Law Commons^™

Recent Recognition Cases, Edwin D. Dickinson

Articles

"The prolonged interval during which the United States declined to recognize the government functioning in Mexico, and the still more protracted period during which recognition has been withheld from the de facto government in Russia, have produced some unusually interesting problems with respect to the appropriate judicial attitude toward an unrecognized de facto foreign government."

International Political Questions In The National Courts, Edwin D. Dickinson

Articles

"Much has been made of the principle, in England and America, that international law is part of the national law to be applied by national courts in appropriate circumstances. As Mr. Justice Gray has expressed it, in the Paquete Habana: 'International law is part of our law, and must be ascertained and administered by the courts of justice of appropriate jurisdiction, as often as question of right depending upon it are duly presented for their determination...'

This principle is useful, where it is applicable, but it is subject to limitations which are sometimes inadequately appreciated ..."

Is The Crime Of Piracy Obsolete?, Edwin D. Dickinson

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"A few years ago it might have been surmised that in America at least a good deal of the old code in respect to piracy had passed from the law in reserve into the law in history. The important cases were nearly all one hundred years old or more....

There have been recent events, however, which challenge the assumption that the law of piracy is chiefly of historical significance. The country had hardly entered upon the new period of national prohibition when the rum ships descended upon its coasts... There sprang up, in consequence, to prey upon the rum ships, …

Tort Obligations And The Conflict Of Laws, Herbert F. Goodrich

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"This article is an extract from a textbook on 'The Conflict of Laws,' by Professor Goodrich, now in course of preparation, and is here published by permission of the West Publishing Company."--Footnote

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

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Divorce may be considered as the termination of the legal relationship between husband and wife by an act of the law. With the purely local aspect of legal questions regarding divorce, Conflict of Laws is not concerned. If a husband and wife are married and have their home in one state, legal questions concerning their divorce are local matters only. These will include the grounds for divorce, the particular court in which the action is brought, the procedure to be followed from commencement to termination of the action. In such a case it is only when some question concerning the …

Les Gouvernements Ou États Non Reconnus En Droit Anglais Et Américain, Edwin D. Dickinson

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Professor Dickinson tackles the subject of non-recognition of governments or states in English and American law: "Pour conclure, voici les propositions de l'auteur. La reconnaissance d'un Gouvernement or Etat etranger est exclusivement une question politique. L'existence d'un Gouvernement ou Etat etranger est exclusivement une question de fait.... C'est une chose deja grave que de voir d'une menace dans les conflits diplomatiques..."

Methods For Relieving Courts Of Last Resort From The Growing Burden Of Appeals, Edson R. Sunderland

Articles

"At the last meeting of the Michigan State Bar Association, held in Detroit in June, 1920, the question of employing an intermediate appellate court in this state, as a means for relieving the Supreme Court and expediting the disposal of appeals, was discussed at some length, and it was thereupon moved and carried that the whole subject be referred to the Committee on Legislation and Law Reform to be investigated, and that the Committee report upon the matter at the next meeting of the Association."

Extraterritorial Effect Of The Equitable Decree, Willard T. Barbour

Articles

ANYONE whom the study of equity has led into the by-paths of V Canon Law will recall that the Sext ends with a splendid array of imposing maxims, not improbably the source of the Latin maxims with which every lawyer is familiar. The inveterate habit formed by the ecclesiastics of expressing a legal principle in a short and crisp formula persisted when they came into the courts of law and is peculiarly in evidence among the chancellors of the fifteenth century. What may at first have been merely casual became through repetition a habit and the result has been to …

The Domicil Of Persons Residing Abroad Under Consular Jurisdiction, Edwin D. Dickinson

Articles

THE domicil of persons living under consular jurisdiction in foreign countries presents a problem of unique importance, not only because of the concern which a large number of people have in its proper solution, but also because of its relation to the conception of domicil and to the requisites by which the existence of donricil is to be determined. This problem may be concisely stated in the form of a question as follows: Is it possible for a person residing abroad under consular protection to acquire a domicil of choice in the country of residence? There are no apparent obstacles …

Enemy Alien Litigants In The English Law, Edwin D. Dickinson

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It is said that as a general rule an enemy alien cannot bring an action in the English courts. "And true it is, that an Alien enemie, shall maintaine neither reall nor personall action, Donec terrae fuet' communes, that is untill both Nations be in peace." COKE oN LITTLETON, (2 ed.) L. 2, c. 11, sec. 198. LORD STOWELL'S famous dictum in The Hoop (1799), 1 C. Rob. 196, 200, is regarded as a classical statement of the doctrine: "In the law of almost every country, the character of alien enemy carries with it a disability to sue, or to …

The 'Source Of Law' In The Panama Canal Zone, Joseph H. Drake

Articles

A case just decided in the Supreme Court of the United States, coming to that court from the Canal Zone, shows the great difficulties under which our courts labor when they are called on to interpret and administer the law in our extra-continental possessions. The courts have apparently had the most difficulty in amalgamating the Roman law and the common law in cases involving questions of delictual liability. In the case of Fernandez v. Perez (1906), 202 U. S. 80, the procedural question was presented as to the validity of an action on the case for the wrongful levy of …

The Domicil Of Persons Residing Abroad Under Consular Jurisdiction, Edwin D. Dickinson

Articles

The question of domicil under consular jurisdiction was discussed at some length by the present writer in an article which appeared in an earlier number of this review. See 17 MICH. LAW REV. 437-455. When that article was written some much quoted dicta and the decision of the Court of Appeal in Casdagli v. Casdagli, 87 L. J. P. 73, 79, indicated that according to the English rule a domicil of choice could not be acquired under consular jurisdiction. The author ventured to criticise that extraordinary rule from the point of view of the authorities and on principle. With regard …

