Law Commons^™

Judge Learned Hand And The Limits Of Judicial Discretion, Robert S. Lancaster

Vanderbilt Law Review

Learned Hand stands among the great judges of the Anglo-American legal tradition. He is preeminently the judge's judge. His long judicial career, spanning one of the crucial periods in the development of American law, and his long service on the bench in a circuit where crucial legal issues come into final focus and where a major part of the commercial law of the nation is first enunciated and explained, peculiarly fit him for the task of explaining the judge's function in the American system of law and the court's role in our jural order. His own legal experience, his non-official …

The Twilight Zone Of Hearsay, Richmond Rucker

Vanderbilt Law Review

The twilight zone of hearsay and nonhearsay has provoked searching analyses by eminent authorities in the field of evidence. Although these contributions have doubtless been of inestimable value, exerting a profound influence in the solution of problems dealing with acts and utterances within this area of proof, there is much to be desired in the way of clarity as reflected by innumerable opinions of the courts. No fatuous notion is here entertained that within the limits of this discussion order will be rescued from chaos, or for that matter that an appreciable contribution will be made toward that end. Nevertheless, …

Book Reviews, Dix W. Noel, E. M. Morgan, J. Olin White, Samuel E. Stumpf

Vanderbilt Law Review

Book Reviews

Handbook of the Law of Torts, 2d ed. By William L. Prosser St.Paul: West Publishing Company, 1955. Pp. xii, 952. $10.00

reviewer: Dix W. Noel

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Impartial Medical Testimony A Report by a Special'Committee of The Association of the Bar of the City of New York New York: The Macmillan Company, 1956- Ppr. ix, 188: $3.95.

reviewer: E.M. Morgan

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Modern Trials By Melvin M. Belli Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, Inc., Three Volumes, 1955. Pp. 2,763. $50.00.

reviewer: J. Olin White

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Law and Morality By Leon Petrazycki (Translated by Hugh W.Babb with an Introduction by Nicholas S. Timasheff) Cambridge: …

Public Employees And The Hatch Act, James W. Irwin

Vanderbilt Law Review

A recent issue of Vanderbilt Law Review featured an article by Dalmas H. Nelson, Instructor in Political Science, University of Nebraska, entitled "Public Employees and the Right to Engage in Political Activity,"' a broadside blast at the Hatch Political Activities Act, section 92 and section 12.3 It is strikingly well written, and reflects exhaustive research as evidenced by voluminous bibliography and quotations. Noteworthy is the citation of many authorities whose views differ from the author's. Notwithstanding admiration for those virtues, it is admitted that the views of the author of the article call to mind a sentiment expressed by the …

Toth V. Quarles -- For Better Or For Worse?, William R. Willis Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

In summary, it would appear that the Supreme Court, through the Toth decision, has created a situation that bears a potentiality of injustice and social detriment completely out of proportion to that feared from the provisions in the Uniform Code of Military Justice unhesitatingly declared unconstitutional. If the Court had adopted a practical and realistic approach to the problem, comparing the rights of the individual under both the constitution and military law, and visualizing the problem created by its present decision, the result could have been different. Now, Congress must attempt remedial action and determine the method of cure that …

Recent Cases, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Law Review

Recent Cases

Constitutional Law--Equal Protection--Automatic Reversion of Land to Grant or Upon Use by Non-Whites

Constitutional Law--Federal Eminent Domain--Potentiality for Water Power Development as Element of Compensation

Contracts--Place of Making--Acceptance by Instantaneous Means of Communication

Insurance--Automobile Liability Omnibus Clause-Coverage of Sub-Permitee

Insurance--Insurer's Right of Subrogation--Waiver by Refusal to Pay Claim

Master and Servant--Borrowed Servant Doctrine--Contract as Proof of Assumption of Control

Wills--Anti-Lapse Statutes--Beneficiaries of Class Gift Dead at Will's Execution

An Employer's Unilateral Action -- An Unfair Labor Practice?, J. Gilmer Bowman, Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

During the Industrial Revolution, the growth of enormous industrial establishments with a correspondingly large number of workers hired to perform increasingly simple tasks manifested the inability of an individual effectively to bargain with an employer concerning wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of the employment relationship. The resulting discontent among workers produced long and bitter, often bloody, outbreaks of economic warfare between employers and employees. In the abstract, freedom of contract was possible still, but as a practical matter employment benefits and obligations were largely established by managerial fiat. It was felt that if employees could effectively unite for …

Sales Taxation In Interstate Commerce, Paul J. Hartman

Vanderbilt Law Review

A treatment of the constitutional problems involved in "sales taxation" concerning multi-state sales transactions should cover more than "sales taxes" as that terminology ordinarily may be understood. The ordinary "sales tax" includes within its scope all business sales of tangible personal property at either the retailing, wholesaling, or manufacturing state. The statute, of course, often gives exemptions from the tax.

