Law Commons^™

Restituting Nazi-Looted Art: Domestic, Legislative, And Binding Intervention To Balance The Interests Of Victims And Museums, Katharine N. Skinner

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

The Nazis engaged in widespread art looting from Holocaust victims, either taking the artwork outright or using legal formalities to effect a transfer of title under duress. Years later, US museums acquired some of these pieces on a good-faith basis. Now, however, they face lawsuits by the heirs of Holocaust victims, who seek to have the museums return the artwork. Though good title cannot pass to the owner of stolen property under US law, unfavorable statutes of limitations, high financial hurdles, or discovery problems, among other obstacles, bar many of these claimants from seeking recovery. Though some museums have amicably …

Argument For The Allocation Of Resources To The Development Of A Well-Defined System Of Real Property Law In The Czech Republic, Donovan W. Burke

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Note analyzes the enormous burden that the Czech Republic faces in its transition from a command to a market economy. Part of the burden is the privatization of real property. Toward privatization, the government of the Czech Republic has thus far focused its resources on allocating real property to private parties through the process of restitution. Technically, title to real property in the Czech Republic has always been held by private parties, but such ownership was meaningless because the state had virtually limitless power to use the property. The author recognizes that unless the Czech government develops substantive real …

Deterrence, Death, And The Victims Of Crime: A Common Sense Approach, Frank G. Carrington

Vanderbilt Law Review

The concept of deterrence is one of the most important in the formulations of the victim advocate, primarily because of two essential premises that underlie the entire field of victim advocacy.The first, but not necessarily the most important, of these premises concerns the policy that favors assuaging the plight of persons after they have been victimized. This relief can be provided in a number of different ways: compensation to innocent victims from the states; restitution to victims as a condition of granting probation to the criminal; victim counselling; and victim/witness assistance programs.' The second premise of victim advocacy, namely,preventing victimization …

Forward: A Symposium On Restitution, John P. Dawson

Vanderbilt Law Review

The editors of the Vanderbilt Law Review deserve praise for arranging this symposium on the neglected subject of Restitution, a great and growing area of our private law whose literature is extra-ordinarily meager. Partly because of this neglect by legal scholars,the practicing profession as a whole remains unaware of the range and variety of restitutionary remedies and the possibilities they offer for solving problems that are otherwise intractable. The volume of restitution cases reported in current advance sheets shows that courts and lawyers are learning to make use of restitution remedies, but the subject still inspires hesitation and diffidence, for …

Restitution For Benefits Conferred Without Request, John W. Wade

Vanderbilt Law Review

The principle is now fully recognized in this country that a "person who has been unjustly enriched at the expense of another is required to make restitution to the other." This is the language of the first section of the Restatement of Restitution.' When one person confers a benefit upon another without the latter's solicitation, the benefit received constitutes an enrichment--a windfall, so to speak. This benefit may take one of several forms. It may involve (1) transferring property to the defendant, (2) saving, preserving or improving his property, (3) rendering personal services for him, or (4) performing for him …

Restitution -- 1964 Tennessee Survey, John W. Wade

Vanderbilt Law Review

The most significant case during the Survey period is Gulf Oil Corp.v. Forcum. The State of Tennessee condemned for highway purposes certain property including the location of a filling station. Defendant was lessee of this property and had installed its own tanks, pumps and other equipment. Plaintiff had the contract to construct the highway and was entitled under this contract to salvage condemned property. Refusing to allow defendant's agent to remove the service station equipment, plaintiff removed the equipment itself at considerable expense. When the condemnation proceeding was completed, defendant was awarded 2,000 dollars for the value of its leasehold, …

Restitution - 1963 Tennessee Survey, Brad Reed

Vanderbilt Law Review

Constructive trusts are related to the field of trusts in somewhat the same way that quasi-contracts are today related to the field of contracts-in misnomer only. A judicial declaration of a constructive trust means simply that the holder of legal title to the property affected, must convey it to the person for whose benefit the constructive trust is declared.' The primary efficacy of this equitable remedy is that it gives the successful complainant a preference over all the defendant's creditors; its theory is not that the complainant is trying to reach the defendant's property, but rather that the property which …

Restitution -- 1962 Tennessee Survey, John W. Wade

Vanderbilt Law Review

For the prevention of unjust enrichment of a defendant the courts make available a number of restitutionary remedies to a plaintiff. These remedies developed separately, and they differ somewhat in their characteristics, but during recent years writers have seen that there is a single principle underlying them all, whether they are administered at law or in equity.

