Law Commons^™

Conclusiveness Of The Federal Trade Commission's Findings As To Facts, Gregory Hankin

Michigan Law Review

The Federal Trade Commission Act and the Clayton Act provide that the Commission's findings as to facts, if supported by testimony, shall be conclusive. Now that the Commission has functioned for almost ten years and a considerable number of its findings have been reviewed by the courts, it is interesting to examine the effect of this statutory provision. In other words, are the findings of the Federal Trade Commission as to facts, if supported by testimony, actually conclusive on the courts when appeal is taken to the Circuit Court of Appeals? This we shall discuss apart from the question--"What, as …

Right To Determine The Place Of Burial Of A Corpse

Michigan Law Review

A dead body is not property, but a sort of quasi-property, so in a strict legal sense there are no property rights in a corpse. This is especially true after burial, as many courts make a distinction between rights existing prior to burial, and those after burial. Nevertheless, relatives have certain rights against others for mutilation, removal, etc. of a corpse, whether based on property or not. Cases where damages are recovered for mutilation before burial are common, and in England v. Central Pocahontas Coal Co. 86 W. Va. 575, the plaintiff was allowed an action of trespass against …

Trial Practice--Duty Of The Court To Instruct The Jury In The Absence Of A Request For Instructions

Michigan Law Review

A series of cases recently decided in Georgia brings to mind the interesting question as to whether the court is bound to give instructions upon the law of the case in the absence of a specific request therefor. See Slocumb v. State, 157 Ga. 131; Fort v. State, 121 S. E. 128; Hatfield v. State, 121 S. E. 129; Walker v. State, 121 S. E. 130; Bul­lard v. State, 121 S. E. 130; Coney v. State, 121 S. E. 132, and Riggs v. State (1924) 121 S. E. 142. In none of these cases …

Constitutional Validity Of Statute Barring Negroes From Primary Elections

Michigan Law Review

The history of suffrage in the South during the last thirty-five years has been largely a story of the adoption and administration of discriminatory regulations devised to catch the negro without debarring any considerable number of white people. This legal disfranchisement has been accomplished by property or educational qualifications possessed generally by whites but not by negroes, or by giving a great deal of discretion to election and registration officials, who, understanding what is expected of them, find quite uniformly that the negroes do not meet the requirements while the white applicants generally do. How the letter of the Fifteenth …

Recent Important Decisions

Michigan Law Review

A collection of recent important court decisions.

Book Reviews

Michigan Law Review

A collection of book reviews by multiple authors.

Corporate Stock And Inheritance Taxation

Michigan Law Review

News of the recent election includes the item that the state of Florida, in addition to climate, now offers constitutional exemption from state income and inheritance taxation as an attraction to elderly persons of wealth to make that state their home. In most of our states the effort is in the other direction, to include within the scope of the inheritance tax law everything that the state may reach without running afoul of constitutional inhibitions on legislative action. A discussion of all the varied and interesting situations which test the limit of the power of taxing inheritances would run far …

International Law-Extraterritorial Seizures In Times Of Peace-The Recent "Rum" Treaties

Michigan Law Review

It is commonly accepted as a general rule of the law of nations that the territorial jurisdiction of a littoral state extends three miles into the adjacent sea. 1 HYDE, INTERNATIONAL LAW, §141; EVANS, CASES ON INTERNATIONAL LAW, 2nd ed., p. 152, note. It has been held that even this rule does not preclude rights of innocent passage within three miles of the coast, The Queen v. Keyn (1876) L. R. Z. Exchq. Div. 63; EVANS, supra, p. 155 note; HYDE, supra; or of involuntary entrance by "stress of weather or by inevitable necessity'', 1 HYDE, supra, …

The First American Mining Code, Arthur S. Aiton

Michigan Law Review

It is characteristic of Spain's priority in the New; World that the first American mining law should have been developed in Mexico, soon after the conquest by Cortes, as a natural result of the extension of royal authority overseas in the person of the first viceroy, Don Antonio de Mendoza. The surprising fact is that this code, despite recent interest aroused by the Mexican petroleum controversy, extensive American mining investments south of the Rio Grande and its probable influence on early western mining legislation, has remained unknown. Scholars and investigators have been content with later colonial and republican legal sources …

