Law Commons^™

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 …

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, …