Restitution -- 1961 Tennessee Survey, John W. Wade

Vanderbilt Law Review

"A person who has been unjustly enriched at the expense of an-other is required to make restitution to the other." This is the first section of the Restatement of Restitution.' It indicates the principle underlying a field of the law coordinate with tort and contract.About a dozen cases during the survey period may be classified as raising a problem within this general subject. They do not cover the whole range of the field and have here been classified on a pragmatic rather than an analytical basis.

Services are normally rendered under a contract which governs the nature of the services …

Restitution -- 1960 Tennessee Survey, William Wicker

Vanderbilt Law Review

Only two Tennessee restitution decisions were reported in the Southwestern Reporter during the year covered by this survey. One involves a question as to the liability of an intestate's estate for burial expenses which were not ordered by either the administrator or the sole heir and next of kin. The other involves a question concerning indemnity or contribution as between unintentional tort-feasors who were guilty of different degrees of negligence.

Book Reviews, Robert B. Looper, Ralph Slovenko

Vanderbilt Law Review

Cases and Materials on Restitution By John W. Wade Brooklyn: The Foundation Press, Inc., 1958. Pp. xxxi, 903. $11.00.

reviewer: Robert B. Looper

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Equal Justice for the Accused By a Special Committee of The Association of the Bar of the City of New York and The National Legal Aid Association New York: Doubleday & Co., 1959. Pp. 144. $3.50.

reviewer: Ralph Slovenko

Restitution -- 1958 Tennessee Survey, William Wicker

Vanderbilt Law Review

Civil remedies may be grouped under three classifications: torts, contracts, and restitution. The plaintiff's objective in a tort action is a recovery for his loss which resulted from the defendant's wrongful act, the measure of recovery being the amount of that loss expressed in dollars. The plaintiff's objective in a contract action is a recovery for a breach of the defendant's promise, the measure of recovery being the net addition to the plaintiff's estate which would have resulted had defendant performed his promise. Restitution is a giving back of what has been taken away unjustly. The plaintiff's objective in a …

Restitution -- 1957 Tennessee Survey, John W. Wade

Vanderbilt Law Review

Compulsion of Judgment: This year's most important decision in the field of Restitution is the famous case of New York Life Ins. Co.v. Nashville Trust Co.' This was the case in which one Buntin disappeared from his home in Nashville under circumstances which led the Supreme Court of Tennessee to hold that he had committed suicide and thus died while an insurance policy was still in effect. As a result the plaintiff insurance company was compelled to pay the defendant trust company, as trustees for the beneficiaries of the policy (Buntin's family), an amount of $60,000. Years later, Buntin was …

Restitution -- 1956 Tennessee Survey, John W. Wade

Vanderbilt Law Review

The pervasive principle of Restitution--that "A person who has been unjustly enriched at the expense of another is required to make restitution to the other"'--makes use of many remedies, both at law and in equity. This year's Restitution cases will be classified according to the nature of the remedy.

One who pays the obligation of another may be entitled to indemnity, if he has not acted officiously. He may also be entitled to the remedy of subrogation, permitting him to "step into the shoes" of the person to whom, he paid and enforce any lien or right which that person …

Restitution -- 1955 Tennessee Survey, John W. Wade

Vanderbilt Law Review

"A person who has been unjustly enriched at the expense of another is required to make restitution to the other."' This principle is a pervasive one, running throughout the common law. It is implemented by many remedies, both at law and in equity; and only in recent times has the single idea underlying the several remedies been clearly perceived. The Tennessee cases on Restitution will here be collected according to the remedies involved.