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Trusts - Honorary Trust - Authority Of A Successor Trustee, Reed T. Phalan Dec 1941

Trusts - Honorary Trust - Authority Of A Successor Trustee, Reed T. Phalan

Michigan Law Review

Paragraph 24 of testatrix' will gave to the executor and trustee, appointed under the will, $10,000 ''to be used by him to place a memorial window, or some other memorials, to cost any sum in his discretion up to the sum of One thousand Dollars, in Christ Church Cathedral, at St. Louis, Mo., and to place monuments and markers in my family subdivision of the Clark and Glasgow plot in the Bellefontaine Cemetery, at St. Louis, Mo." Soon after testatrix' death the trustee died. A successor trustee was appointed and by special order of the court was authorized to administer …


Mortgages - Recording - Effect Of A Mortgage Recorded In The Book Of Deeds, Paul M. Oberndorf Dec 1941

Mortgages - Recording - Effect Of A Mortgage Recorded In The Book Of Deeds, Paul M. Oberndorf

Michigan Law Review

An interest in certain land was mortgaged by the owners to the plaintiff in October, 1933. This same interest was subjected to a lien of certain judgment creditors recovered against the owners in July, 1936. The defendant, as assignee of the claim of the judgment creditors, claimed priority over the mortgagee by reason of the fact that the mortgage was delivered to the register for the purpose of being recorded as a deed and was in fact so recorded. The judgment creditors disclaimed all notice of this prior mortgage. The statutes of New Jersey provide that mortgages should be registered …


Constitutional Law - Federal Immunity From State Tax, David N. Mills Dec 1941

Constitutional Law - Federal Immunity From State Tax, David N. Mills

Michigan Law Review

An Alabama statute imposed an inchoate lien on all property in the state as of October 1st of each year, such lien to continue until taxes for the ensuing year were paid. The United States acquired title to certain lands after October 1, 1936, but before the final 1937 assessment was made and the rate for county taxes set. None of the 1937 taxes were due. The United States did not pay the taxes, and on their becoming delinquent, sued to quiet title. Held, by a unanimous court, that although Alabama could not foreclose the lien without obtaining the …


Constitutional Law - Impairing The Obligation Of Contracts - Refunding Bonds, John F. Hall Dec 1941

Constitutional Law - Impairing The Obligation Of Contracts - Refunding Bonds, John F. Hall

Michigan Law Review

In 1938, Mississippi authorized the issuance of state highway bonds in the aggregate of $60,000,000. Interest was payable semiannually and the bonds were to mature serially semiannually, and to the extent necessary to make these payments the revenues from gasoline taxes were pledged. The act further provided that the state covenanted that so long as any of the bonds were outstanding and unpaid, it would not authorize "any other obligations or securities payable from gasoline tax revenues" unless such revenues should increase in such an amount that one-third of the proceeds would be sufficient to meet the principal and interest …


Judgments - Propriety Of Finding That A Nonparty Conducted The Defense, David N. Mills Dec 1941

Judgments - Propriety Of Finding That A Nonparty Conducted The Defense, David N. Mills

Michigan Law Review

A patent infringement suit against a distributor was dismissed on the ground that plaintiff's patents were invalid. A finding was incorporated in the judgment that the defense had been "openly and avowedly conducted" by the manufacturer of the article distributed by defendant. Plaintiff objected that the finding "on its face would be a valid estoppel" in case plaintiff later wished to sue the manufacturer in a separate suit. Held, that plaintiff was entitled to have the finding deleted from the judgment since the finding was not necessary to a disposition of the issues between plaintiff and defendant. Minneapolis- Honeywell …


Consumers' Co-Operatives And Price Fixing Laws, Charles Bunn Dec 1941

Consumers' Co-Operatives And Price Fixing Laws, Charles Bunn

Michigan Law Review

The evolution of our business institutions shows us a long procession of experimental procedures, giving rise to de facto commercial forms, many of which have in turn demanded such recognition de jure as should make their position in the business world both clear and safe. Consumers' co-operation is such a procedure. Its underlying idea is simple, that a business owned by its customers, managed under their direction and having no legitimate loyalties except to them, has a better chance to meet their needs than one owned and managed by outsiders. But it has taken many years and many failures to …