In many instances, however, the "sales tax" also is imposed on other kinds of transactions. Sometimes the sale of professional services and other services, of real property, and of intangible personal property is covered by the tax. Some states also …

The Literature Of Sales Taxation, Denzel C. Cline

Vanderbilt Law Review

This paper is limited to literature on general sales taxes and will not include taxes imposed upon the sale of particular commodities, such as gasoline or tobacco. It is also limited to publications by American authors in the last-quarter century. Even so, it is impossible in an article of this size to mention all of the contributions to the literature."

References for legal articles on sales and use taxes and related topics, such as interstate commerce, which are published in the law journals are found in the Index of Legal Periodicals. Another excellent bibliographical source is the Tax Institute Bookshelf, …

What Is A Sale For Sales Tax Purposes?, Clyde L. Ball

Vanderbilt Law Review

Each of the states which has adopted some form of sales tax' has also adopted its own individual definition of the term "sale" or retail sale." So long as a tax upon a business transaction does not offend some constitutional principle, a legislature is free to include such transaction within its statutory definition of a sale for purposes of an excise tax levy. The statutory definitions, then, are conditioned not by the normal denotation or connotation of the word "sale," but rather by the taxing policies of the several legislative bodies. Synthesis of these varying statutes into an acceptable general …

Forward: Symposium On State Sales Tax, Charles F. Conlon

Vanderbilt Law Review

One of the most remarkable developments in state finance is the rapidity with which the retail sales tax has become the most important fixture in the revenue system. Practically unknown a quarter century ago, by five years later in 1935 the tax yielded $284 million, slightly less than 13 per cent of state tax collections --unemployment compensation taxes aside. Last year, state sales tax revenues amounted to $2.6 billion, or about 23 per cent of state tax collections. For the future the prospect is that sooner or later all but a few, if indeed not all the states, will be …

The Nature And Structure Of Sales Taxation, John F. Due

Vanderbilt Law Review

Sales taxation has, in the course of 25 years, become the chief single source of state tax revenue, now yielding about $2.5 billion or 21 per cent of total state tax revenue in the 1955 fiscal year.' In the 31 states using the tax, it yields approximately one third of state tax revenues, with yields of over 40 per cent in Washington, Georgia, Michigan, and Missouri. The tax has also been growing in importance at the local level, now yielding about $400 million, the bulk of this being obtained by a relatively few large cities. The federal government has never …

Sales And Use Taxes As Affected By Federal Governmental Immunity, Milton P. Rice, R. Wayne Estes

Vanderbilt Law Review

Sales and use taxes, since their advent in the early 1930's as significant state revenue producing measures have, like all other state levies, found, themselves subject to certain restrictions imposed by the Constitution of the United States. While the constitutional inhibition of greatest significance for most persons subject to these taxes has probably been the one posed by the commerce clause, or its first cousin the due process clause, an obstacle of no mean proportion to the states has been one not expressly mentioned or even alluded to in the Federal Constitution,' yet this barrier is as much a part …

Analysis Of Sales And Use Tax Exemptions -- With Comment As To More Uniform Applications, George D. Brabson

Vanderbilt Law Review

There are, generally speaking, three broad areas of exemption understatutes imposing sales and use taxes in the United States. These are:

(a) Exemptions arising out of the immunities of governmental agencies and instrumentalities, or out of the exercise of governmental functions (b) Exemptions arising under the commerce clause of the federal constitution (c) Specific exemptions created out of governmental taxing policies or social economic considerations

Each of these areas of exemption has grown up somewhat haphazardly over a substantial period of time, and very largely as the result of shifting judicial opinion, rather than as a matter of consistent legislative …

The Measure Of Sales Taxes, Arthur H. Northrup

Vanderbilt Law Review

The measure of the tax is as significant a problem in sales taxation as is assessment in ad valorem property taxation or the determination of net income for income taxation. It is the base for taxation.