Rights Of Action Under Death And Survival Statutes, Bowen E. Schumacher

Michigan Law Review

Upon the injury of a person by the wrongful act of another and his death subsequent to and as a result of the injury, it would seem at a glance that there has been two wrongs done. First, there is the wrong to the injured person, giving rise to an action of tort against the wrongdoer, and secondly the injury to the relatives who, by the death, are deprived of support or financial contribution from the decedent. At common law the right of action accruing to the person before his death, i. e. the action for the tort, abated at …

The Juridical Nature Of The State, Sir Paul Vinogradoff

Michigan Law Review

Of all varieties of social co-operation, one dominates the others. It is the State, and a fundamental problem in every system of law consists in settling the legal relations between the State and its members- both the individuals and the juridical persons.

The Federal Uniform Procedure Bill

Michigan Law Review

After eleven long years of reposing in the files of the judiciary committees, the Federal Procedure Bill (S. 2061), sponsored by the Committee on Uniform Judicial Procedure of the American Bar Association, has finally been favorably reported by the Judiciary Committee of the Senate, and the patron of the bill, Senator A. B. Cummins, will call it up for passage during the early days of the December session of Congress. For eleven long years opponents of the bill have succeeded in keeping it in committee files, and it is to be expected that the proponents of the measure will have …

Admiralty-Seaworthiness-The Harter Act

Michigan Law Review

A vessel strands through negligent navigation and cargo in the forward hold is damaged as a result of a leak due to the tearing on a rock of plates at the forward end of the vessel. This is the typical case of a fault and error in navigation under section 3 of the Harter Act, as to which the vessel owner is exempted from liability. "That if the owner of any vessel transporting merchandise or property to or from any port in the United States of America shall exercise due diligence to make the said vessel in all respects seaworthy …

Carriers-Limit Of Liability In Bill Of Lading Where Carrier Converts Shipment

Michigan Law Review

The Carmack and Cummins Amendments to the act of 1887 have wrought some startling changes in the law applicable to interstate shipments. But the end is not yet. The provision in those amendments which makes the initial carrier liable on a bona fide contract, to the amount fixed in the published tariff, "for loss, damage or injury to such property, caused by it or by any common carrier * * * to which such property may be delivered or over whose line or lines such property may pass", provokes the question as to how broadly that provision is going to …

Mines And Mining--Extralateral Right Where Vein Enters Side Line Of Location

Michigan Law Review

ln Rico-Argentine Mining Co. et al v. Rico Consol. Mining Co. et al. 74 Colo. 444, the supreme court of Colorado states some interesting propositions of mining law, one of which, at least, seems of rather dubious validity. A suit was brought by the owner of the Allegheny mine to recover for (and to enjoin) a trespass on its property by the owner of the Blackhawk and 'Wide Awake mines, which adjoined the Allegheny on its westerly side. The Blackhawk and Wide A wake locations were senior to the Allegheny, and their owner claimed the right to the minerals under …

Book Reviews

Michigan Law Review

A collection of book reviews by multiple authors.

Recent Important Decisions

Michigan Law Review

A collection of recent important court decisions.

Nebulous Injunctions

Michigan Law Review

The entry of an injunction is, in some respects, analogous to the publication of a penal statute; it is notice that certain things must be done or not done, under a penalty to be fixed by the court. Such a decree should be as definite, clear and precise in its terms as possible, so that there may be no reason or excuse for misunderstanding or disobeying it; and when practicable it should plainly indicate to the defendant all of the acts which he is restrained from doing, without calling upon him for inferences or conclusions about which persons may well …

Legal Standards And Ideals, Sir Paul Vinogradoff

Michigan Law Review

Provisions for the settling of conflicts constitute the greater part of any legal system. These conflicts are not entirely governed by self interest and the idea of ethical duty does not disappear from them: it asserts itself in the shape of the balance to be established ·by the court: while every litigant presses for the satisfaction of his own claims society is called upon to adjudicate fairly between the parties: the moral notion of justice appears as the impartial attribution of what everyone in society ought to have by right. We make distinctions between men in accordance with their greater …

Liability In Tort Of Infants And Insane Persons, Francis H. Bohlen

Michigan Law Review

It is universally held that mere infancy or insanity does not preclude liability for the impairment of another's bodily condition or the physical condition of another's property caused by conduct which, if that of an adult or mentally normal person, would be a wrong of aggression or negligence.

