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Full-Text Articles in Law
Respondent Superior As An Affirmative Defense: How Employers Immunize Themselves From Direct Negligence Claims, J. J. Burns
Respondent Superior As An Affirmative Defense: How Employers Immunize Themselves From Direct Negligence Claims, J. J. Burns
Michigan Law Review
Most courts hold that where a defendant employer admits that it is vicariously liable for its employee's negligence, a plaintiff's additional claims of negligent entrustment, hiring, retention, supervision, and training must be dismissed. Generally, courts apply this rule based on the logic that allowing a plaintiff's additional claims adds no potential liability beyond that which has already been admitted. Furthermore, since the additional claims merely allege a redundant theory of recovery once a respondeat superior admission has been made, the prejudicial evidence of an employee's prior bad acts which often accompanies direct negligence claims against employers can be excluded without …
Limiting A Constitutional Tort Without Probably Cause: First Amendment Retaliatory Arrest After Hartman, Colin P. Watson
Limiting A Constitutional Tort Without Probably Cause: First Amendment Retaliatory Arrest After Hartman, Colin P. Watson
Michigan Law Review
Federal law provides a cause of action for individuals who are the target of adverse state action taken in retaliation for their exercise of First Amendment rights. Because these constitutional torts are "easy to allege and hard to disprove," they raise difficult questions concerning the proper balance between allowing meaningful access to the courts and protecting government agents from frivolous and vexatious litigation. In its recent decision in Hartman v. Moore, the U.S. Supreme Court tipped the scales in favor of the state in one subset of First Amendment retaliation actions by holding that plaintiffs in actions for retaliatory …
Government Corruption And The Right Of Access To Courts, Una A. Kim
Government Corruption And The Right Of Access To Courts, Una A. Kim
Michigan Law Review
This Note addresses the question left unanswered in Harbury: whether these denial of access-to-courts cases, which Justice Souter termed "backward-looking" access claims, are valid exercises of a constitutional right. Backward-looking access claims such as Harbury's differ from traditional denial of access-to-courts claims in that their aim is not to remove impediments to bringing causes of action in the future. Rather, backward-looking access claims allege that a suit that could have been filed in the past was not brought or was not litigated effectively, because access to the courts was at that time denied or obstructed by government officials. …
Allocation Of Loss Due To Fraudulent Wholesale Wire Transfers: Is There A Negligence Action Against A Beneficiary's Bank After Article 4a Of The Uniform Commercial Code?, Robert M. Lewis
Michigan Law Review
This Note argues that where a bank reasonably should have known of a fraud but still pays out a wire transfer to an unauthorized recipient, common law negligence should provide a basis for recovery despite the absence of an explicit Code provision imposing liability on the bank. Part I examines the UCC's language itself and analyzes possible cases, under 4A and under articles 3 and 4 by analogy, and discusses the applicability of these other parts of the UCC to wire transfers. Part II examines how extra-Code regulatory systems and the common law would determine wire transfer liability. Part II …
Torts--Wrongful Death--Unborn Child--The Estate Of An Unborn Child Has A Cause Of Action For Wrongful Death--O'Neill V. Morse, Michigan Law Review
Torts--Wrongful Death--Unborn Child--The Estate Of An Unborn Child Has A Cause Of Action For Wrongful Death--O'Neill V. Morse, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
The attitude of the law toward the unborn child has differed according to the area involved and its underlying concepts and policy. It has been settled en ventre sa mere be to his benefit. Legal recognition was accorded "for the purpose of providing for and protecting the child, in the hope and expectation that it will be born alive and be capable of enjoying those rights which are thus preserved for it in anticipation." In this context, the live-birth requirement is not surprising. The injustice of depriving a posthumous child of an inheritance is apparent only if the child is …
Torts - Violation Of Penal Statute As Civil Wrong - Bucketing - Intentional Wrong, Michigan Law Review
Torts - Violation Of Penal Statute As Civil Wrong - Bucketing - Intentional Wrong, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
A statute prohibited bucketing operations by dealers in securities and commodities, and provided penalties for such offenses. Plaintiff alleges that, acting without knowledge of defendant's illegal operations, he gave the defendant an order for the purchase of stock, which, he says, was not executed, as defendant reported, but "bucketed" in a manner prohibited by statute. Plaintiff sued to recover damages. Defendant demurred on the grounds (1) that the transaction referred to was not bucketing, but (2) that if it was, defendants were not liable to this plaintiff as the latter was not within the class of persons intended to be …
Torts - Prenatal Injuries To Infants, Frank B. Stone
Torts - Prenatal Injuries To Infants, Frank B. Stone
Michigan Law Review
This was an action by the administrator under the survival act. Decedent's mother while a passenger on the defendant's street-car was injured through negligence of an employee. Decedent thus suffered prenatal injuries to his skull from which he died three months after birth. The birth occurred 22 days after the accident and after a normal period of gestation. Held, there is no liability to an infant for prenatal injuries and therefore no cause of action existed in the child or survives to the administrator. Newman v. City of Detroit, 281 Mich. 60, 274 N. W. 710 (1937).
