Law Commons^™

Domestic Relations -- 1956 Tennessee Survey, William J. Harbison

Vanderbilt Law Review

Only one reported opinion dealt with the subject of adoption during the survey period.' In this case the petitioners had contracted with the Department of Public Welfare to keep the subject child on a foster-home-care basis. When the Department sought custody of the child from them, however, they had become very attached to her and refused to surrender custody. Pursuant to the statute then in effect, they filed a petition to the county court to adopt the child. The petition was denied, and on appeal the decision was affirmed. Immediately thereafter, petitioners filed the present suite in chancery, seeking to …

Equity -- 1956 Tennessee Survey, Val Sanford

Vanderbilt Law Review

One of the most important characteristics of the administration of justice in Tennessee is the maintenance of separate courts of law and equity. While numerous statutes have been enacted from time to time in an effort to clarify the jurisdiction of the two courts and the boundaries of their respective jurisdictions have been further defined by the courts, nevertheless, cases are still dismissed because they are brought in the wrong court...

Conflict Of Laws -- 1956 Tennessee Survey, John W. Wade

Vanderbilt Law Review

Personal Jurisdiction: In State v. Perry, the Tennessee Department of Public Welfare, which had paid sums for the support of dependents of certain nonresidents, brought an action against the nonresidents for reimbursement and for an order to pay money in the future. No personal service was had on the defendants, and the court held that the Tennessee statute does not authorize the court "to enter a personal judgment against a non-resident husband-father upon the ex parte petition, when that husband-father is not personally before the Court, and afforded no opportunity to be heard.' It correctly implied that such a proceeding …

Agency -- 1956 Tennessee Survey, F. Hodge O'Neal

Vanderbilt Law Review

The appellate courts of Tennessee and the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit handed down during the survey period a considerable number of interesting and significant cases dealing with the Tennessee law of agency. This article groups the cases and arranges them under topic headings. In most instances, the discussion of the case or cases under a topic heading is preceded by brief background material designed to place the cases in their proper setting and aid the reader in evaluating them.

Constitutional Law -- 1956 Tennessee Survey, Paul H. Sanders

Vanderbilt Law Review

Several major constitutional problems were presented to the Tennessee Supreme Court during the survey year. There were no startling developments in the court's disposition of these cases, nor in the opinions proclaimed in each instance. The court avoided what it termed a "spectacular exhibition of judicial sophistry" in giving constitutional approval to certain activities of a religious nature in the public schools. In the regulation of economic affairs the court found no valid basis for a statute prohibiting the offering of benefits or premiums in connection with the sale of gasoline. Basic allocations of governmental power were involved in a …

Local Government Law -- 1956 Tennessee Survey, Joseph Martin Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

The scope of local government law covers the problems arising out of the functioning of units of government essentially local in character--the municipality, the county, the school district. Involved are the relations between the unit and its constituents or between the units themselves, the validity of its actions, the status of its officers or employees. In the era of increased government, the impact of this body of law is pervading.

Criminal Law And Procedure -- 1956 Tennessee Survey, James B. Earle

Vanderbilt Law Review

Homicide: Involuntary manslaughter by automobile was involved in the case of Smith v. State.' The evidence tended to show that while the defendant was operating his automobile at a speed of possibly 40 miles per hour, he attempted to turn at a dead-end intersection, skidded on loose gravel, and struck his victim at a point approximately four feet off the street. It also appeared that the victim was a child of six who was playing on a bridge leading to a school; that the accident occurred on Christmas day; and that the defendant had consumed an unknown quantity of intoxicating …

Insurance -- 1956 Tennessee Survey, Robert W. Sturdivant

Vanderbilt Law Review

In Pennsylvania, etc. Ins. Co. v. Homer,' it appeared that Homer had struck a parked vehicle but failed to stop. His identity was later established and he signed a statement admitting that the accident was his fault and assuming all responsibility in connection therewith, including damage to the vehicle and hospital and medical treatment to any person suffering injuries as a result of the accident. It was not until five months after the collision that Homer's insuror received any notice of the accident. The insuror thereupon filed this action in the chancery court for declaratory judgment to determine its rights …

