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Full-Text Articles in Law

Is A Contract Necessary To Create An Effective Escrow?, Ralph W. Aigler Jun 1918

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 …


Effect Of Change Of Law Upon Obligation To Pay Rent, Ralph W. Aigler Jan 1918

Effect Of Change Of Law Upon Obligation To Pay Rent, Ralph W. Aigler

Articles

In McCullough Realty Co. v. Laemmle Film Service, (Nov. 16, 1917), 165 N. W. 33, the supreme court of Iowa had occasion to pass upon a question which has become increasingly frequent with the spread of prohibition laws, namely, the effect upon the obligation of a tenant to pay rent, of a subsequent law that makes it unlawful for him to use the premises for the purpose for which he leased them. The case before the Iowa court was not one arising out of a lease of premises for saloon purposes, but the question involved was precisely the same, and …


Joy Riding, Simple And Compound, Edgar N. Durfee Jan 1918

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 …


Cost Of Public Justice, John R. Rood Jan 1918

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 …


Full Faith And Credit And Jurisdiction, Willard T. Barbour Jan 1918

Full Faith And Credit And Jurisdiction, Willard T. Barbour

Articles

The judgment of a sister state, when assailed by collateral attack, is often said to occupy a position intermediate between foreign and domestic judgments. Though the older American cases were inclined to examine into the merits of any foreign judgment, the present tendency is toward the adoption of the English view according to which a foreign judgment may be attacked collaterally only for want of jurisdiction or fraud. Dicey, Conflict of Laws (ed. 2) Ch. XVII; see note to Tremblay v. Aetna Life Insurance Co., 97 Me. 547, in 94 Am. St. Rep. 521, 538. But whereas any statement of …


Acquiring Jurisdiction Without Personal Service, Seizure Of Aid Of Statute, John R. Rood Jan 1918

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 …


The Writ Of Prohibition - Procedural Delay, Edson R. Sunderland Jan 1918

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 …


Performance Of An Existing Obligation As Consideration For A Promise, John B. Waite Jan 1918

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 Jan 1918

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 …


The Disposition To Be Made Of Property The Subject Of A Power If The Power Is Not Exercised, John R. Rood Mar 1917

The Disposition To Be Made Of Property The Subject Of A Power If The Power Is Not Exercised, John R. Rood

Articles

The object sought in this article is to collect and classify the cases in which the courts have passed on the question as to what shall be done with property over which a power of appointment has been given; when it finally turns out for some reason that the power has not been exercised. It is not the object to establish any particular thesis, but rather to ascertain how the adjudicated cases stand.


Rights In Percolating Waters, Ralph W. Aigler Jan 1917

Rights In Percolating Waters, Ralph W. Aigler

Articles

Almost without exception the courts approve of Acton v. Blundell, 12 M. & W. 324, to the extent of its actual decision,-that where as a result of improvement or enjoyment of one's own land one conducts operations which draw off percolating waters from a neighbor's land, even to the extent of drying up a well or spring, such inconvenience is to be deemed damnum absque injuria. The doctrine of the court "that the person who owns the surface may dig therein, and apply all that is there found to his own purposes at his free will and pleasure," if intended …


The Right Of Fishing, Ralph W. Aigler Jan 1917

The Right Of Fishing, Ralph W. Aigler

Articles

While the man engaged in fishing is ordinarily more concerned with the supply of fish and their susceptibility than with his right to be doing what he is, not infrequently the latter question is thrust upon his attention. Popular notions on this matter are not to be relied upon. "In country life a multitude of acts are habitually committed that are technically trespasses. Persons walk, catch fish, pick berries, and gather nuts in alieno solo, without strict right. Good natured owners tolerate these practices until they become annoying or injurious, and then put a stop to them," ADAMS, J., in …


Rights In Percolating Waters, Ralph W. Aigler Jan 1917

Rights In Percolating Waters, Ralph W. Aigler

Articles

Almost without exception the courts approve of Acton v. Blundell, 12 M. & W. 324, to the extent of its actual decision,-that where as a result of improvement or enjoyment of one's own land one conducts operations which draw off percolating waters from a neighbor's land, even to the extent of drying up a well or spring, such inconvenience is to be deemed damnum absque injuria. The doctrine of the court "that the person who owns the surface may dig therein, and apply all that is there found to his own purposes at his free will and pleasure," if intended …


The Right Of Fishing, Ralph W. Aigler Jan 1917

The Right Of Fishing, Ralph W. Aigler

Articles

While the man engaged in fishing is ordinarily more concerned with the supply of fish and their susceptibility than with his right to be doing what he is, not infrequently the latter question is thrust upon his attention. Popular notions on this matter are not to be relied upon. "In country life a multitude of acts are habitually committed that are technically trespasses. Persons walk, catch fish, pick berries, and gather nuts in alieno solo, without strict right. Good natured owners tolerate these practices until they become annoying or injurious, and then put a stop to them," ADAMS, J., in …