Executors And Administrators - Rights Of Creditors Of Legatee Or Distributee During Administration Of Decedent's Estate, Herbert R. Whiting Dec 1941

Executors And Administrators - Rights Of Creditors Of Legatee Or Distributee During Administration Of Decedent's Estate, Herbert R. Whiting

Michigan Law Review

In order to present a clear picture of the problem involved herein two assumptions must be made before proceeding further: (a) that it is desirable to subject to the claims of his creditors the interest of a legatee or distributee, providing certain procedural and administrative difficulties, subsequently to be considered, can be overcome; (b) that there is no realty in the decedent's estate.


Labor Law - Right Of Union To Deny Membership To Applicant, David N. Mills Dec 1941

Labor Law - Right Of Union To Deny Membership To Applicant, David N. Mills

Michigan Law Review

A condition of the closed-shop agreement between defendant labor union and a manufacturing concern required that all new employees of the company be members of the union or become such within twenty-one days. The company employed plaintiff, but discharged him shortly thereafter when the union refused to admit him to membership. Plaintiff sought either to enjoin the enforcement of the union contract as illegally tending toward a monopoly, or to compel the union to grant his application for membership. Held, defendant's demurrer sustained, because plaintiff's allegation of a general plan to monopolize the labor supply was a conclusion not …


Principal And Surety - Effect Of Release Of Principal Debtor With Reservation Of Rights Against Surety, Raymond H. Rapaport Dec 1941

Principal And Surety - Effect Of Release Of Principal Debtor With Reservation Of Rights Against Surety, Raymond H. Rapaport

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff leased property to defendant, who in turn assigned his rights under the lease to one Garber, the latter assuming the covenants to pay rent and against commission of waste. Plaintiff did not release defendant from the lease. After the expiration of the lease plaintiff recovered judgment for $2,844.75 against defendant, for breaches of the covenants, and then recovered a similar judgment against Garber. Subsequently Garber paid the plaintiff $2,000, and plaintiff gave him a receipt acknowledging "full satisfaction of the judgment rendered against me in the within action. The receipt of said sum is not a release of any …


Congressional Enactment Of Uniform Judicial Notice Act, Lawrence E. Hartwig Dec 1941

Congressional Enactment Of Uniform Judicial Notice Act, Lawrence E. Hartwig

Michigan Law Review

The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform Laws approved in 1936 the Uniform Judicial Notice of Foreign Law Act, which has since been adopted by fourteen states. This act was drafted to make uniform a legislative movement of the past twelve years proposing to change two rules of the common law. One is the rule that a state court will not notice the law of sister states in the United States; and the other is the rule that the determination of such law shall be made by the jury and not by the judge. Accordingly, the Uniform Act provides (1) …


Admiralty - Uniformity Rule, William C. Whitehead Dec 1941

Admiralty - Uniformity Rule, William C. Whitehead

Michigan Law Review

From the words of the Federal Constitution the federal courts have spelled out the rule that maritime matters shall be governed by a uniform set of laws. These laws consist of the general maritime law at the adoption of the Constitution plus regulations subsequently promulgated by Congress. The decisions which have outlined the "uniformity rule" have concerned themselves with admiralty's interrelationship with interstate commerce. A recent application of the rule suggests another problem which uniformity is designed to circumvent--the difficulty of enforcing local rules against subjects on navigable waters. The federal courts have not always been precise in their application …


Federal Taxation Of Insurance Trusts, Allan F. Smith Dec 1941

Federal Taxation Of Insurance Trusts, Allan F. Smith

Michigan Law Review

The life insurance trust may take many forms and serve a variety of purposes, but for present purposes it may be defined as a trust, at least part of the corpus of which is a policy of life insurance, in which the duty of the trustee is to receive the proceeds of such policy and administer such proceeds as a trust. Such a trust, like any other, may be revocable or irrevocable, and may be funded or unfunded. These various types will be considered separately only where the tax results vary with the type. The present objective is to survey …