Personal Property And Sales -- 1956 Tennessee Survey, J. Allen Smith

Vanderbilt Law Review

The Right to Possession: In Shirley v. State' the Supreme Court of Tennessee held that a county court clerk could not be required to return money illegally gained by participation in a gambling game, which money had been confiscated by the sheriff and turned into court. Despite a theoretical difficulty arising from the absence in Tennessee of a statute authorizing forfeiture of gambling funds, the decision invoked the equitable principle that courts will not assist persons violating the law. For its result, the court relied in considerable measure on the New York case of Hofferman v. Simmons, which involved a …

Labor Law And Workmen's Compensation -- 1956 Tennessee Survey, Paul H. Sanders, James G. Bowman, Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

Labor Law

Inducing Breach of Contract: Howard v. Haven' was the only case during the survey period which presented a legal problem relating to the activities of a labor organization. In this case an electrical contractor sought an injunction and damages because of the acts of a local labor union, its business agent, and other named defendants in preventing the plaintiff from carrying out a hospital construction contract. On the trial of the case the determinative issue became whether or not the defendants brought about a breach of the contract which the complainant claimed to have had with the general …

Restitution -- 1956 Tennessee Survey, John W. Wade

Vanderbilt Law Review

The pervasive principle of Restitution--that "A person who has been unjustly enriched at the expense of another is required to make restitution to the other"'--makes use of many remedies, both at law and in equity. This year's Restitution cases will be classified according to the nature of the remedy.

One who pays the obligation of another may be entitled to indemnity, if he has not acted officiously. He may also be entitled to the remedy of subrogation, permitting him to "step into the shoes" of the person to whom, he paid and enforce any lien or right which that person …

Procedure And Evidence -- 1956 Tennessee Survey, Edmund M. Morgan

Vanderbilt Law Review

To one who has not inherited the Tennessee system of procedure and has not yet "first endured, then pitied, then embraced" it, it presents some startling contrasts. There is an astounding inter-mingling of the modern, which seeks to make procedure the servant of substance, with the ancient, that has in most jurisdictions been relegated to the legal attic or to a museum of procedural antiques. In an action instituted by warrant in the Court of General Sessions of Shelby County and tried de novo on appeal in the circuit court, the warrant is a summons and cannot serve as a …

Wills, Trusts And Estates--1956 Tennessee Survey, W. J. Bowe

Vanderbilt Law Review

The Tennessee statute creates a rebuttable presumption that any transfer or conveyance of property to a child shall be treated as an advancement. The above evidence would seem adequate to rebut the presumption but the court went further and stated that, without regard to this evidence, the transfer was not to be so treated since an advancement must be irrevocable and in presentae. Query, if this language may not be misleading and cause confusion in later cases. American case law does not require that an advancement be irrevocable. Thus the proceeds of a life insurance policy, though the decedent retained …

State And Local Taxation -- 1956 Tennessee Survey, Paul J. Hartman

Vanderbilt Law Review

As indicative of the growing importance to the bench and bar of state and local taxation, the Tennessee Supreme Court was called upon to decide three significant tax cases during the period covered by this survey article. During this period, objecting taxpayers spear-headed vigorous assaults against various privilege taxes on commerce and due process clause grounds.

Contracts -- 1956 Tennessee Survey, Paul J. Hartman

Vanderbilt Law Review

In Shirley v. Slate the Supreme Court of Tennessee had an occasion to pass upon the status of a gambling transaction in Tennessee. In the Shirley case a petition was filed to recover money seized by a sheriff in a crap game. In denying recovery, the court held that the power of the court could not be invoked for recovery of money which the participant had won and which had been seized by the sheriff during a raid and turned over to the county court clerk. Tennessee visits severe consequences on gambling or wagering transactions. By statute it is provided …

Torts -- 1956 Tennessee Survey, John W. Wade

Vanderbilt Law Review

This year, as in the past several years, there were approximately forty Torts cases. A much smaller number of the cases, however, involved automobile accidents. This is hardly competent evidence that there were fewer accidents, but may perhaps indicate that negligence law is becoming somewhat clearer so that fewer appeals to the higher courts are considered warranted.