Sales taxes are creations of state statutes. The appendix presents a general summary of these statutes to show their provisions. Separate state excise taxes on cigarettes or spirits are not included within the scope of this paper, nor are taxes on selling, storing or distributing motor fuels or oils. These excises present special problems, as do separate taxes on extraction, oil drilling and mining. …

Tax Aspects Of Corporate Business Purchase Agreements Funded With Life Insurance, Hugh J. Morgan Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

Death to a member of a closely held business usually will seriously disrupt the workings of the business organization. Also, the estate of the decedent may find his business interest an unwanted asset. A valuable business interest often must be sacrificed because of the pressing need for cash to pay debts, administrative expenses, and estate and inheritance taxes. Thus, death may place the continued existence of the business in jeopardy, make uncertain the interest of decedent's surviving business associates, and make necessary a forced liquidation of decedent's interest in the business at a sacrifice price. Consequently,a business man may find …

Recent Cases, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Law Review

Conflict of Laws--Governmental Activities--Recognition in Forum of Sister State's Original Revenue Claim

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Constitutional Law--State Taxation of Interstate Commerce--Sales Tax on Shipboard Sales to Passengers

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Courts--Certiorari from United States Supreme Court--Loss of Importance Ground for Dismissal

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Domestic Relations--Adoption--Revocation of Consent by Natural Parents

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Evidence--Admissibility--Exclusion of Evidence Obtained by Unreasonable Search and Seizure

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Federal Procedure--Illegal Search--Injunction Against Agent's Testifying in State Court

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Income Taxation--Claim of Right Income--Time of Deduction when Restoration Required

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Malicious Prosecution--Privilege--Filing of Complaint with Bar Ethics and Grievance Committee

Sales Taxation Collection Problems, Paul J. Hartman, E. William Henry, George L. Foster

Vanderbilt Law Review

This treatment is designed to gather together a number of legal problems concerning collection of taxes in the field of sales taxation, which may confront attorneys who represent either the taxing authority or the taxpayer. Some of the problems taken up are not related to each other. They are, nevertheless, troublesome and ofttimes recurring problems. For convenience of discussion, they are grouped under the two main categories of procedural problems that arise in sales taxation collections, and the problems of the substantive liability of various parties for the tax.

Book Reviews, James B. Earle, J. Allen Smith, Samuel E. Stumpf, Ingram Bloch, J. Raymond Denney

Vanderbilt Law Review

Book Reviews

The Oppenheimer Case: The Trial of a Security System

By Charles P. Curtis

New York: Simon and Schuster, 1955. Pp. xi, 281. $4.00

reviewer: Ingram Bloch

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Trial Tactics and Methods

By Robert E. Keeton

New York: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1954. Pp. xxiv, 438. $6.65

reviewer: J. Raymond Denney

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Military Law under the Uniform Code of Military Justice

By William B. Aycock and Seymour W. Wurfel

Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1955. Pp. xviii, 430.

reviewer: James B. Earle

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Why Johnny Can't Read

By Rudolf Flesch

New York: Harper & Brothers, 1955. Pp. ix, …

Administration And Collection Problems, Dixwell L. Pierce

Vanderbilt Law Review

"In the field of revenue administration, there is no longer such a thing as a simple tax law. Complex problems require complex laws, and complex laws are made to protect all taxpayers alike."

When a state or local government provides for a general sales and use tax, it is assuming a heavy administrative responsibility. Such tax laws are deceptively simple. They are not easy to administer. Failure to recognize these facts has resulted all too often in disappointing revenue yields and widespread dissatisfaction among retailers and their customers.

No one really enjoys paying taxes. What may be merely mild distaste …

The Use Tax: Its Relationship To The Sales Tax, Eugene Greener Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

The use tax was conceived as a necessary supplement to the successful administration of the sales tax. With a use tax, in addition to a sales tax, legislators felt they had developed a taxing method that was symmetrical and complete.

Thus, if for some reason a sale at retail of tangible personal property escaped tax, "the use, the consumption, the distribution, and the storage [of the property would be taxed] after it has come to rest in this state and has become a part of the mass of property in this state."'

But as the poet Robert Burns intimated about …

Justice Story On The Common Law Of Evidence, John C. Hogan

Vanderbilt Law Review

In our system of jurisprudence it is the province of the jury to decide all matters of fact. The trial is held and the verdict of the jury is delivered in the presence of a judge who is bound to decide matters of law which arise in the course of the trial. Whenever a thing offered as proof is questioned as not proper to go before the jury as evidence, that question is to be resolved by the judge, and unless he permits it to be introduced as evidence at the trial, it can not legally come to the consideration …

Full Faith And Credit For Divorce Decrees -- Present Doctrine And Possible Changes, James D. Sumner Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