Holding Company Act - "Controlling Influence", Smith Warder Dec 1941

Holding Company Act - "Controlling Influence", Smith Warder

Michigan Law Review

Most new and revolutionary statutes for the regulation of interstate trade and commerce cause both lawyers and businessmen many headaches before their terms become fixed in meaning by judicial interpretation. The Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 is no exception. Difficult questions of interpretation are bound to arise under a statute of such a complicated nature, leaving, as it does, so much to the discretion of administrative officers. In the spring of this year the problem of what is a "controlling influence" was brought to light by two cases. While each case raised the question in a situation totally …


Attorney And Client - Illegal Practice Of Law - Activities Of Insurance Investigators And Adjusters Which Constitute Practice Of Law, Jay W. Sorge Dec 1941

Attorney And Client - Illegal Practice Of Law - Activities Of Insurance Investigators And Adjusters Which Constitute Practice Of Law, Jay W. Sorge

Michigan Law Review

The defendant was an independent insurance adjuster and investigator who for more than seven years had been engaged in adjusting and investigating insurance claims for both insurance companies and claimants. He advertised in insurance periodicals and wrote letters to insurance companies to interest them in the service he rendered. He charged his clients on a fee basis and maintained his office at his own expense. Suit was brought to restrain him from practicing law without a license. Held, defendant could not give advice as to legal rights of either insurance company or claimant, but could communicate advice of counsel …


Constitutional Law - Due Process - Price Regulation - Prohibition Of Sales Below Cost, George W. Loomis Dec 1941

Constitutional Law - Due Process - Price Regulation - Prohibition Of Sales Below Cost, George W. Loomis

Michigan Law Review

Defendant was indicted for alleged violation of the Pennsylvania Fair Sales Act, which prohibits the "advertisement, offer for sale, or sale of any merchandise at less than cost by retailers or wholesalers," and makes violation of the act a misdemeanor. His motion to quash the indictment was sustained by the court of the quarter sessions and affirmed by the superior court, and the state appealed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Held, affirming, that the statute violates the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment since it is not within the power of the state to prohibit sales below cost …


Contracts - Arbitration And Award -Validity At Common Law Of Proceedings Void Under Arbitration Statutes, Edward H. Schlaudt Dec 1941

Contracts - Arbitration And Award -Validity At Common Law Of Proceedings Void Under Arbitration Statutes, Edward H. Schlaudt

Michigan Law Review

Defendant contracted with plaintiff to grade an athletic field. The contract required all questions subject to arbitration thereunder to be submitted to statutory arbitration at the choice of either party. A dispute arose and at the plaintiff's demand three arbitrators were selected as provided in the contract. Plaintiff sued to collect an award granted in his favor. Defendant objected that both the contract of submission and the proceedings fell far short of the statutory requirements. Held, though the parties agreed to arbitrate under the statute, the proceedings pursuant to the contract fell so far short of statutory requirements that …


Dower - Premarital Conveyance As Fraud On Dower, Michigan Law Review Dec 1941

Dower - Premarital Conveyance As Fraud On Dower, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Decedent, seven days before his marriage to plaintiff, conveyed all his property to his nephew, the defendant. Plaintiff was not informed of the transfer until some time after the marriage. The property was worth $22,000, and decedent, who was at that time sixty-two years of age, was allowed to retain a life estate therein. Cancellation of a note for $2,904 owing from decedent to defendant served as consideration for the transfer. Held, the transfer was a fraud on dower since it was made without the knowledge of the intended wife for the purpose of defeating the interest which she …


Criminal Law And Procedure - Voluntary Communication To Grand Jury As Contempt, James K. Lindsay Dec 1941

Criminal Law And Procedure - Voluntary Communication To Grand Jury As Contempt, James K. Lindsay

Michigan Law Review

Defendant wrote two letters to the grand jury, then in session, asking leave to appear before it to present evidence of a conspiracy, described therein in highly inflammatory language, between a newspaper, the county assessor and the state's attorney to defraud the state of many millions of revenue by the illegal omission of the newspaper's personal property from the county tax rolls. The state's attorney filed an information incorporating these letters. The trial court found that defendant was guilty of criminal contempt. On appeal, defendant contended that this conviction deprived him of his constitutional right of free speech. Held, …


Equity - Specific Performance Of Contract To Lend Money, Robert C. Lovejoy Dec 1941

