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The Multiple-Marriage Society And Spousal Rights Under The Revised Uniform Probate Code, Lawrence W. Waggoner Jan 1991

The Multiple-Marriage Society And Spousal Rights Under The Revised Uniform Probate Code, Lawrence W. Waggoner

Articles

Nearly everyone knows about the transformation of the American family that has taken place over the last couple of decades. The changes, from the latter half of the 1970s into the present, comprise one of the great events of our age. Articles on one aspect or another of the phenomenon frequent the popular press, and a special edition of Newsweek was recently devoted to the topic.' The traditional "Leave It To Beaver" family no longer prevails in American society. To be sure, families consisting of a wage-earning husband, a homemaking and child-rearing wife, and their two joint children still exist. …


The Uniform Statutory Rule Against Perpetuities: Oregon Joins Up, Lawrence W. Waggoner Jan 1990

The Uniform Statutory Rule Against Perpetuities: Oregon Joins Up, Lawrence W. Waggoner

Articles

Uniform perpetuity reform is on the march, and Oregon has joined the parade. On January 1, 1990, the Uniform Statutory Rule Against Perpetuities (Uniform Act) became effective in Oregon. Although promulgated only three years ago, the Uniform Act has been enacted in over twenty percent of the states and appears to be on its way toward enactment in several others. Prior to the adoption of the Uniform Act, Oregon followed the common-law Rule Against Perpetuities (common-law Rule). Noted for its unjust consequences, the common-law Rule disregards actual events and invalidates a contingent (nonvested) future interest merely on the grounds of …


Opinion Of The Supreme People's Court On Questions Concerning The Implementation Of The General Principles Of Civil Law Of The People's Republic Of China (Translation), Whitmore Gray, Henry R. Zheng Jan 1989

Opinion Of The Supreme People's Court On Questions Concerning The Implementation Of The General Principles Of Civil Law Of The People's Republic Of China (Translation), Whitmore Gray, Henry R. Zheng

Articles

The General Principles of Civil Law of the People's Republic of China ("General Principles") came into force on January 1, 1987. We now issue the following Opinion concerning issues encountered when implementing the General Principles


General Principles Of Civil Law Of The People's Republic Of China (Translation), Whitmore Gray, Henry R. Zheng Jan 1989

General Principles Of Civil Law Of The People's Republic Of China (Translation), Whitmore Gray, Henry R. Zheng

Articles

(Adopted April 12, 1986, at the Fourth Session of the Sixth National People's Congress, to take effect on January 1, 1987)


Some Aspects Of Householding In The Medieval Icelandic Commonwealth, William I. Miller Jan 1988

Some Aspects Of Householding In The Medieval Icelandic Commonwealth, William I. Miller

Articles

There has been much, mostly inconclusive, discussion about how to define the household in a manner suitable for comparative purposes. Certain conventional criteria are not very useful in the Icelandic context, where it appears that a person could be attached to more than one household, where the laws suggest it was possible for more than one household to be resident in the same uncompartmentalised farmhouse; and where headship might often be shared. Definitions, for example, based on co residence or on commensalism do not jibe all that well with the pastoral transhumance practised by the Icelanders. Sheep were tended and …


General Principles Of Civil Law Of The People's Republic Of China (Translation), Whitmore Gray, Henry R. Zheng Jan 1986

General Principles Of Civil Law Of The People's Republic Of China (Translation), Whitmore Gray, Henry R. Zheng

Articles

(Adopted April 12, 1986, at the Fourth Session of the Sixth National People's Congress, to take effect on January 1, 1987.)'


The Uniform Statutory Rule Against Perpetuities, Lawrence W. Waggoner Jan 1986

The Uniform Statutory Rule Against Perpetuities, Lawrence W. Waggoner

Articles

When the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws recently approved the Uniform Statutory Rule Against Perpetuities, it may at long last have made perpetuity reform achievable in this country. Coming, as it does, on the heels of the 1981 promulgation of the Restatement (Second) of Property (Donative Transfers), which adopts the same general type of perpetuity reform, and having been unanimously endorsed by the House of Delegates of the American Bar Association, the Board of Regents of the American College of Probate Counsel, and the Board of Governors of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers, the Uniform …


Dancing On The Edge Of Article 9, James J. White Jan 1986

Dancing On The Edge Of Article 9, James J. White

Articles

Despite the fact that Article 9 is a much more comprehensive personal property security statute than was ever found in American law prior to its enactment, cases continue to present issues on the scope of the Article. Gone are the cases in which a court was called upon to determine whether a "conditional sales contract" could be dealt with under the "factor's lien" law; it is now clear that all such personal property security devices are governed by Article 9. Yet many problems remain for the unwary lawyer. I will identify several and deal in detail with three of these …


Introduction, Douglas A. Kahn Jan 1982

Introduction, Douglas A. Kahn

Articles

While the estate and gift tax area has by no means been ignored in the legal literature, it has not been one of the more popular subjects. For that reason, a symposium on transfer taxation would be welcome at any time, but this is an especially propitious moment for one to appear.


