Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Discipline
-
- Courts (10)
- State and Local Government Law (9)
- Supreme Court of the United States (8)
- Comparative and Foreign Law (5)
- Legislation (5)
-
- Common Law (4)
- Contracts (4)
- Property Law and Real Estate (4)
- Bankruptcy Law (3)
- Business Organizations Law (3)
- Estates and Trusts (3)
- Military, War, and Peace (3)
- Constitutional Law (2)
- Jurisdiction (2)
- Jurisprudence (2)
- Juvenile Law (2)
- Legal Education (2)
- Legal Remedies (2)
- Litigation (2)
- Admiralty (1)
- Civil Rights and Discrimination (1)
- Commercial Law (1)
- Communications Law (1)
- Criminal Law (1)
- Energy and Utilities Law (1)
- Evidence (1)
- Fourteenth Amendment (1)
- Insurance Law (1)
- Labor and Employment Law (1)
- Keyword
-
- England (9)
- State courts (9)
- United States Supreme Court (8)
- Property (6)
- Judgments (4)
-
- Bankruptcy (3)
- Justice (3)
- Michigan (3)
- Performance (3)
- Trials (3)
- Children (2)
- Constitution (2)
- Enemy nations (2)
- Equity (2)
- Foreign nationals (2)
- Germany (2)
- Gifts (2)
- History (2)
- Intent (2)
- Land (2)
- Lawyers (2)
- Leases (2)
- Obligations (2)
- Ordinances (2)
- Rate making (2)
- Trespasses (2)
- Wills (2)
- Actions (1)
- Adoption (1)
- Armies (1)
Articles 1 - 30 of 35
Full-Text Articles in Law
Sociological Interpretation Of Law, Joseph H. Drake
Sociological Interpretation Of Law, Joseph H. Drake
Articles
It is not the purpose of this paper to essay a definition of either of the formidable words in the title. The object is rather to call attention away from the metaphysical question, what is law? to the sociological question, how may we best attain justice in the administration of law? and, by the aid of some examples from history and comparative law, to justify as legal and constitutional the sociological method of interpretation. That such justification is necessary is evident from the fact that although the dictum of Mr. Justice. HOLMES in the dissenting opinion in Lochner v. New …
Is A Contract Necessary To Create An Effective Escrow?, Ralph W. Aigler
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 …
Admission To The Bar, Edwin C. Goddard
Admission To The Bar, Edwin C. Goddard
Articles
This article is written in the belief that the hour is here when some changes in admissions to the bar should be urged and urged again, when some things often thought and discussed in certain assemblies should be openly and frankly talked over with the profession at large.
The Statute Of Uses And Active Trusts, Edgar N. Durfee
The Statute Of Uses And Active Trusts, Edgar N. Durfee
Articles
To explain the survival of uses, alias trusts, after the Statute of Uses, one is probably justified in assuming a sympathetic attitude toward this Equitable institution on the part of the Common Law Judges. Maitland, Equity, 29. But, however predisposed the Judges might be, they would have to satisfy themselves, perhaps others as well, that they were interpreting rather than nullifying the Statute. Only such uses could be saved as could be "distinguished." The case of the use raised upon a chattel interest is clear enough, as it was without the letter, and fairly without the mischief, of the Statute. …
The Writ Of Prohibition - Procedural Delay, Edson R. Sunderland
The Writ Of Prohibition - Procedural Delay, Edson R. Sunderland
Articles
A disheartening recrudescence of procedural red-tape is found in a recent decision of the Supreme Court of Ohio. A contest arose over the jurisdiction of the Public Service Commission to fix telephone rates in Cleveland. The Commission was engaged in a determination as to the reasonableness of a schedule of rates filed by the telephone company, when a petition was filed in the Common Pleas Court for an injunction against the charging of rates other than those fixed by a city ordinance. Believing that under the statute the Public Service Commission had exclusive jurisdiction over the subject of rates, and …
Effectiveness Of Oral Contracts, Within The Statute Of Frauds, John B. Waite
Effectiveness Of Oral Contracts, Within The Statute Of Frauds, John B. Waite
Articles
In Morris v. Baron and Co., (House of Lords, 1917), 87 L. J. R. (K. B.) 145, plaintiff and defendant had entered into a contract of sale and plaintiff, as vendor, had delivered part of the goods agreed upon. Delivery of the remainder would have been a condition precedent to any recovery by the plaintiff. This contract, however, was followed by a second one, not in writing, whereby plaintiff was absolved from delivering the rest of the goods, but by which he agreed that he would deliver them if the defendant should so request. Thereafter plaintiff brought this action for …
Insurance Policies As Assets In Bankruptcy, Evans Holbrook
Insurance Policies As Assets In Bankruptcy, Evans Holbrook
Articles
