Law Commons^™

The Federal Tort Claims Act And Its Application To Military Personnel, Harold F. Mcniece, John V. Thornton

Vanderbilt Law Review

The background and history of the Federal Tort Claims Act" are well known. Stemming in part from the medieval political theory that the King could do no wrong, a doctrine evolved in English law that the Crown was, in the absence of its consent, immune to suit. This concept became a part of the American common law, and in the main was enforced as rigorously on this side of the Atlantic as in the mother country.

The oft-times inequitable consequences of sovereign immunity in the United States were at first sought to be ameliorated through the device of private legislative …

Tort Liability In Aircraft Accidents, Henry G. Gatlin Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

Over twenty years ago, Justice Cardozo said, "Aviation is today an established method of transportation. The future, even the near future, will make it still more general." Aviation is now a vital part of our daily lives and a familiarity well steeped in American tradition. But even with this apparent adoption of the place of aviation in our economic cycle, it is accompanied by misunderstanding and confusion--witness the placement of serious auto accidents on page six of our newspapers, where headlines scream of aviation's failure if a crash occurs. But as was said in Cohn v. United Air Lines Transport …

Claims Against The State In Tennessee -- The Board Of Claims, George H. Cate Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

The age-old doctrine of governmental immunity from suit seems gradually to be passing into the discard, first in the realm of contract liability, and of late in the field of torts. Recent years have seen its vitality substantially sapped by judicial decisions, and there is a distinct trend among governmental units to do away with it partially or entirely through legislation. Thus, England in the Crown Proceedings Act of 1947, the United States in the Federal Tort Claims Act, and many of the states by similar legislation have renounced their shield of immunity from suit and, by means more regularized …

Actions For Wrongful Death In Tennessee, William T. Gamble

Vanderbilt Law Review

Familiar to most lawyers is the bit of law-lore to the effect that the reason the earliest Pullman cars were so constructed that passengers slept with their heads towards the front of the train was so that they would be killed rather than merely injured if an accident occurred.' Although the reason assigned for the Pullman Company's practice is purely fictitious the logic of the fiction is sound, for the common law gave no civil action for a wrongfully inflicted injury if death occurred before a judgment was recovered, and it thus was cheaper to kill a person than to …

Legal Problems Raised By Artificial Rainmaking, Gus D. Hatfield Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

The first reported decision involving the problem of the liability in law of the modern rainmaker has recently been rendered.' Though other disputes are reported to have arisen, they have not been finally decided in any regularly reported case.

The case was before the Trial Division of the Supreme Court of New York, the dispute having arisen out of experiments artificially to induce rainfall conducted by the City of New York during the recent, much publicized water shortage in that city. Plaintiffs, who were owners of a vacation resort in upper New York State, sought to enjoin these experiments on …

Bases For Master's Liability And For Principal's Liability To Third Persons, Merton Ferson

Vanderbilt Law Review

The law with regard to principal and agent grew up as part and parcel of the law of contracts. The law with regard to master and servant grew up as part and parcel of the law of torts. Each one takes its origin far back in the history of the common law.

Agents were used in an early day to effect livery of seisin, to create covenants, and to carry on commercial transactions. The terms "principal" and "agent" may be of modern origin. But the power of one person to bind another in legal transactions was familiar in the days …