The Estate Tax Marital Deduction, Harold Dubroff, Douglas A. Kahn Jan 1980

The Estate Tax Marital Deduction, Harold Dubroff, Douglas A. Kahn

Articles

The estate tax marital deduction, section 2056 of the Internal Revenue Code, was enacted in 1948, along with the split-income provisions of the income tax law and the marital deduction and split-gift provisions of the gift tax law. The purpose was to give married residents of common law states approximately the same federal tax advantages that were available to married residents of community property states. Ordinarily, upon the death of a married resident of a community property state, only one-half of the community property is taxed in the decedent's estate. Section 2056 achieves approximately the same result for married residents …


Transactions Subject To Gift Tax, Douglas A. Kahn, Earl M. Colson Jan 1975

Transactions Subject To Gift Tax, Douglas A. Kahn, Earl M. Colson

Articles

The gift tax is imposed on the "transfer of property by gift." The term gift is not expressly defined either in the Code or in the Treasury Regulations. However, section 2512(b), dealing with the valuation of gifts, states that "where property is transferred for less than an adequate and full consideration in money or money's worth," the difference between the value of the property transferred and the consideration received constitutes a gift. Thus, for gift tax purposes, the determination of whether a gift was made does not turn so much on the intent of the transferor as it does on …


The Abolition Of Self-Help Repossession: The Poor Pay Even More, James J. White Jan 1973

The Abolition Of Self-Help Repossession: The Poor Pay Even More, James J. White

Articles

In this paper I propose to identify possible ways in which a court could uphold the constitutionality of section 9-503 without an explicit rejection of Fuentes v. Shevin. It is my thesis that Fuentes v. Shevin is probably an undesirable outcome, and that the application of the same doctrine to self-help repossession is certainly undesirable and would constitute due process gone berserk. My arguments will not be novel; each has been suggested by the courts that have considered this matter, or by the briefs of the lawyers who have argued these cases. I cannot even claim to have collected the …


Joint Tenancies And Tenancies By The Entirety In Michigan—Federal Gift Tax Considerations, Douglas A. Kahn Jan 1968

Joint Tenancies And Tenancies By The Entirety In Michigan—Federal Gift Tax Considerations, Douglas A. Kahn

Articles

The establishment of joint tenancy' ownership of property, or the termination of such a tenancy, may have federal gift tax consequences to the co-owners of the property. Consequently, the gift tax is a factor to be weighed before embarking on either of these ventures. The gift tax consequences are determined by the nature of the property rights enjoyed by the joint tenants under the controlling state property law, and accordingly it is desirable, where Michigan property law is applicable, to consider the Michigan law and the significance of that law to the operation of the gift tax. However, before discussing …


Evolving Judicial Attitudes Toward Local Government Land Use Control, Terrance Sandalow Jan 1967

Evolving Judicial Attitudes Toward Local Government Land Use Control, Terrance Sandalow

Articles

The year 1967 begins the second half-century of zoning in the United States. The first comprehensive zoning ordinance was adopted by New York City in 1916. In the fifty years that have elapsed, zoning has become, notwithstanding a growing disenchantment with it on the part of planners, the most widely employed technique of land use control in the United States. At the present time only Houston, of all the major cities in the United States, lacks a zoning ordinance. And, though I have not obtained precise figures, we are all familiar with the increasingly large per centage of small municipalities, …


Rights Of Finders, Ralph W. Aigler Jan 1923

Rights Of Finders, Ralph W. Aigler

Articles

Much of the confusion and uncertainty in the law regarding the topic indicated above is due to a failure to distinguish between several types of situations and to appreciate the applicability of certain fundamental principles. The words "lost" and "find" are used in such widely varying senses that the all too common method of reaching a conclusion by first applying a name to a thing or situation has in this particular field led to special difficulty.