The Supreme Court of the United States, in the recent case of Cohen v. Samuels, 38 Sup. Ct. 36, has put an end to a method, approved by some of the lower Federal Courts, whereby a person could create a fund which would be completely under his control but which would nevertheless be protected against any claim on the part of his trustee in bankruptcy. The circumstances in the principal case were as follows: Samuels had taken out ordinary life insurance policies, with the usual provisions as to loan and surrender values, payable to certain of his relatives as beneficiaries, …
Interstate Commerce Commission - Intrastate Rates, Edwin C. Goddard
Interstate Commerce Commission - Intrastate Rates, Edwin C. Goddard
Articles
The marvelous possibilities for collision between State and Nation involved in our dual form of government are nowhere better or more often exhibited than in commerce regulation. We have long been learning the definition of the commerce which the constitution gives Congress power to regulate. It is only recently that we are finding how this power reaches over into purely intrastate business done by a carrier also engaged in interstate commerce. That nearly all rail carriers are now engaged in such business, even when their lines are wholly intrastate, has been often illustrated under the Second Employer's Liability Act. In …
Acquirement Of Title By A Willful Trespasser And Compensation For The Trespassee, Joseph H. Drake
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 …
Cost Of Public Justice, John R. Rood
Cost Of Public Justice, John R. Rood
Articles
The common citizen who becomes victim of a wrong and seeks redress in the courts of America soon finds by bitter experience that it is better to bear those ills we have than go to law. The expense is more than the thing is worth. The result depends on who has the longest purse, the most endurance, and the shrewdest lawyer, and little on the merits of the case. When he gets to court he finds his remaining money is being spent, not in the trial of his case, but in deciding whether an absque hoc is a sine que …
The Content Of Covenants In Leases, Ralph W. Aigler
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.
Re-Writing The Statute Of Frauds: Part Performance In Equity, Willard T. Barbour
Re-Writing The Statute Of Frauds: Part Performance In Equity, Willard T. Barbour
Articles
One of the most striking examples of judicial legislation is that process whereby courts of equity, from the end of the seventeenth century onwards, have in no small measure re-written the Statute of Frauds. Exception was added to exception until the doctrine kmown as "part performance" became firmly established. The doctrine was not evolved consistently and the basis of some applications of it is obscure. One who follows Sir Edward Frys admirable but futile attempt (Fry, SPECIFIC PERFORMANCE (ed. 5) §§ 580, ff.) to systematize the variant decisions of the English courts must feel doubtful whether any single theory will …
Contract Of Infant--Evidence, Competency Of Witness Under Survivorship Statute, Victor H. Lane
Contract Of Infant--Evidence, Competency Of Witness Under Survivorship Statute, Victor H. Lane
Articles
Two questions are presented by the case of Sigiaigo v. Signaigo, (Mo. 1918), 205 S. W. Rep. 23: First, the enforcibility of the contract of an infant, fully performed by her, to live with a man and his wife as their adopted child so long as they should live, in consideration that the infant should have all the property of the foster parents upon their death; and Second, the competency of the consenting mother of the infant to testify in support of the infant's claim.
Child Labor Law Case, Commerce Power Of Congress And Reserved Powers Of The States, Henry M. Bates
Child Labor Law Case, Commerce Power Of Congress And Reserved Powers Of The States, Henry M. Bates
Articles
The decision in the Child Labor Law case, Hammer v. Dagenhart, - U. S. -, 62 L. ed. -, decided June 3, 1918, would have caused much less surprise twenty-five years ago than it did when announced last June, for it is based upon two constitutional provisions concerning which the much wider and more varied experience of the last quarter century had developed theories, better defined and sounder than those of the earlier period. Those two provisions are the Tenth Amendment regarding the powers reserved to the States and the Commerce Clause. There has been an astonishing amount of faulty …
Substitutional Gifts To Classes, John R. Rood
Substitutional Gifts To Classes, John R. Rood
Articles
In some recent cases we have fresh reminder of the futility of Sir William Grant's distinction between original and substitutional gifts, a rule over which courts have quarreled and disagreed ever since it was promulgated, and which never was applied to the exclusion of anyone without disappointing the wish of the testator. In speaking of this rule in Re Hickey, [1917], 1 Ch. D. 601, 604, Neville, J., says: "The alleged principle seems to be that the meaning of the word 'substitute' involves the idea of replacing one thing by another. One cannot 'substitute' something for nothing. The proposition appears …
Contingent Gifts And Incorporation By Reference, John R. Rood
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.
