate bonds made their appearance more than a century ago, there has been a steady increase in difficult problems relating thereto. Not the least interesting of these problems pertains to the matter of notice to holders of the bonds and other securities of the contents of the indenture under which they are generally issued. The question becomes acute when one of these bondholders starts suit in law or in equity, and is met by the proposition that his right to so sue is limited by the trust indenture. There are two aspects to the matter, and it is …
Corporations-Creditors' Right To Avoid Contract Between Holding And Subsidiary Corporations
Corporations-Creditors' Right To Avoid Contract Between Holding And Subsidiary Corporations
Michigan Law Review
In an ancillary proceeding, the receiver of a subsidiary corporation sought inter alia to recover from the parent corporation, which had owned for about thirteen years all of the stock of the subsidiary except shares necessary to qualify directors, fees paid under contracts during that period for management and engineering services. Held, the court will read just the consideration paid for these services and permit recovery against the parent corporation for the excess. Grand Rapids Trust Co. v. United Light and Power Co., (D. C. W. D. Mich. 1931) 7 F. Supp. 511.
Evidence - Admissibility Of Parol Evidence Showing That Contract In Writing Was Executed Only As Sham, John E. Tracy
Evidence - Admissibility Of Parol Evidence Showing That Contract In Writing Was Executed Only As Sham, John E. Tracy
Michigan Law Review
An individual is sued on a written contract or, suing on an alleged oral agreement, is confronted by a written contract which he has signed. He offers testimony that, although he executed the instrument which bears his name freely and with full knowledge of its contents, he is not to be held liable thereon because the agreement between the parties was that it should never be legally enforceable, the sole purpose of its execution having been to deceive some third person into a belief that the parties to the instrument had contracted together as in the instrument set forth.
Quasi-Contracts --Torts -- Quasi-Contract As An Alternative Remedy For Interference With Contract Relations
Michigan Law Review
An action in tort for damages against a defendant who has induced a third person to breach his contract with plaintiff is permitted in most states today, although the action is of comparatively recent origin. The basis of the action is the obligee's interest in the performance of the contract, which is thought to deserve protection against the third-party interference. The invasion of this right must, as the cases now stand, be an intentional invasion, although there seems to be no reason for excluding negligent invasions subject to the usual limits of foreseeability. The motives of the tort-feasor, suggested by …
Domestic Relations - Infants - Right Of Insurer To Deduct For Protection Furnished On Infants Disaffirmance Of Policy
Michigan Law Review
An infant sued by his next friend to disaffirm a contract of insurance on his own life, in which his mother and sister were named as beneficiaries, and to recover premiums paid. The insurance company claimed the right to deduct for the protection furnished insured during the continuance of the policy, but there was nothing in the record to show what this protection had cost the company. Held, the Chief Justice dissenting, the insured was entitled to recover the full amount paid. Mutual Life Ins. Co. of New York v. Schiavone, (App. D. C. 1934) 71 F. (2d) …