Rights Of Finders, Ralph W. Aigler Jan 1923

Rights Of Finders, Ralph W. Aigler

Articles

Much of the confusion and uncertainty in the law regarding the topic indicated above is due to a failure to distinguish between several types of situations and to appreciate the applicability of certain fundamental principles. The words "lost" and "find" are used in such widely varying senses that the all too common method of reaching a conclusion by first applying a name to a thing or situation has in this particular field led to special difficulty.


Perpetuity Statutes, Edwin C. Goddard Jan 1923

Perpetuity Statutes, Edwin C. Goddard

Articles

THE common law of perpetuities is one of the most interesting examples of almost pure judicial legislation. De Donis, The Statutes of Uses and of Wills, but gave wider scope to the development by the courts of rules of law to thwart the attempt of the great landowners to tie up their landed estates in their families in perpetuity. One body of rules to this end limited restraints upon alienation, another the creation of future interests vesting at too remote a period. Restriction of restraints upon alienation, and the rule against perpetuities, these two were developed for the same end, …


Operation And Effect Of Recording, Ralph W. Aigler Jan 1922

Operation And Effect Of Recording, Ralph W. Aigler

Articles

While the operation of the recording acts is not uncommonly said to result in a preference of the earlier recorded instrument on the ground that under the circumstances the later grantee takes "with notice," the true view in the normal case would seem to be that the earlier grantee is preferred because priority in time gives priority in right-and by recording, he has done all that is required to preserve that favored position. Recording does not ordinarily give preference, it merely safeguards priority. Reference is here made to the normal case because it is, of course, true that there are …


Landowner's Duty To Strangers On His Premises - As Developed In The Iowa Decisions, Herbert F. Goodrich Jan 1922

Landowner's Duty To Strangers On His Premises - As Developed In The Iowa Decisions, Herbert F. Goodrich

Articles

It is one thing to know a general rule of common law. It is another to know the application of the general rule, its variations and-exceptions, in a particular state. Both are important. Without the first, the lawyer becomes the mere tradesman. Worse than that for him, he is often helpless, for with all the gray mule and spotted cow cases to which a benevolent digester directs him he does not sense the legally significant facts so that he can recognize an authority when he sees it. Without the second, even the lawyer with a grasp of fundamentals is at …


Joint Tenancy In Personal Property In Michigan, Ralph W. Aigler Jan 1922

Joint Tenancy In Personal Property In Michigan, Ralph W. Aigler

Articles

In Lober v. Dorgan, 215 Mich. 62, decided July 19, 1921, the court again wrestled with the problem which has troubled the Michigan courts for many years, as to whether the law of the state recognizes any such thing as joint ownership in personal property with the common law incident of survivorship. The facts presented a controversy between the estates of husband and wife, the latter having survived the former. A real estate mortgage had been given to "George W. Bush and Sarah Bush, his wife, of Gobleville, Michigan, as joint tenants, with sole right to the survivor." After the …


Escheat - How State Acquires Title, Edwin C. Goddard Jan 1920

Escheat - How State Acquires Title, Edwin C. Goddard

Articles

Escheat is of feudal origin, and properly applied only to land which on failure of heirs or for certain other reasons, "fell in" to the lord under whom it had been held. Personal property without an owner, as bona vacantia, became the property of the crown. In re Bond [1901] 1 Ch. 15. In the United States escheat is used more broadly, but usually arises when the owner of property dies intestate without heirs. Our alienage laws have generally removed disabilities of aliens to take, but in some jurisdictions there may still be escheat because of alienage, see 5 MICH. …


The Writing Required To Establish An Express Trust Of Land, Edgar N. Durfee Jan 1919

The Writing Required To Establish An Express Trust Of Land, Edgar N. Durfee

Articles

It has frequently been said that the Seventh Section of the Statute of Frauds, concerning Trusts of land, requires a writing containing "all the terms of the trust." Forster v. Hale, 3 Ves. 707; Smith v. Matthews, 3 DeG., F. & J. 139; Loring v. Palmer, 118 U. S. 321; Gaylord v. Lafayette, 115 Ind. 423; McClellan v. McClellan, 65 Me. 500; Blodgett v. Hildreth, 103 Mass. 484; York v. Perrine, 71 Mich. 567; Newkirk v. Place, 47 N. J. Eq. 477; Steere v. Steere, 5 Johns. Ch. 1; Cook v. Barr, 44 N. Y. 156; Dillaye v. Greenough, 45 …