Marriage In The Conflict Of Laws, Charles W. Taintor, Ii

Vanderbilt Law Review

It must first be recognized that three different types of problems are raised in this field by what purport to be marriages: problems concerning the creation of the relationship of man and wife; those concerning the method whereby the parties signify their consents to the assumption of the relationship; and those concerning the legal protection accorded to claims arising therefrom. These involve, respectively, the status, the ceremony, and the incidents' of marriage.

It has often been said or assumed in the past that the laws of the domicile or domiciles of the parties at the time of the ceremony govern …

Support Rights And Duties Between Husband And Wife, Monrad G. Paulsen

Vanderbilt Law Review

According to the common law a husband was entitled to his wife's earnings and most of her personal property in addition to the pleasure of her company and services in the home. These advantages have been considered the quid pro quo for the man's duty of support. Today, because of legislation, most of a husband's legal control over the income and means of his wife is gone. If a husband's duty to support is to be grounded in a reciprocal benefit to him, that benefit is derived almost wholly from the wife's obligation to be a wife and to live …

Model Will, With Explanatory Comments, Of The Father Of A Closely-Knit Family Group, Designed To Minimize Family Estate And Income Taxes, William J. Bowe

Vanderbilt Law Review

I, Marital Deduction Sprinkle, of Special Power, Tax haven, being of sound and disposing mind and memory, do hereby make, publish and declare this to be my Last Will and Testament, hereby revoking all wills and codicils heretofore made by me.

Tangible Personal Property

All of my tangible property of every nature and wheresoever situated, except any such property being used by any business in which I may be interested, I give and bequeath to my wife, Mary, outright, if she survives me; if she fails to survive me, I give and bequeath said personal property to those of my …

Bankruptcy From A Family Law Perspective, G. Stanley Joslin

Vanderbilt Law Review

The points at which family interests are involved in the usual bankruptcy proceeding are many. Some are quite obvious, as dower rights of the wife, alimony claims, or intra-family concealments. Others are less conspicuous but no less potent, as exclusion of relatives and spouses from certain rights, post-bankruptcy inheritances, cryptic exemption rights or evidentiary obligations. The scope here will not be limited to the traditional academic "Family Law" concept but will include that wider sphere where husbands, wives, and children are actually and vitally concerned in a bankruptcy involving one of them. Not only are the advantageous rights to be …

Personal Torts Within The Family, Val Sanford

Vanderbilt Law Review

If a person, while under the influence of intoxicants, drives his automobile at excessive speed, loses control of it, jumps the curb and strikes a pedestrian, injuring him severely, there would be little question, nothing else appearing, that he would be liable to the injured pedestrian in an action for damages. The premises underlying a conclusion of liability in such cases are obvious. It is in the interest of society that injured persons be compensated and rehabilitated; and our conceptions of justice are such that ordinarily it seems fair that the party who was at fault, whose action caused the …

Psychiatric Challenge Of Witnesses, Thomas E. Watts Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

Although insane' persons were incompetent as witnesses at early common law, the modern view is that the effect of mental illness upon competency is a preliminary question for the court in the absence of contrary statutory direction. An insane person is generally said to be a competent witness if he can understand the sanctions imposed to elicit the truth and can correctly recount the occurrence which is the subject of his testimony. Some courts exclude evidence of insanity offered for purposes of impeachment but most courts admit such evidence, treating medical and lay testimony with equal respect because of the …

Recent Cases, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Law Review

Constitutional Law--Congressional Investigations --Relevancy of Required Testimony

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Constitutional Law--State Taxation of Interstate Commerce--Sales Taxation of Income from Trans-Shipment of Goods within State

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Criminal Law--Felony Murder Doctrine--Co-Felon Killed by Victim of Crime

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Evidence--Judicial Admissions--Testimony as to Objective Facts

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Federal Tort Claims Act--"Private Individual" Clause--Uniquely Governmental Activity

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Income Taxation--Capital Gains and Losses--Business Purpose for Contracting in Commodity Futures

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Labor Law--Taft-Hartley Act--Discharge of Employees because of Union Membership

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Negligence--High Tension Power Lines--Duty to Warn of Dangerous Condition

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Real Property--Joint Tenancy--Severance of Estate by Murder of Co-Tenant