Acquiring Jurisdiction Without Personal Service, Seizure Of Aid Of Statute, John R. Rood
Acquiring Jurisdiction Without Personal Service, Seizure Of Aid Of Statute, John R. Rood
Articles
It is often assumed that courts can acquire jurisdiction only by personal service to give jurisdiction in personam, or by a seizure to give jurisdiction in rem; but it is not so. The assumption is induced no doubt by the fact that in the ordinary common law actions jurisdiction is acquired in that way. Mr. Justice Field very distinctly pointed out in the case of Pennoyer v. Neff (1877), 95 U. S. 714, that it was not the fact that the land was not seized that rendered the judgment void. It was the fact that the land was not the …
Who Is An Alien Enemy?, Edson R. Sunderland
Who Is An Alien Enemy?, Edson R. Sunderland
Articles
One Gustav Muller, a native German, resided in England on May 20th, 1915. He had never been naturalized. He owned a leasehold house in England, and on the date just mentioned he executed a power of attorney to one John White to sell this leasehold house and make proper conveyance of the same. Six days later he was permitted by the British Government to return to Germany, and he started the same day, May 26th. He was known to be in Germany on June 11th, but the date of his arrival was unknown. On June 2 the leasehold was sold …
Anglo-Saxon' And 'Teutonic' Standards Of Justice, Edson R. Sunderland
Anglo-Saxon' And 'Teutonic' Standards Of Justice, Edson R. Sunderland
Articles
In The Kaiser Wilhelm II, 230 Fed. Rep. 717, the British shipbuilding firm of Harland & Wolff filed a libel against the steamship Kaiser Wilhelm II, owned by the North German Lloyd, a German corporation, for repairs made on the ship in libelant's shipyard in England. This suit was commenced before the United States entered the war, and the court made an order dismissing the libel on the ground that Great Britain and Germany had each enacted laws forbidding its subjects from making any payments to the subjects of the other, and as these enactments were merely declaratory of the …
Inducing Breach Of Agreement By Employees Not To Join A Labor Union, In Order To Compel Unionization Of Plaintiff's Business, Horace Lafayette Wilgus
Inducing Breach Of Agreement By Employees Not To Join A Labor Union, In Order To Compel Unionization Of Plaintiff's Business, Horace Lafayette Wilgus
Articles
In Hitchnan Coal & Coke Compazy v. John Mitchell, et al., (Dec. 10, 1917), 38 Sup. Ct. 65, the novel question was presented to the Supreme Court of the United States, as to whether or not members of a labor Union could be enjoined from conspiring to persuade, and persuading, without violence or show of violence, plaintiff's employees, not members of the Union,-and who were working for plaintiff not for a specified time, but under an agreement not to continue in plaintiff's employment if they joined the Union, this agreement being fully known to defendants,-secretly to agree to join the …
Performance Of An Existing Obligation As Consideration For A Promise, John B. Waite
Performance Of An Existing Obligation As Consideration For A Promise, John B. Waite
Articles
The dictum that if there be nothing in a rule flatly contradictory to reason the law will presume it to be well founded, and that the office of the judge is "jus dicere and not jus dare", is responsible for much agony of construction and tortious logic on the part of courts torn by desire to evade it in the interest of modern ideas of right. There is a trilogy of accepted legal principles which it has been particularly difficult for the courts to adhere to in spirit or to repudiate in letter. They are the propositions, that for a …
Liability Of Corporations For Slander, Horace Lafayette Wilgus
Liability Of Corporations For Slander, Horace Lafayette Wilgus
Articles
S. entrusted by the president and general manager of a corporation with the business of obtaining a settlement from plaintiff for a mistakenly supposed shortage in his accounts with the corporation, falsely orally charged him with embezzlement. This charge was made to R., president of another corporation for which the plaintiff was working at the time, and as a step toward getting a settlement by the plaintiff. On the request for a directed verdict, by the defendant, the legal question was presented whether a corporation is liable for slander spoken by the agent of the corporation in the course of …
Some Aspects Of Fifteenth Century Chancery, Willard T. Barbour
Some Aspects Of Fifteenth Century Chancery, Willard T. Barbour
Articles
IT is now more than thirty years since Justice Holmes in a brilliant and daring essay set on foot an inquiry which has revealed the remote beginnings of English equity. Equity and common law originated in one and the same procedure and existed for a long time, not only side by side, but quite undifferentiated from each other. Their origin is to be found in the system of royal justice which the genius of Henry II converted into the common law; but this royal justice was in the beginning as much outside of, or even antagonistic to, the ordinary judicial …