Determinable Fee - Possibility Of Reverter, Edwin C. Goddard Jan 1919

Determinable Fee - Possibility Of Reverter, Edwin C. Goddard

Articles

Professor Gray, in the first edition of his great work, "The Rule Against Perpetuities," Section 31 and following, contended that the Statute Quia Emptores by putting an end to tenure between feoffor and feoffee of an estate in fee simple, incidentally put an end to possibility of reverter to the feoffer on failure of the condition in a determihable fee. Specifically he says that upon dissolution of an eleemosynary corporation a terminable gift to such corporation does not revert to the donor, as is said by Lord Coke, Co. LITT. 13b, but escheats. For reversion depends on tenure, and the …


Alienation Of Contingent Remainders, Ralph W. Aigler Jan 1919

Alienation Of Contingent Remainders, Ralph W. Aigler

Articles

The recent case of Bisby v. Walker, 169 N. W. 467, decided by the Supreme Court of Iowa November 23, 1918, is an interesting instance of an all too common lack of appreciation and understanding of the very fundamentals of property law. Under the will of her grandfather B became entitled to a contingent remainder (at least the court treated it as such) in certain lands; the contingency upon which her taking depended was her being one of the surviving children of her mother at the time of the death of the life tenant, the testator's widow. During the continuance …


Is A Contract Necessary To Create An Effective Escrow?, Ralph W. Aigler Jun 1918

Is A Contract Necessary To Create An Effective Escrow?, Ralph W. Aigler

Articles

WHERE land has been sold and both parties are desirous of protecting themselves pending full payment of the purchase price, there are two common ways of accomplishing their purpose without any change in legal ownership. There may be (1) a contract of sale properly evidenced so as to be enforceable, and (2) a deed executed by the vendor and placed "in escrow." Sometimes one method is preferred, sometimes the other. If the former is adopted, it is, of course, vitally important that the contract comply with the formal requirements of the law; in the latter there has been some difference …


Effect Of Change Of Law Upon Obligation To Pay Rent, Ralph W. Aigler Jan 1918

Effect Of Change Of Law Upon Obligation To Pay Rent, Ralph W. Aigler

Articles

In McCullough Realty Co. v. Laemmle Film Service, (Nov. 16, 1917), 165 N. W. 33, the supreme court of Iowa had occasion to pass upon a question which has become increasingly frequent with the spread of prohibition laws, namely, the effect upon the obligation of a tenant to pay rent, of a subsequent law that makes it unlawful for him to use the premises for the purpose for which he leased them. The case before the Iowa court was not one arising out of a lease of premises for saloon purposes, but the question involved was precisely the same, and …


Joy Riding, Simple And Compound, Edgar N. Durfee Jan 1918

Joy Riding, Simple And Compound, Edgar N. Durfee

Articles

The wrongful use of another's automobile, even though accompanied by a trespassory taking, cannot, if followed by a return to the owner or an abandonment, be easily brought within the definition of larceny at common law or under the ordinary larceny statutes, because of the requirement of intent to deprive the owner permanently of his property. Smith v. State, 146 S. W. 547; State v. Boggs (Iowa, 1917), 164 N. W. 759; McClain, Criminal Law, § 566. Of course, such intent, at the time of taking, might be found in spite of return or abandonment, though it is doubtful whether …


Contingent Gifts And Incorporation By Reference, John R. Rood Jan 1918

Contingent Gifts And Incorporation By Reference, John R. Rood

Articles

The courts have had great difficulty in reconciling certain contingent gifts with the statutes requiring wills to be in writing duly executed. At first glance there appears no inconsistency, but in practice troubles accumulate.


Acquirement Of Title By A Willful Trespasser And Compensation For The Trespassee, Joseph H. Drake Jan 1918

Acquirement Of Title By A Willful Trespasser And Compensation For The Trespassee, Joseph H. Drake

Articles

The interaction of the basic maxim of substantive law, that no man may be deprived of his property without his consent, and the correlative maxim of adjective law, that the courts will give exact compensation for property taken or destroyed, together with the more or less mechanical rules of damages depending upon the form of action used, have in their outcome gone far toward justifying the somewhat grandiloquent utterance of our legal forbears of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, that the "Common Law is the perfection of human wisdom." The final stage in this development is shown in the late …


The Content Of Covenants In Leases, Ralph W. Aigler Jan 1918

The Content Of Covenants In Leases, Ralph W. Aigler

Articles

Among the many troublesome problems in law those arising out of "covenants running with the land" are not the least It is quite clear that in order for a covenant to "run" there must be an intimacy of relationship between it and the land, or. more properly, the estate, with which it passes. It is, then, vitally important to consider in each case the subject matter, the content of the covenant, and this matter of relationship.