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Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review Dec 1917

Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Admiralty - Meaning of "Shore" - Certain sections of a dry dock containing a tug were driven by a violent storm across the Mobile River and left on the land above the ordinary high water mark. Held, subject to salvage, and a suit to recover for replacing the tug in the water within admiralty jurisdiction. The Gulfport, (Dist. Ct, S. D. Ala., 1917), 243 Fed. 676.


A Modern Evolution In Remedial Rights - The Declaratory Judgment, Edson R. Sunderland Dec 1917

A Modern Evolution In Remedial Rights - The Declaratory Judgment, Edson R. Sunderland

Articles

In early times the basis of jurisdiction is the existence and the constant assertion of physical power over the parties to the action, but as civilization advances the mere existence of such power tends to make its exercise less and less essential. If this is true, it must be because there is something in civilization itself which diminishes the necessity for a resort to actual force in sustaining the judgments of courts. And it is quite clear that civilization does supply an element which is theoretically capable of entirely supplanting the exercise of force in the assertion of jurisdiction. This …


Equitable Servitudes, George L. Clark Dec 1917

Equitable Servitudes, George L. Clark

Michigan Law Review

Specific performance of restrictions upon property before Tulk v. Moxhay. Before the decision in Tulk v. MoXhay 2 a contract not to use land in a particular manner was treated by equity courts in the same way as were other negative contracts; if the plaintiff was so injured in the enjoyment of his own land that damages at law did not furnish an adequate remedy, equity would specifically enforce the contract by granting an injunction against the promisor.8 The right thus to control the use of the property in the hands of the promisor can hardly be classified as other …


Book Reviews, Frank Egleston Robbins, Willard Barbour, Joseph H. Drake, Ralph W. Aigler, Edwin C. Goddard, Horace Lafayette Wilgus, John B. Waite, John R. Rood Dec 1917

Book Reviews, Frank Egleston Robbins, Willard Barbour, Joseph H. Drake, Ralph W. Aigler, Edwin C. Goddard, Horace Lafayette Wilgus, John B. Waite, John R. Rood

Michigan Law Review

Professor Husband's book deals with two problems, the date of the trial and crucifixion of Jesus, and the legal aspects of the proceedings against him. In both divisions of the subject his conclusions are novel and are supported by able argumentation.


Note And Comment, Willard T. Barbour, John B. Waite, Evans Holbrook, Gordon Stoner, Raymond Archibald Fox Dec 1917

Note And Comment, Willard T. Barbour, John B. Waite, Evans Holbrook, Gordon Stoner, Raymond Archibald Fox

Michigan Law Review

The "Right" to Break a Contract - It is common knowledge that the fully developed common law affords no means to compel the performance of a contract according to its terms. Does it follow from this that there is no legal obligation to perform a contract, or if obligation there be, that it is alternative: to perform or pay damages? A note in the XIV MIcr. L. Rv. 48o appears to give an affirmative answer to this question and at least one court (Frye v. Hubbell, 74 N. H. 358, at p. 374) has taken the same view. Probably the …


War And Law, Charles H. Hamill Nov 1917

War And Law, Charles H. Hamill

Michigan Law Review

Law creates rights. It not merely defines them; it creates them. Without law, one may what he can. With law, one can only that which he may. Law is the device by which the many, individually weak, control and compel the few individually strong or cunning. It is a device by which is reduced nature's handicap in favor of the physically strong and ruthless. Where law obtains, those who are fitted to the system created by the law, as the economically efficient, prevail and survive. In the absence of law, only the strong and cunning can survive.


Note And Comment, Gordon Stoner, Ralph W. Aigler, Michigan Law Review Nov 1917

Note And Comment, Gordon Stoner, Ralph W. Aigler, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Bradley Martin Thompson - For a second time within the year death has claimed a member of the Faculty of the Law School. Professor Jerome C. Knowlton died in January, and now on September 29th last, Professor Bradley M. Thompson has completed his life-work.