The recognition of divorce decrees has perhaps created more concern in the United States than any other legal issue. At least this is a matter that has frequently been the subject of public discussions and articles in national magazines in the last decade and a half. The "laymen" who have participated in these events probably have not realized the technical legal problems involved. However, they have at least by their discussions and writings demonstrated that migratory divorces and respect for them raise problems of national significance. Moreover, there is an abundance of legal articles by judges, lawyers, law teachers and …

Public Employees And The Right To Engage In Political Activity, Dalmas H. Nelson

Vanderbilt Law Review

Although the right to freedom of expression has become more narrowly circumscribed for everyone in recent years, the abridgments of this right that the courts have held may constitutionally be imposed on public employees are exceptionally extensive. This has been justified basically in terms of the doctrines that public employment is a privilege which the government may extend or withdraw at will and upon such terms as it chooses, and that denial of public employment does not constitute punishment. The upshot is that in this area the government may act with almost complete arbitrariness, even when basic rights such as …

Recent Cases, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Law Review

Recent Cases

Conflict of Laws--Torts--Choice of Law Required by Federal Tort Claims Act

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Constitutional Law--Equal Protection--Exemption of Veterans from Payment of Hunting and Fishing Fees

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Constitutional Law--Separation of Powers--Procedure for Removal of Judge an Interference with Judicial Process

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Constitutional Law--State Police Power--Restriction of Competition among Employment Agencies

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Contempt of Court--Summary Punishment of Direct Contempt--Attorney's Absence from Court

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Corporations--Inspection of Books and Records--Right of Former Director

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Criminal Law--Lotteries--Necessity of Consideration

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Domestic Relations--Alimony--Fixed Payments to Wife until Her Death or Remarriage as Basis of Claim against Husband's Estate

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Domestic Relations--Divorce and Alimony--Award of Alimony …

Joint Tortfeasors In Tennessee And The New Third-Party Statute, Robert W. Sturdivant

Vanderbilt Law Review

Chapter 145 of the 1955 Public Acts' enacted by the Tennessee Legislature, purporting in some degree to permit a third-party action, has evoked considerable interest among members of the Tennessee Bar and liability insurance carriers.

The act provides that when a defendant deems some other party primarily liable to the plaintiff, then the defendant may file a cross action against the third party. It will be recalled that when the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were first promulgated, Rule 14 provided that a defendant, deeming a third party liable to himsel for to the plaintiff, could make such third party …

Book Reviews, Max Rheinstein, William P. Murphy (Reviewer), Harrison Tweed (Reviewer), Walter P. Armstrong, Jr. (Reviewer)

Vanderbilt Law Review

This subject matter is not fully recognizable from the title, which might be understood to indicate that the book deals with the entire legal system of the United States including or, perhaps even emphasizing, the substantive law of the country and its sources. This is not the case, however. It is the sub-title which gives a more descriptive indication of the contents: "The Administration of Justice in the United States by Judicial, Administrative, Military, and Arbitral Tribunals." Not the substantive law of the United States is the concern of the author, but the machinery by which it is administered, the …

Forward, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Law Review

This is the third year in which the faculty members of the Vanderbilt Law School have prepared the Annual Survey of Tennessee Law. The undertaking is, of course, primarily for the benefit of the members of the Bench and Bar of Tennessee. We hope that they have found it sufficiently useful to justify the effort and expense involved. The first Survey was confined almost entirely to the decisions of the State Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals. It has now been expanded to provide for systematic inclusion of federal decisions involving Tennessee law and occasionally even decisions of other …

Procedure And Evidence -- 1955 Tennessee Survey, Edmund M. Morgan

Vanderbilt Law Review

Demurrer: Demurrers are not favored in Tennessee. The pleading to which a demurrer is interposed is construed most favorably to the pleader. For the purpose of determining the sufficiency of a pleading all properly pleaded allegations are upon demurrer taken to be true; in the usual phrasing, they are said to be admitted. Although Tennessee courts, like all others, declare that a demurrer does not admit a conclusion of law, they sometimes let it come perilously close to doing so. Thus, in an action by a bailee against his bailor for failure to return chattels in the condition in which …

Insurance -- 1955 Tennessee Survey, Robert W. Sturdivant

Vanderbilt Law Review

If a period of three years be sufficient time to detect any trend in the field of insurance litigation, there is reflected a decrease in the number of cases reaching our appellate courts having to do with automobile liability insurance and an increase in the number of cases having to do with health and accident policies--the latter probably being the result of the extension of group insurance. In the past year there were only two reported decisions in the state courts and one in the federal court sitting in Tennessee involving automobile liability policies. During the present Survey period, there …