Equity - Specific Performance Of Contract To Lend Money, Robert C. Lovejoy

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff, through the Mortgage Service Bureau, which acted as intermediary, negotiated a loan from defendant bank, secured by a mortgage on plaintiff's land. Plaintiff executed and delivered notes and a mortgage, and defendant drew a check for one of the loan installments payable to plaintiff and the bureau, The latter without authority took the check, forged plaintiff's signature, and kept the money. The bureau being out of business and insolvent, plaintiff, with an unfinished house on his hands and without funds to complete it, sought specific performance of the agreement to lend. Held, plaintiff was entitled to specific performance, …


Federal Courts - Federal Rules Of Civil Procedure - Statutes Of Limitations - Commencement Of Action, Harry M. Nayer Dec 1941

Federal Courts - Federal Rules Of Civil Procedure - Statutes Of Limitations - Commencement Of Action, Harry M. Nayer

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff brought suit on some promissory notes in the federal district court in Michigan. The complaint was filed before the expiration of the six-year Michigan statute of limitations, but although the plaintiff used due diligence he was unable to get personal service on defendant until the statutory period had elapsed. Defendant pleaded the statute of limitations. Both the Michigan and the federal procedures provide that "a civil action is commenced by filing a complaint with the court." Held, that the filing of the complaint tolled the running of the statute and the plaintiff should therefore be allowed to maintain …


Landlord And Tenant - Covenant By Landlord To Repair - Liability Ex Contractu For Personal Injuries Of The Tenant's Wife, Reid J. Hatfield Dec 1941

Landlord And Tenant - Covenant By Landlord To Repair - Liability Ex Contractu For Personal Injuries Of The Tenant's Wife, Reid J. Hatfield

Michigan Law Review

One of the terms under which certain premises were leased to plaintiff's husband was a covenant by the defendant lessor to keep the premises in repair. Defendant neglected to repair two of the porch steps, although often requested by plaintiff to do so, and because of their defective condition plaintiff fell and was hurt. She brought suit on two counts; in tort for negligence, and on the contract for its breach. Held, an action in tort would not lie, and, although this was a proper case for an action ex contractu, recovery was denied because the consequences were avoidable …


Taxation - Optional Valuation Date Under Federal Estate Tax - Inclusion Of Income Received During Year After Decedents Death In The Valuation Of The Gross Estate, Jay W. Sorge Dec 1941

Taxation - Optional Valuation Date Under Federal Estate Tax - Inclusion Of Income Received During Year After Decedents Death In The Valuation Of The Gross Estate, Jay W. Sorge

Michigan Law Review

The executors of three different estates elected the optional valuation date provided in the federal estate tax and were compelled, because of a Treasury regulation, to include rents, interest, and regular dividend payments received during the year after the decedent's death in their valuation of the gross estate. In actions to recover overpayment of the tax, the regulation was upheld by the lower federal courts, and the cases were brought to the Supreme Court by certiorari. Held, regular dividend, interest, and rent payments received by the estate between the decedent's death and the optional valuation date one year later, …


Torts - Effect Of Attractive Nuisance Doctrine On Municipal Liability To Children On The Streets, Donald H. Treadwell Dec 1941

Torts - Effect Of Attractive Nuisance Doctrine On Municipal Liability To Children On The Streets, Donald H. Treadwell

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff, an eight year old girl, stopped on the way home with a playmate to play around a newspaper stand located on the edge of the sidewalk. The stand was maintained by a vendor who was licensed by the city. While the plaintiff was standing beside the stand, her playmate swung from the top, causing it to topple over on the plaintiff and gash her forehead. Despite medical care infection set in and a disfiguring scar resulted. There was evidence that the stand had fallen over previously for various reasons. Held, that the defendant city was negligent in not …


Torts - Licensees - Revocability Of License Granted By Theatre Ticket, Harry M. Nayer Dec 1941

Torts - Licensees - Revocability Of License Granted By Theatre Ticket, Harry M. Nayer

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff was forcibly ejected from defendant's theatre by defendant's employees and brought this action for damages for assault and battery. Defendant offered testimony attempting to justify the ejection on the ground that plaintiff was creating a disturbance. The trial judge instructed the jury that the question of plaintiff's conduct was immaterial and that a theatre owner could eject a patron at any time with or without cause. Held, that the instruction was erroneous. Despite the revocable character of the license granted by a theatre ticket a theatre owner does not have the right to eject a patron without cause. …