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Torts--Landowner--Duty to Social Guest

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Wills--Pretermitted Heir Statue--Sole …

The Law Of Divorce And The Problem Of Marriage Stability, Max Rheinstein

Vanderbilt Law Review

In the mind of the American public, the topic of divorce has come to play a conspicuous role. The present symposium constitutes a part of an extensive debate which is carried on not only among experts but in which the general public also has shown a lively interest. The matter touches upon the lives of large numbers of people and it excites widespread curiosity and emotional reactions. The common attitude is one of uneasiness. The feeling is widespread that there are too many divorces, that the stability of family life has seriously declined, and that something ought to be done …

Book Reviews, Robert J. Harris, Charles B. Nutting (Reviewer), Daniel Walker (Reviewer)

Vanderbilt Law Review

Book Reviews

American Constitutional Law By Bernard Schwartz Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1955. Pp. xiv, 364. $5.00

reviewer: Robert J. Harris

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The Development of Academic Freedom in the United States By Richard Hofstadter and Walter P. Metzger New York: Columbia University Press, 1955. Pp. xvi, 527. $5.50

Academic Freedom in Our Time By Robert M. MacIver New York:Columbia University Press, 1955. Pp. xiv, 329. $4.00

reviewer: Charles B. Nutting

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Military Justice in the United States

By Robinson 0. Everett

Harrisburg: Military Service Publishing Company, 1956. Pp. 338

reviewer: Daniel Walker

The Law Of Infants' Marriages, Robert Kingsley

Vanderbilt Law Review

Just as the law requires, for ordinary contracts, that a party thereto must have reached an age sufficient to give him reasonable discretion, so, in connection with the contract of marriage, the law has required that the parties be not too immature. It must be remembered, however, that the word "infant" is not one of fixed meaning: when used with reference to ordinary contracts, and without further qualification, it usually means a person under twenty-one years of age; but in the field of criminal law the dividing line between "infancy" and "adult" responsibility is fixed at a lesser age (14 …

Divorce Litigation And The Welfare Of The Family, John B. Bradway

Vanderbilt Law Review

In a recent article Chief Justice Warren, writing on the topic "The Law and The Future," reminds us that "Some of the defects in our system are inherited; others keep creeping in. Justice, like freedom, needs constant viligance." There are some who believe that an inspection of the modern orthodox adversary divorce procedure will reveal one or more of those defects. It is the purpose of this article to attempt such an inspection.

There is nothing novel in the suggestion that divorce is a controversial subject. Its repercussions impinge on many of the social and physical sciences; but its contact …

The Law Of Adoption: Ancient And Modern, Leo A. Huard

Vanderbilt Law Review

Sir Henry Maine tells us that adoption is one of the oldest and most widely employed of legal fictions. Without it, he asserts, society would scarcely have escaped its swaddling clothes. It commanded the approval of the greater number of archaic societies and has proven to be the most perdurable of all artificial relationships designed to prolong the continuity of family existence.

The family is the basic group of most primitive societies. Those who were related by blood naturally gravitated to each other to form this first ring of society's organization. In the same way successively higher organizational units were …

Family Responsibility In Tort, William J. Harbison

Vanderbilt Law Review

At common law an unmarried woman occupied no special status as far as tort liability was concerned, and the same rules and standards of responsibility applied to her as to society generally. Since marriage imposed upon a woman a very extensive disability, however, there developed a number of special rules concerning tort responsibility of the married woman.

Marriage did not impose upon the wife any special or peculiar liability for wrongful acts committed by her husband at common law, and, except in certain instances hereafter noted, she is not thus liable today. It is true that since the enactment of …

Consideration Of Tax Aspects In Awarding Damages For Personal Injuries, Doris B. Gorman

Vanderbilt Law Review

The recent decision of the House of Lords, in British Transport Commission v. Gourley has completely changed the English position on the question of whether income taxes should be considered in determining personal injury damages based on actual or prospective loss of earnings. The House of Lords held that the lower court should have taken the tax aspects into account and that the damage award must be reduced accordingly. By this holding, the House of Lords overruled Jordan v. The Limmer And Trinidad Lake Asphalt Co. and Billingham v. Hughes, which until then represented the ruling law in England on …