Execution Sales As Preferential Transfers In Bankruptcy, Evans Holbrook Jan 1917

Execution Sales As Preferential Transfers In Bankruptcy, Evans Holbrook

Articles

In the recent case of Golden Hill Distilling Co. v. Logue, 243 Fed. 342, the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit holds that a "creditor who recovers a judgment, by consent or in invitum, and by execution sale collects his money within four months preceding bankruptcy, and with reasonable cause to believe [that a preference would thereby be effected] receives a voidable preference, which he must repay to the trustee." This question is one that has vexed the bankruptcy courts ever since the Supreme Court of the United States in Clarke v. Larremore, 188 U. S. 486, declined …


What Service Gives Jurisdiction In Person, John R. Rood Jan 1917

What Service Gives Jurisdiction In Person, John R. Rood

Articles

On March 6th, 1917, the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of McDonald v. Mabee, reversing the decision of the Supreme Court of Texas, in 175 S. W. 676, held that a judgment in foreclosure proceedings in which the defendant was served only by publication did not merge the cause of action so as to bar a suit on the original notes for the balance unpaid by the sale of the mortgaged property on the foreclosure, although the statute of the state declared such service sufficient to give jurisdiction in personam, and the defendant was a citizen …


Performance Of Legal Obligation As A Consideration For A Promise, John B. Waite Jan 1916

Performance Of Legal Obligation As A Consideration For A Promise, John B. Waite

Articles

At a time when the true reasonableness of the common law and its responsiveness to the actualities of life are under criticism, it is interesting to find several cases, within the past year, affirming the old rule that performance of a legal duty is not consideration for a promise. In Vance v. Ellison, (V. Va.) 85 S. E. 776, suit was brought to enjoin the enforcement of a deed of trust executed by plaintiff to defendant, to secure payment of $1000 promised for legal services. It was admitted that when the deed was executed the defendant was already bound by …


The Michigan Judicature Act Of 1915, Edson R. Sunderland Jan 1916

The Michigan Judicature Act Of 1915, Edson R. Sunderland

Articles

IN 1848 a wave of reform in judicial procedure began to sweep over the United States. In that year the legislature of New York enacted the Code of Civil Procedure, a statute of far-reaching importance, for it became the source of and the model for similar legislation in almost two-thirds of the States in the Union.


Recovery Of The Purchase Price Before Title Has Passed, John B. Waite Jan 1916

Recovery Of The Purchase Price Before Title Has Passed, John B. Waite

Articles

In an action recently instituted by The General Electric Co. to recover on a contract to manufacture certain machinery for the defendant, which machinery the defendant had refused to accept, the trial court adopted the contract price as the measure of damages. The upper court approved this measure of damages, rejecting the argument that the measure should have been the difference between the market value and the contract price, and dismissed, as no longer appropriate to modern conditions, the decisions in Bement v. Smith, 15 Wend. (N. Y.) 493, and Shawhan v. Van Nest. 25 Oh. St. 490. The court …


Taking Of Equitable Easements For Public Use, Edgar N. Durfee Jan 1916

Taking Of Equitable Easements For Public Use, Edgar N. Durfee

Articles

The case of Flynn v. New York &c Railway Co., decided by the Court of Appeals of New York in April last, involves the right of an owner of land to which is appurtenant a so-called equitable easement, arising under a covenant restricting the use of other land, to compensation upon the taking of the servient land for a public use inconsistent with the restriction. A tract of land was laid out in accordance with a plan, and all, lots therein were sold and conveyed by deeds containing covenants, inter alia, that, "No building or structure for any business purpose …


Rule Against Perpetuities As Applied To Options, John R. Rood Jan 1916

Rule Against Perpetuities As Applied To Options, John R. Rood

Articles

Does the rule against perpetuities render unlimited options void? This is a question which the English courts answered affirmatively some thirty-five years ago; new aspects of the question have been frequently presented to those courts since that time, and conclusions not easy to reconcile have been reached. It is believed that the present status of the law in England is that an option is like any other interest in land, void if it may arise at too remote a time, otherwise not. This conclusion is based on the decision in Borland's Trustees v. Steel Bros. & Co. [1901] 1 Ch. …


Estates In Fee Tail, Ralph W. Aigler Jan 1916

Estates In Fee Tail, Ralph W. Aigler

Articles

Quite generally estates in fee tail under the Statute de Donis were recognized by the states as a part of the common law. Statutory provisions in the way of modification and abolishment of such estates, however, are very common. The nature and scope of the statutory provisions have varied.