Gratuitous Promises-A New Writ?, Warren L. Shattuck
Gratuitous Promises-A New Writ?, Warren L. Shattuck
Michigan Law Review
Under the early common law, the fact situations which presented actionable wrongs were limited in number and stereotyped into various writs which issued from the Lord Chancellor. Only as new writs were devised by him was it possible for new fact situations to achieve the dignity of justiciability and so raise legal rights and duties. But with the liberalization of pleading the recognition of new legal rights and duties became a judicial function. In consequence, the constant struggle of new fact patterns for a place in the law is now principally waged before the courts. In this struggle some fail, …
Negligence -Affirmative Duty To Aid Others, Donald H. Larmee
Negligence -Affirmative Duty To Aid Others, Donald H. Larmee
Michigan Law Review
The plaintiff alleged that his intestate was taken ill while in the defendant's store. The defendant placed her in an infirmary and there left her for six hours without further medical care. By reason of the lack of medical care the plaintiff's intestate died. On appeal from the lower court's denial of the defendant's motion to dismiss the complaint, held that the complaint stated a cause of action. The court assumed that the defendant owed no duty to the intestate to render her any assistance whatsoever, but that upon placing her in the infirmary the defendant assumed the undertaking to …
Negligence- Liability Of Telephone Company For Failure To Complete Subscriber's Call, Michigan Law Review
Negligence- Liability Of Telephone Company For Failure To Complete Subscriber's Call, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
Plaintiff, father and administrator of the estate of a seven year old child, brought suit, under the Death Act, alleging that defendant's negligent failure to connect him with the family physician was the proximate cause of the death of the child. Held, by a majority of the court, that there was no liability, because the deceased, had she lived, would have had no cause of action on these facts. Emery v. Rochester Telephone Corporation, 271 N. Y. 306, 3 N. E. (2d) 434 (1936).
Equity - Estoppel By Injunction In Subsequent Suit At Law For Damages
Equity - Estoppel By Injunction In Subsequent Suit At Law For Damages
Michigan Law Review
A leased to B a shop to be used as a public market. The lease contained a restrictive covenant by the lessor to lease no other shops for a like purpose. The lessor, however, leased to C, who was engaged in the same business as B, one of the shops so restricted. C took with knowledge of the restrictive covenant in B's lease. B, the plaintiff in this action, secured a final injunction in a New York court enjoining the use by C. Under the New York statute B could have obtained damages under the equity decree, but failed to …
Conflict Of Laws-Foreign Tort-Survival Of Action
Conflict Of Laws-Foreign Tort-Survival Of Action
Michigan Law Review
Plaintiff, defendant, and defendant's intestate were all residents of Minnesota. Plaintiff was injured in Wisconsin due to the negligence of the defendant's intestate. Under Wisconsin statute (Laws of Wis., 1927, sec. 287.01) such cause of action survived against the estate of the wrongdoer. By express statute in Minnesota (Minn. Gen. Stat. 1923, sec. 9656) the rule of the common law applied to such actions and they abated on the death of the wrongdoer. Plaintiff sued the defendant executor in Minnesota. Held, that the lex loci delicti governed and the action did not abate. Chubbuck v. Holloway (Minn. 1931) 234 …
Pleading-Limitations Of Actions
Pleading-Limitations Of Actions
Michigan Law Review
The plaintiff's complaint, both as to the action for breach of warranty in the sale of condensed milk, and for a running account between October 17, 1917, and March 20, 1920, was drawn up in such a manner that in so far as the facts alleged in the complaint were concerned, the causes of action might have accrued. more than six years before this suit was started, that is, while it did not appear on the face of the complaint that the causes of action accrued more than six years prior to the bringing of this suit, yet, from all …
Recent Important Decisions
Michigan Law Review
A collection of recent important court decisions.