Book Reviews, Edson R. Sunderland, Willard Barbour, Horace Lafayette Wilgus, Edgar N. Durfee, Edwin C. Goddard Nov 1917

Book Reviews, Edson R. Sunderland, Willard Barbour, Horace Lafayette Wilgus, Edgar N. Durfee, Edwin C. Goddard

Michigan Law Review

The Rule-Making Authority in the English Supreme Court, by Samuel Rosenbaum. Boston, The Boston Book Co., 1917, pp. xiv, 321. This volume is the fourth in the University of Pennsylvania Law School Series, and is the work of a fellow of that school during the years 1913-1915. In common with the other books of the series, its object is to aid the scientific study of legal problems and to help to improve the law. No subject, surely, is more worthy of presentation to American readers than this, and none is more full of important suggestions for the improvement of our …


How A Conditional Limitation Operates, Harold M. Bowman Nov 1917

How A Conditional Limitation Operates, Harold M. Bowman

Michigan Law Review

Whenever, a freehold is limited to take effect upon a contingency which may happen before the regular expiration of the preceding estate of freehold, it takes effect in defeasance of such interest. The executory limitation thus operating cuts off the prior interest abruptly. By the "intrinsic force" of the executory limitation the preceding estate is terminated. The gift over operates to destroy, to divest,' in defeasance of the prior gift. In the words of LORD LANGDALE, Master of the Rolls, in Jackson v. Noble 2 the preceding estate is "defeated by a contingent executory gift over."


Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review Nov 1917

Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Attorneys - Disobedience of Order of Suspension - What Acts Constitute - Defendants had been suspended from practice "in all the courts of this state" for one year. During suspension they had continued to maintain a law office with the usual signs on the doors and windows, used envelopes and stationery with their names printed thereon as Attorneys at Law, and permitted their names to be inserted as attorneys at law in telephone and city directories. Defendant M had caused the preparation of a complaint, affidavit, and bond in attachment under his direction and had them filed in a suit …


Legal Education, Henry M. Bates Nov 1917

Legal Education, Henry M. Bates

Articles

Bates describes the growth of law schools and the changing nature of legal education: "The outstanding fact in legal education in this country during the past twenty-five years is the shift from the law office to the law school as the avenue of approach to the bar.... This increase in the number of institutions teaching law and in the number of students preparing for the bar in this way makes on the whole for improvement, but the ointment is not without its flies..."


Partnership Entity And Tenancy In Partnership: The Struggle For A Definition, Joseph H. Drake Jun 1917

Partnership Entity And Tenancy In Partnership: The Struggle For A Definition, Joseph H. Drake

Articles

PARTNERSHIP is a legal entity formed by the association of two or more persons. This definition of a partnership as a person or entity represents what may be characterized as a generally accepted theory among American jurists at the time of its publication in 1893. But a later definition says: "A partnership is an association of two more persons." "A partner is co-owner with his partners of specific partnership property holding as a tenant in partnership." The second definition shows that the Commissioners on Uniform State Laws have rejected the entity theory and coined a new term to describe partnership …


Note And Comment, Ralph W. Aigler, John B. Waite, Eugene B. Hewitt Jun 1917

Note And Comment, Ralph W. Aigler, John B. Waite, Eugene B. Hewitt

Michigan Law Review

State Legislation Extending to Navigable Waters - In Southern Pacific Company v. Jensen, 37 Sup. Ct. -, decided May 21, 1917, the Supreme Court announces a decision in some respects of far reaching importance. It was held therein, Mr. Justice HOL.Es dissenting, that the WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION AcT of the State of New York did not support an award to the widow and children of a workman killed on board a ship of the' Company while at the pier in New York City. Clearly the terms of the New York act covered the case, unless the fact that the accident occurred …


Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review Jun 1917

Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Criminal Law - Directed Verdict of Acquittal - The accused was convicted of crime. Error was assigned upon the refusal of the court to direct a verdict of not guilty. Held, that a motion to direct a verdict of acquittal should never be entertained. People i% Zurek (Ill. 1917), uS N. E. 644


Forms Of Anglo Saxon Contracts And Their Sanctions, Robert L. Henry Jr Jun 1917

Forms Of Anglo Saxon Contracts And Their Sanctions, Robert L. Henry Jr

Michigan Law Review

Including (a) Warranty of Title, and (b) Warranty of Quality. Perhaps the most primitive commercial transaction affecting legal rights was the executed barter; in a more 'advanced state when money had been introduced, the executed sale.