The Sheriff's Return, Edson R. Sunderland Jan 1916

The Sheriff's Return, Edson R. Sunderland

Articles

When William the Conqueror found himself military master of Britain, he was confronted by a governmental problem quite different from that which has usually accompanied foreign conquest. He did not subdue a nation already organized, substituting his power for that of its former ruler in the conventional way of conquerors. Britain was a geographical unit but politically and socially it was a congeries of loosely related communities. The natural law of survival of the fittest normally operates upon peoples as upon individuals, and develops centralized power as a means of self-preservation. But Britain had a substitute for this. The sheltering …


Mortgagee In Possession In New York And Michigan, Edgar N. Durfee Jan 1916

Mortgagee In Possession In New York And Michigan, Edgar N. Durfee

Articles

It is interesting to observe how tenaciously the old common law of mortgages has persisted in the state of New York, the very cradle of the modem lien theory of the mortgage. As early as 1802 Chancellor KENT began the importation into that state of Lord MANSFIELD'S Civil Law doctrines of mortgage. Johnson v. Hart, 3 Johns. Cas. 322. In 1814, in the case of Runyan v. Mersereau, 11 Johns. 534, the lien theory definitely triumphed over the old law. In other cases, both before and since the statute of 1828 denying ejectment to the mortgagee, the details of mortgage …


Marshaling Of Mortgaged Property In Favor Of Subsequent Mortgagees, Edgar N. Durfee Jan 1915

Marshaling Of Mortgaged Property In Favor Of Subsequent Mortgagees, Edgar N. Durfee

Articles

A holds a first mortgage covering two parcels of land, B holds a second mortgage covering one of these parcels, and C holds a second mortgage covering the other parcel, B's mortgage being prior in time to C's. B's mortgage contains the following clause--"The property described in the within indenture is subject to an existing blanket mortgage held by A, with release clause of $10 per front foot." Upon a bill to foreclose A's mortgage, how should the burden of that mortgage be distributed? In Savings Investment & Trust Co. v. United Realty & Mortgage Co., 94 Atl. 588, the …


Jurisdictional Facts, John R. Rood Jan 1915

Jurisdictional Facts, John R. Rood

Articles

The advance sheets of the Northwestern Reporter for January 29th, 1915, contain two cases in which a supreme court declared proceedings that had been carried through to judgment void, (not merely voidable) because of the lack of a fact which the supreme court regarded as jurisdictional, (Sandusky Grain Co. v. Sanilac Circuit Judge (Mich. 1915), 150 N. W. 329 and Bombolis v. Minn. & St. L. R. Co. (Minn. 1914), 150 N. W. 385), and another case in which the court was equally divided as to whether the essential facts appeared (Fisher et al v. Gardnier et al. (Mich. 1915), …


Can Affidavits Of Jurors To Show Misconduct Be Admitted For The Purpose Of Setting Aside A 'Quotient Verdict'?, Grover C. Grismore Jan 1914

Can Affidavits Of Jurors To Show Misconduct Be Admitted For The Purpose Of Setting Aside A 'Quotient Verdict'?, Grover C. Grismore

Articles

A recent Oklahoma case raises one phase of a question which has been perplexing the courts ever since jury trials were invented, and in regard to which there is a great contrariety of opinion. After a verdict had been rendered for the plaintiff in a personal injury suit, the defendant made a motion for a new trial on the ground of misconduct of the jury, and in support of his motion offered the affidavits of several of the jurors to the effect that the verdict was determined upon as the result of an agreement whereby each one of the jurors …


Corporations And Express Trusts As Business Organizations, Horace Lafayette Wilgus Jan 1914

Corporations And Express Trusts As Business Organizations, Horace Lafayette Wilgus

Articles

PRESIDENT BUTLER of Columbia University is reported to have said in an address before the New York Chamber of Commerce in 1911, that "the limited liability corporation is the greatest single discovery of modem times, whether you judge it by its social, by its ethical, by its industrial, or, in the long run--after we understand it and know how to use it,--by its political, effects." 1


Interstate Commerce And State Control Over Foreign Corporations, Ralph W. Aigler Jan 1914

Interstate Commerce And State Control Over Foreign Corporations, Ralph W. Aigler

Articles

Since Bank of Augusta v. Earle, 13 Pet. 519, there seems to have been no real occasion to doubt the power of a state totally to exclude foreign corporations seeking to engage in intrastate business only. The power to exclude being absolute, there has been no question as to the right of the state to allow the entrance of the foreign corporation for such business upon terms, and the terms may be of any sort, reasonable or unreasonable, except that the corporation seeking to enter cannot as a condition precedent to such entry be required to surrender a right or …


Effect Of Covenants In Leases Upon Tenant's Right To Remove Trade Fixtures, Ralph W. Aigler Jan 1913

Effect Of Covenants In Leases Upon Tenant's Right To Remove Trade Fixtures, Ralph W. Aigler

Articles

At least since the decision in Poole's Case, 1 Salk. 368 (1703), it has been considered as settled that a tenant has the right to remove trade fixtures placed, upon the demised premises for the purpose of furthering his trade. There is a well-marked tendency in some jurisdictions to greatly extend this right of removal so as to include anything added by the tenant to the leased property "in furtherance of the purpose for which the premises were leased." Hayward v. School District, 139 Mich. 541, 102 N. W. 999; Bircher v. Parker, 40 Mo. 118; Heddrick v. Smith, 103 …