But there is a conflict of authority and a wide divergence of opinion among text writers as to the liability of persons who, because of extreme youth or mental deficiency, are incapable of forming a culpable intention, or whose incapacity to realize the probable consequences of their conduct makes it unjust to …

Constitutional Law-Liberty Of Contract-Regulation Of Loaves Of Bread

Michigan Law Review

A Nebraska statute aimed at short weights in loaves of bread, forbade the manufacture or sale of loaves weighing either more or less than specified standard amounts. It applied only to quantities of 25 loaves or more and a "tolerance" of two ounces per pound was allowed in excess of the standard weights, to be measured by taking an average of the whole consignment. The prohibition of excess weights was explained by the Nebraska court as an attempt "to prevent a loaf of one standard from being increased in size until it can readily be sold for a larger standard". …

Resistance To Illegal Arrest

Michigan Law Review

Precisely how far an individual may go in resisting an illegal arrest either by an officer or a private citizen, is a question which is of vital importance to the citizen and police officials and one which the courts have not definitely settled. Personal liberty is so esteemed that under certain circumstances one should have the right to resist, to some extent at least, any unlawful interference therewith. But as Beccaria says in his CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS, "It is a false idea of utility which thinks more of the inconvenience of individuals than of the general inconvenience". Translation by James …

The New Soviet Codes And Soviet Justice, Pitirim Sorokin

Michigan Law Review

Up to 1922 it is scarcely possible to speak of any justice, law, court and trial in Soviet Russia if we want to use these terms in their usual meanings. The years 1918-21 were the years of terror. And what this term means is clear from the following statement of Latzis, one of the heads of "The Extraordinary Commission for the Suppression of Counter-Revolution and Speculation" or the "Che-ka." "We do not carry on the war against the individuals: we are exterminating the bourgeoisie as a class. Do not look in the inquest for any material and for any evidences …

Book Reviews

Michigan Law Review

A collection of book reviews by multiple authors.

Recent Important Decisions

Michigan Law Review

A collection of recent important court decisions.

Injunction Against Execution Of Criminal Judgment

Michigan Law Review

Sometime in 1921 or 1922 one Ullah Mohammed, an Afghan, unable to speak or understand English, was convicted of murder in the first degree in the Sonoma county court, of California. The evidence showed that he entered deceased's bed-room, fired a shot-gun at him, clubbed him over the head, and then cut his throat with a razor. An appeal was taken on the instructions as to self-defense and was summarily overruled. People v. Mohammed, 189 Cal. 429. Later a bill was filed in the superior court of San Francisco for an injunction to prevent Mohammed's execution. It was alleged …

Fishing Expeditions By Commissions, John Leland Mechem

Michigan Law Review

Can Congress, under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, delegate visitorial powers over private corporations engaged in interstate commerce, to the extent of granting unlimited and unrestricted examination and inspection of private papers and effects, with the right to copy them?

Contracts With The United States, Grover C. Grismore

Michigan Law Review

It has been settled since a comparatively early day in the history of our government that "the United States being a body politic, may, within the sphere of the constitutional powers confided to it, and through the instrumentality of the proper department to which those powers are confided, enter into contracts not prohibited by law, and appropriate to the just exercise of those powers." While this proposition became established without much of a struggle, it has not been so freely admitted that such contracts are to be given the same construction and effect as the contracts of individuals. In Smoot's …

Fair Value Of Public Utilities, Edwin C. Goddard

Michigan Law Review

Such being the decisions, we turn to the practical working of the theories that have been applied. The law is a practical subject. Even in so sacred a matter as protection of property, rules of law should regard the practical results of any theory. A theory that works badly, presumptively at least, is defective, and may be wrong. The guaranties of the Constitution were made for man, not man for the guaranties, and a conception of property that does not work out for the advantage of man may raise a query whether the Constitution demands that conception. It was that …

Arrest Without A Warrant, Horace L. Wilgus

Michigan Law Review

Aiding in Arrest: An officer having authority to make an arrest may, orally or otherwise, call upon any citizen to aid him, and in emergencies, such as riots, mobs, etc., may raise the posse comitatus, or power of the county to help him; or the military force of the county may be called out if necessary. It is immaterial whether the officer acts under a warrant, or under his authority without a warrant; or whether the offense is a felony, or a misdemeanor, or an original arrest or recapture; or whether the person arrested is innocent or guilty, …