New Law Of Nations, Joseph Kohler Jun 1917

New Law Of Nations, Joseph Kohler

Michigan Law Review

If the article upon the New Law of Nations had been written by an obscure man for a sensational periodical, it would not have been worthy of serious consideration. It appeared in September, 1915, however, in the ZEITSCHRIFT FUR V6LKERRECHT, generally reputed to be the leading periodical devoted to international law, published in the German language. Its author, Dr. JOsEF Ko.HLER, is generally conceded to be the most distinguished living German jurist. His PHILOSOPHY OF LAW was deemed worthy of translation into English and appeared as Volume 12 of the Modern Legal Philosophy Series.' Dean Roscog POUND has referred.to him …


Note And Comment, Ralph W. Aigler, John B. Waite, William L. Owen, Samuel D. Frankel May 1917

Note And Comment, Ralph W. Aigler, John B. Waite, William L. Owen, Samuel D. Frankel

Michigan Law Review

Necessity of Valid Contract to Support Escrow - In Foulkes V. Sengstqcken, (Ore. 1917) 163 Pac. 311, it is said that "A pure escrow presupposes the existence of a valid contract with sufficient parties, a proper subject matter, and a consideration. There must be an actual contract of sale on the one side and of purchase on the other, afid until there is such a contract, the instrument executed by the supposed grantor, though in form a deed, is neither a deed nor an escrow." Accordingly it was held that performance of conditions by a grantee after the grantor had …


English Law Courts At The Close Of The Revolution Of 1688, Arthur L. Cross May 1917

English Law Courts At The Close Of The Revolution Of 1688, Arthur L. Cross

Michigan Law Review

In view of the part which the judges played for a4d against the first two STUARTS, and in view of the grievances of the subject under the law as administered in the ordinary courts 2 -to say nothing of the Star Chamber and the High Commission-it was to be expected that, in the great political and religious upheaval resulting from the Puritan Revolution and the ensuing Civil War, the legal edifice could not remain unshaken. As is well known, one of the early acts of the Long Parliament, in the summer of 1641, was to ab6lish the Star Chambei, the …


Supreme Court's Theory Of A Direct Tax, J H. Riddle May 1917

Supreme Court's Theory Of A Direct Tax, J H. Riddle

Michigan Law Review

The decision of the United States Supreme Court in the Pollock case of 1895 was the beginning of an attempt on the part of the court to formulate a new definition of a direct tax, and since that time in every case which has called for a decision as to whether a particular tax was a direct tax the court has reverted to and tried to harmonize its decision with the reasoning set forth in the Pollock case. This decision overturned a fairly definite and universally accepted definition of a direct tax which had existed for nearly a century. In …


Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review May 1917

Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Bankruptcy - Appointment of Receiver as Act of Bankruptcy - An insolvent corporation, against which a creditors' suit was brought in the state court, procured the appointment of a receiver therein by an answer and cross bill in the name of its president, who was a defendant, and who with one other stockholder owned the majority of the stock and controlled the corporation. Held, that the corporation applied for the appointment of a receiver within the meaning of §3a(4) of the BANKRUPTcY AcT, making such application, while insolvent, an act of bankruptcy; it being unnecessary that the application be by …


Forms Of Anglo Saxon Contracts And Their Sanctions, Robert L. Henry Jr May 1917

Forms Of Anglo Saxon Contracts And Their Sanctions, Robert L. Henry Jr

Michigan Law Review

The several forms of contract will be taken up in the following order: I. the Surety Contract, including (a) the creditor's rights against the debtor, (b) the creditor's rights to sue the surety, and (c) the surety's right of reimbursement; 2. the Warranty Contracts, including (a) warranty of title, and (b) warranty of quality; 3. the Contract of Court Record; 4. the Coitract of Plighted Faith; 5. the Pledge Contract; 6. the' "Delivery-Promise"; 7. the Written Contract; and 8. the "Earnest" Contract.


Book Reviews, Michigan Law Review May 1917

Book Reviews, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Digest of the Decisions of the Supreme Court of Hawaii, Volumes' i to 22 inclusive, January 6, 1847, to October 7, 1915; by Wade Warren Thayer, Attorney General of Hawaii, 1913-1914, Secretary of Hawaii, 1914- Honolulu, 1916, pp. xvi, 9o7.