Acquiring Jurisdiction In Garnishment Proceedings, John R. Rood
Acquiring Jurisdiction In Garnishment Proceedings, John R. Rood
Articles
Garnishment is a proceeding provided by statutes found in every state, for the purpose of laying hold of something belonging to a defendant or judgment debtor but actually in the hands of someone else, and appropriating it to pay the debt due from the defendant or judgment debtor. If the proceeding is instituted ancillary to a pending suit, and before judgment, it is a species of attachment. If it is issued ancillary to a judgment already recovered it is a species of execution. If the third person summoned as garnishee is merely bailee of property belonging to the judgment debtor …
The Federal Bankruptcy Act And Its Effect On State Insolvency Laws, Evans Holbrook
The Federal Bankruptcy Act And Its Effect On State Insolvency Laws, Evans Holbrook
Articles
Since Sturgis v. Crowninshield, 4 Wheat. 122, it has been clear that State Insolvency Laws were valid (within certain well-defined limits) during the non-existence of a Federal Bankruptcy Act, and that upon the enactment of a Federal Bankruptcy Act the State laws were superseded and suspended so far as they were in conflict with the Federal legislation. The difficulty has been in determining when there was such conflict, and it has arisen in various ways. For instance, the Federal Bankruptcy Act permits any natural person to become a voluntary bankrupt, but provides that no involuntary proceedings shall be taken against …
Race Segregation Ordinance Invalid, Henry M. Bates
Race Segregation Ordinance Invalid, Henry M. Bates
Articles
The opinion in Buchanan v. Warley reflects the confusion and difficulty of that troublesome problem, the place of the negro race in the United States, with which the case and the segregation ordinance of Louisville discussed therein are essentially concerned. The decision by a unanimous court reverses the holding of the Kentucky Court of Appeals, and declares that the ordinance violates the Fourteenth Amendment. This result is reached by one of those anomalous and objectionable devices which characterize our methods of solving fundamental constitutional questions. The case arose upon a bill for specific performance of a contract, whereby the plaintiff, …
Public Utility Valuation - Going-Concern Value In Rate Making, Edwin C. Goddard
Public Utility Valuation - Going-Concern Value In Rate Making, Edwin C. Goddard
Articles
What is the effect of a city ordinance which proposes to a public utility company the terms on which it may dispose of its product to the users, but which is rejected by the company? As to a company not yet doing business it is clear that the ordinance when rejected becomes a mere legal nullity. It never was more than an offer that might ripen into a binding contract by acceptance. That it is by no means a nullity as to a utility actually operating in the city after the expiration of its franchise and as a mere tenant …
Joy Riding, Simple And Compound, Edgar N. Durfee
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 …
When Is A Preferential Transfer 'Required' To Be Recorded? , Evans Holbrook
When Is A Preferential Transfer 'Required' To Be Recorded? , Evans Holbrook
Articles
The BANKRUPTCY ACT of 1898 (as amended in 1903 and 1910), after defining a preference, provides in § 60b that preferences made under certain circumstances may be recovered from the preferred creditor if the latter had "reasonable cause to believe" that a preference was to be effected "at the time of the transfer * * * or of the recording or registering of the transfer if by law recording or registering thereof is required," such time being within four months before bankruptcy. Bankrupcty courts have for years been vexed with the question: When is a transfer "required" to be recorded …
Power Of The U.S. Supreme Court To Enforce Judgments Against States, Henry M. Bates
Power Of The U.S. Supreme Court To Enforce Judgments Against States, Henry M. Bates
Articles
Four and one-half centuries later the "sovereign state" of Virginia sued the "sovereign state" of West Virginia to recover a sum of money alleged to be due upon the agreement of West Virginia to assume its proportionate share of the debt of the old state of Virginia. The suit was brought in the Supreme Court of the United States, which after prolonged consideration rendered judgment for the plaintiff. No execution or other compulsory process was issued, however. But now after delays for various reasons and pretexts urged by West Virginia the court is compelled to face the problem of what …