Effect At The Situs Rei, Of A Decree Ordering Conveyance Of Foreign Land, Edgar N. Durfee

Articles

In a recent article in this Review, Prof. Willard Barbour discussed the question indicated by the above title. His cbnclusions may be-briefly slated as follows: that such a decree of a competent court having jurisdiction of the person of the defendant creates a personal obligation upon the defendant which a court of equity at the situs should enforce just as it would a contract or trust concerning this land made in the foreign jurisdiction: and that, as between the States of this Union, the "full faith and credit" clause of the Constitution makes such enforcement of the foreign decree obligatory. …

Acquiring Jurisdiction Without Personal Service, Seizure Of Aid Of Statute, John R. Rood

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It is often assumed that courts can acquire jurisdiction only by personal service to give jurisdiction in personam, or by a seizure to give jurisdiction in rem; but it is not so. The assumption is induced no doubt by the fact that in the ordinary common law actions jurisdiction is acquired in that way. Mr. Justice Field very distinctly pointed out in the case of Pennoyer v. Neff (1877), 95 U. S. 714, that it was not the fact that the land was not seized that rendered the judgment void. It was the fact that the land was not the …

Full Faith And Credit And Jurisdiction, Willard T. Barbour

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The judgment of a sister state, when assailed by collateral attack, is often said to occupy a position intermediate between foreign and domestic judgments. Though the older American cases were inclined to examine into the merits of any foreign judgment, the present tendency is toward the adoption of the English view according to which a foreign judgment may be attacked collaterally only for want of jurisdiction or fraud. Dicey, Conflict of Laws (ed. 2) Ch. XVII; see note to Tremblay v. Aetna Life Insurance Co., 97 Me. 547, in 94 Am. St. Rep. 521, 538. But whereas any statement of …

What Service Gives Jurisdiction In Person, John R. Rood

Articles

On March 6th, 1917, the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of McDonald v. Mabee, reversing the decision of the Supreme Court of Texas, in 175 S. W. 676, held that a judgment in foreclosure proceedings in which the defendant was served only by publication did not merge the cause of action so as to bar a suit on the original notes for the balance unpaid by the sale of the mortgaged property on the foreclosure, although the statute of the state declared such service sufficient to give jurisdiction in personam, and the defendant was a citizen …

Jurisdictional Facts, John R. Rood

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The advance sheets of the Northwestern Reporter for January 29th, 1915, contain two cases in which a supreme court declared proceedings that had been carried through to judgment void, (not merely voidable) because of the lack of a fact which the supreme court regarded as jurisdictional, (Sandusky Grain Co. v. Sanilac Circuit Judge (Mich. 1915), 150 N. W. 329 and Bombolis v. Minn. & St. L. R. Co. (Minn. 1914), 150 N. W. 385), and another case in which the court was equally divided as to whether the essential facts appeared (Fisher et al v. Gardnier et al. (Mich. 1915), …

Preserving A Special Appearance, Edson R. Sunderland

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No personal judgment against a defendant is valid unless the court which renders it has first obtained jurisdiction over the person of such defendant. This is elementary and fundamental, and goes to the essence of the judgment. And such jurisdiction must be secured through the actual service of process upon the defendant against whom the judgment is sought or through his voluntary appearance in the action.

Exit Of Doctrine Of Situs, John R. Rood

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A decision rendered by the Supreme Court of the United States on the 8th day of last May seems to mark the elimination of the doctrine of situs as a jurisdictional question in garnishment and attachment proceedings in the United States. Justices Harlan and Day dissented, and yet there is little danger that the question will again be opened; and in view of the conclusion reached, all lovers of plain, simple justice will rejoice that at last that disturber of peace and worker of iniquity in the commercial world has been deprived of its power to make the honest debtor …

Right Of Jury To Review Decisions Of The Court Upon The Admissibility Of Evidence As Illustrated In The Law Of Dying Declarations, Victor H. Lane

Articles

In the discussion of this question, it is thought that the present condition of the law can be made most satisfactorily to appear by gathering the declarations of various courts found in illustrative opinions, and a good portion of this article will attempt this collection. Where the courts of particular states have not spoken upon this particular question, and cases illustrating the principle as applied to confessions exist, they have been used. And in a few instances cases involving the law of the admissibility of confessions have been used, though there were cases involving dying declarations, because they were more …

The Element Of Locality In The Law Of Criminal Jurisdiction, Henry W. Rogers

Articles

THE Federal Courts have no common law criminal jurisdiction. The question was raised in the United States Circuit Court for the District of Pennsylvania, in 1798, in United States v. Worrall, 2 Dallas, 384, and the Court was equally divided in opinion. Iii 1818, Mr. Justice STORY, in United States v. Coolidge, 1 Gallison, 488, decided that there were common law offences against the United States. But this, as we shall see, was overruled by the Supreme Court. As early as 1807, Chief Justice MARSHALL, in Ex parte .Bollman, 4 Cranch, 75, had said, "This Court disclaims all jurisdiction not …

The Remedies For The Collection Of Judgments Against Debtors Who Are Residents Or Property Holders In Another State, Or Within The British Dominions, Thomas M. Cooley

Articles

Whenever a party who has obtained a judgment in one state or county has occasion to take proceedings for its enforcement in another, he finds-perhaps to his surprise-that his judgment as such has no extra-territorial force, but that in other jurisdictions it is merely evidence of a settled demand, upon which judgment must be obtained in a new suit before there can be process for its enforcement. A creditor cannot, for example, upon a judgment recovered in New York, have an execution in Pennsylvania; for courts issue executions only upon their own judgments; and while it would no doubt be …