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Full-Text Articles in Law

Unrecognized Government Or State In English And American Law (Part 1), Edwin D. Dickinson Jan 1923

Unrecognized Government Or State In English And American Law (Part 1), Edwin D. Dickinson

Articles

From the decision of this novel case, reported as Pelzer v. United Dredging Co., we may infer that the New York courts regard unrecognized Mexico as a sort of legal vacuum. In granting the corporation's motion for judgment on the pleadings, the Supreme Court said: "The administratrix plaintiff is an officer of a foreign court. It is syllogistically true that if the foreign court has no recognized power here she may not assert a right derived through her appointment therefrom. The Mexican government is not de facto here, since recognition alone can make it so. It may have all the …


Legislation In Vague Or General Terms, Ralph W. Aigler Jan 1923

Legislation In Vague Or General Terms, Ralph W. Aigler

Articles

FOR some reason, probably in part the increasing complexity of our life and relationships, but more largely, perhaps, the growing tendency to regulate everybody and everything by positive law, the courts have been called upon with increasing frequency to pass upon the effectiveness of statutes and ordinances phrased in indefinite terms. In a very interesting and valuable paper, Professor Freund has pointed out the weakness and strength, on the one hand, of legislation in general terms, and on the other hand, legislation in which the rule of conduct is attempted to be laid down with precision. His interest apparently lay …


International Recognition And The National Courts, Edwin D. Dickinson Jan 1923

International Recognition And The National Courts, Edwin D. Dickinson

Articles

The extending of international recognition to a new government or a new state is a political function which belongs exclusively to the political departments of government. It follows that whenever the question of recognition or not is really involved in litigation the court should inform itself, as to the course pursued by the appropriate political department and decide accordingly. This much, if it ever needed to be settled, may now be regarded as settled beyond peradventure.


Public Utility Valuation, Edwin C. Goddard Jan 1923

Public Utility Valuation, Edwin C. Goddard

Articles

It has been so often remarked that the "valuation" of public utilities is determined by no rule of thumb, that there are no fixed rules or formulas to guide courts or commissions, that determination of value as a rate base is matter of judgment and discretion in each case, Minnesota Rate Cares, 230 U. S. 352, 434, that the statement has come to be believed by reason in part of its much repetition. It is usually accepted as axiomatic. The glorious uncertainty resulting from such an admission will continue so long as judgments of one man or set of men …


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, …


Unrecognized Government Or State In English And American Law (Part 2), Edwin D. Dickinson Jan 1923

Unrecognized Government Or State In English And American Law (Part 2), Edwin D. Dickinson

Articles

PROBABLY no one in the British Empire or the United States would question the doctrine that it belongs exclusively to the political departments to recognize new governments or states. The difficulties involved are those which arise in the application of a doctrine so broadly stated. Not every situation involving an unrecognized government or state requires the decision of a question of recognition. If the decision of a political question is not involved, then it is entirely proper for the courts to take cognizance of a mere de facto government or state. In what situations may the courts appropriately take account …


Divorce Problems In The Conflict Of Laws, Herbert F. Goodrich Jan 1923

Divorce Problems In The Conflict Of Laws, Herbert F. Goodrich

Articles

Divorce may be considered as the termination of the legal relationship between husband and wife by an act of the law. With the purely local aspect of legal questions regarding divorce, Conflict of Laws is not concerned. If a husband and wife are married and have their home in one state, legal questions concerning their divorce are local matters only. These will include the grounds for divorce, the particular court in which the action is brought, the procedure to be followed from commencement to termination of the action. In such a case it is only when some question concerning the …


Challenges To The Array, Edson R. Sunderland Jan 1923

Challenges To The Array, Edson R. Sunderland

Articles

Trial by jury demands impartial jurors as the indispensable basis for public confidence. And the first requisite for obtaining impartiality is indifference on the part of those who select the jury. This was fully recognized at the common law, and ever since the days when jurors ceased to be witnesses and became triers of facts, it was a good objection to the entire panel that the sheriff was not indifferent between the parties in the selection and summoning of the jury. Prejudice on the part of individual jurors could be met by challenges to the polls, but when favor lurked …