Note And Comment, Michigan Law Review, Thomas E. Atkinson, John R. Rood, Haddon S. Kirk, Harry G. Gault, William L. Owen, Harry J. Connine Apr 1917

Note And Comment, Michigan Law Review, Thomas E. Atkinson, John R. Rood, Haddon S. Kirk, Harry G. Gault, William L. Owen, Harry J. Connine

Michigan Law Review

The Appam Case - On March 6 last the Supreme Court handed down a unanimous decision in the appeals taken in the libel suits filed against the Appam and cargo in the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Virginia, affirming the decree of. restitution entered by that court.


Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review Apr 1917

Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Assignments - Transfer of Expectancy - A, the apparent heir of his mother, executed a warranty deed conveying to defendants his expectancy in the realty of his mother. He died during her life, and after her death his children bring suit to have the deed cancelled as a cloud on their title. Held, that the relief prayed should be granted on the ground that the complainants were not bound by the warranty of the father, as they did not take as his heirs, but as the heirs of their grandmother, only tracing relationship through the father. Johnson v. Breeding (Tenn. …


Mild Punishments, Robert Mcmurdy Apr 1917

Mild Punishments, Robert Mcmurdy

Michigan Law Review

If life, freedom, or hope be taken from man, he is ashes. Therefore we ought not to take away any of them lightly. But some, restraint or punishment is necessary. We often miss our aim, however,'by prescribing punishments that are too severe, whereupon human nature revolts, so that it is "impossible to combine certainty with severity," a lesson we have long since learned from the experience of England.


Reasonable Rates, Henry Hull Apr 1917

Reasonable Rates, Henry Hull

Michigan Law Review

The principles underlying the decisions of the Interstate Commerce Commission are, for the most part, admittedly sound principles, and their number is not inordinately great. But to lawyers, and students of law, the application of these principles seems, in casual reading, to be made as whim or fancy dictates. It is a frequent complaint of the lawyer that there is no law in rate decisions.


Interpretation Of The Eleventh Amendment, Leroy G. Pilling Apr 1917

Interpretation Of The Eleventh Amendment, Leroy G. Pilling

Michigan Law Review

The American Constitution may be compared to an organism with a high nervous development that enables it to adapt itself to changes. in its environment or even to new environments. As such an organism is the result of evolution, so is our Federal Constitution the product of centuries of human experience in the science of government. Probably most of the great political philosophers of all ages have donated their mite to the finished product. To MONTESQUIEU we owe in part, at least, our constitutional doctrine of the separation of powers.


The Ohio "Blue Sky" Cases, Clarence D. Laylin Mar 1917

The Ohio "Blue Sky" Cases, Clarence D. Laylin

Michigan Law Review

The ancient notion that private fraud lies beyond the domain of public law did not long survive the statements of it that have been quoted.' Our legislation, expressing always the changing moral standards of the people, has directed the sanctions of the criminal law, step by step, ever against new forms of overreaching and imposition. Numerous illustrations might be cited to show the growing repugnance of the public mind toward frauds and cheats, and the tendency to recognize them as offenses invoking the restraint of public action as well as the redress of private injuries.


Michigan's Adoption Of Uniform State Legislation, George W. Bates Mar 1917

Michigan's Adoption Of Uniform State Legislation, George W. Bates

Michigan Law Review

The commissioners on Uniform State Laws have just filed their fourth Biennial Report to the Legislature of Michigan. This Conference is a body composed of representatives of each State, Territory and Federal possession, who meet in annual conference under a permanent organization commonly designated the Commissioners on Uniform State Laws. The twenty-sixth annual meeting was held in Chicago last August. The commissioners consist very largely of lawyers and judges of standing and experience and of law teachers from some of the principal law schools. There are usually three representatives from each State or Territory, appointed for terms of three to …


Note And Comment, Edson R. Sunderland, Ralph W. Aigler, Wayland H. Sanford, William L. Owen, Eugene B. Houseman Mar 1917

Note And Comment, Edson R. Sunderland, Ralph W. Aigler, Wayland H. Sanford, William L. Owen, Eugene B. Houseman

Michigan Law Review

Safeguarding the Criminal Defendant - Every now and then a new attack is made somewhere in the United States upon the rule prohibiting comment before the jury upon the fact that the defendant in a criminal case has not testified as a witness in his own behalf. At the present time an effort of this kind is being made in the Michigan legislature, and the introduction of the bill drew quite a little storm of protest from the State press as a dangerous inroad upon our ancient guarantees of personal liberty and security. In fact, however, it directly touches nothing …