Wills - Joint And Mutual Wills - Contracts To Bequeath And Devise - Statute Of Frauds, Charles J. O'Laughlin Dec 1941

Wills - Joint And Mutual Wills - Contracts To Bequeath And Devise - Statute Of Frauds, Charles J. O'Laughlin

Michigan Law Review

The husband and wife made joint and mutual wills, each giving to the survivor a life interest in his or her separate property with the remainder to their foster daughter, the plaintiff. The wife died first, but the husband destroyed the entire will, and took possession of all the wife's property. The husband then died intestate, and plaintiff brought suit against the heirs to enforce the dispositions made by the joint and mutual will. Plaintiff introduced evidence to show that the will was the product of a contract, and therefore irrevocable. Defendant objected on the grounds that the agreement was …


Bankruptcy - Preferential Transfers - The Chandler Act And Antecedent Debts, William C. Wetherbee, Jr. Nov 1941

Bankruptcy - Preferential Transfers - The Chandler Act And Antecedent Debts, William C. Wetherbee, Jr.

Michigan Law Review

A canning company, in return for cans and supplies furnished it, gave its brokers the exclusive right to sell its canned goods and deduct the amount owing to them before turning over the proceeds. More than a year before the petition in bankruptcy, in compliance with a request for security from a seed company to which it was indebted, it made assignments of its right to these net proceeds to the seed company. The latter claims these proceeds as a secured creditor although they did not come into existence until after the petition in bankruptcy. Upon the referee's refusal to …


Trade Restraints - Is The United States A Person Within The Treble Damages Provision Of The Sherman Antitrust Act?, William C. Whitehead Nov 1941

Trade Restraints - Is The United States A Person Within The Treble Damages Provision Of The Sherman Antitrust Act?, William C. Whitehead

Michigan Law Review

The United States filed a complaint charging that defendants had attempted collusively to fix prices in bids submitted by them to the federal government. A judgment for three times the money damages sustained was sought under the Sherman Antitrust Act. Held, that the United States is not a person within section 7 of the act under which relief was demanded. United States v. Cooper Corp., 312 U. S. 600, 61 S. Ct. 742 (1941).


Neutral Convoys In Law And Practice, Benjamin Akzin Nov 1941

Neutral Convoys In Law And Practice, Benjamin Akzin

Michigan Law Review

The following study, based on law and past practice, aims at clarifying the status of neutral convoys in relation to the problem of convoying American supplies to Great Britain in the present war as it stood under the Neutrality Act of 1939. The question at issue touches both upon international law and American constitutional law. Both these aspects are investigated in the following pages.


Federal Intervention In Labor Disputes And Collective Bargaining-The Hutcheson Case, Ludwig Teller Nov 1941

Federal Intervention In Labor Disputes And Collective Bargaining-The Hutcheson Case, Ludwig Teller

Michigan Law Review

The very face of federal law governing labor unions and labor activities has been transformed by the recent holding by the United States Supreme Court in United States v. Hutcheson, that the Sherman, Clayton and Norris Acts must be read not separately but as "interlacing statutes," and that labor activity unenjoinable under the Norris Act is likewise and by the same token uncensurable under the Sherman Act. In so deciding, the high court has drastically affected the meaning of the Sherman Act, and the extent of its application to labor activities. New life has been given to the Clayton …


Administrative Law - Compulsory Process To Obtain Evidence - Unreasonable Search And Seizure, William C. Wetherbee, Jr. Nov 1941

Administrative Law - Compulsory Process To Obtain Evidence - Unreasonable Search And Seizure, William C. Wetherbee, Jr.

Michigan Law Review

That the issuance of a subpoena duces tecum must comply with the provisions of the Fourth Amendment against unreasonable searches and seizures was first established in the case of Boyd v. United States. The writ was there obtained for the purpose of extracting from a person evidence which was to be used against him in a criminal proceeding or forfeiture. This compulsory process which gave the state possession of a man's personal papers to incriminate him was considered a violation of not only the Fifth, but also the Fourth Amendment. The Supreme Court could have reached the same result …