Law Commons^™

Evidence, Thomas F. Green Jr.

Mercer Law Review

One of the paradoxes of the law is presented by the large number of decisions discussing evidence points and the small number which allow these points to affect the appellate court's judgment. A reversal solely on the basis of erroneous admission or exclusion seldom occurs. Perhaps this is as it should be. In this field the appellate courts lay down the principles for the trial courts to follow but usually do not interfere with the trial judge's application of those principles. Sometimes, however, the appellate courts are too ready to reverse. In Henderson v. State the charge was murder and …

Insurance, Edgar Hunter Wilson

Mercer Law Review

The insurance opinions handed down during the survey period have dealt largely with questions of interpretation and have introduced no new doctrine.

In Hulsey v. Interstate Life & Accident Ins. Co. the beneficiary of an accidental death policy sued the insurer. The policy provided coverage among other situations if the accidental death occured on a steamship while the insured was traveling on a pass or as a fare-paying passenger. The plaintiff alleged that the insured was "lawfully" aboard a motor launch going out to the U.S.S. Kearsage when the accident occurred. The defendant company demurred and the Court of …

Equity, Henry L. Mcclintock

Mercer Law Review

Insofar as practicable, the arrangement followed by Professors Hilkey and Hall in the review of equity in the survey for 1949-1950, will be followed, but the differences in the subject matter of the equity cases decided during the two periods necessarily requires many changes in that arrangement. During this past year, as during the one preceding it, the Georgia cases dealing with equity have been concerned mainly with the application of established equity principles to various fact situations; there has been substantially no occasion for the consideration of new principles. In this survey only cases which discuss or apply equity …

Taxation, T. Baldwin Martin Jr.

Mercer Law Review

The pivot point of tax legislation by the 195 1 General Assembly consists of the Georgia Retailers' and Consumers' Sales and Use Tax Act.

Radiating from this hub were repeal of nuisance taxes, rededication to the principle of ever-increasing corporate taxation, reduction of excise levies on bulk sales of malt beverages, reduction of motor fuel taxes, permanent driver's licenses, and cut rates for combined hunting and fishing licenses. In addition and in keeping with governmental self perpetuation, it brought into existence the Agricultural Commodities Authority, presented the State Revenue Commissioner with a deputy, while at the same time giving the …

Landlord And Tenant, Henry S. Barnes

Mercer Law Review

Despite the fact that during the year under consideration the courts have had to deal with run-of-the-mine cases, several interesting problems have been considered. It is the purpose of this article to discuss very briefly those cases which indicate the trend of the law in this field.

Where a vendor conveys land to a purchaser who intends to use the premises for a known purpose and, at the same time, orally agrees not to use adjoining retained land for the same purpose, he creates a restriction on the use of the retained land that equity will enforce against him. or …

Administrative Law, Maurice S. Culp

Mercer Law Review

This study, like the one undertaken for the annual survey appearing in .the Fall, 195o issue of the Mercer Law Review, is a report and an analysis of the legislative and judicial development in the field of administrative law during the calendar period, June I, I95O to June I, 195I.

At the outset it should be indicated that this report does not purport to cover all that has happened in the field of administrative law in Georgia during the year. It should be emphasized that this is a report on the legislative and judicial development of a particular subject and …

Bills And Notes, Frank C. Jones

Mercer Law Review

Although the number of cases assigned to this category is greater than for the first survey period-an increase from six to seventeen-there are no significant decisions among the group. The appellate courts repeated a number of well-known principles and considered an occasionally novel factual situation, but they left the law of bills and notes essentially undisturbed. There have been no legislative changes whatsover during this period. In the main these cases dealt with the attempted assertion of various defenses by maker, drawer, drawee and indorser. Almost without exception these were personal defenses, urged in controversies between the original parties.

In …

Contracts, Edgar Hunter Wilson

Mercer Law Review

During the survey period the appellate courts of Georgia reaffirmed the following general contract principles: The requisites of a sealed instrument are a recital in the instrument that it is under seal and a signature followed by a scroll or seal. An assignee of a non-negotiable chose in action takes subject to the equities existing between the assignor and obligor at the time of the assignment. The acceptance and cashing of a check given as a final audit on an unliquidated and disputed claim constitutes an accord and satisfaction. An agreement to pay a sum of money in settlement of …

Criminal Law And Procedure, H.T. O'Neal Jr.

Mercer Law Review

A synopsis of the criminal law as decided by our appellate courts consists, in the main, of a restatement of age-old concepts. The criminal law does not readily lend itself to startling new trends or changes. It is a science which is not static, but stationary.

It has been necessary to formulate several very general categories in which to place the cases, in order that a discussion of them may have some .semblance of order and organization. Although some of the categories have received exhaustive treatment elsewhere in this issue, it appears necessary that they be discussed here solely from …

Corporations, Parnerships And Bankruptcy, Charles E. Nadler

Mercer Law Review

In that field of "business" law that is generally encompassed by the subjects of Bankruptcy, of Corporations, and of Partnerships, our survey year discloses the following current amendments to existing statutes, and the several cases decided by the appellate courts of Georgia.

Property, Real, Henry S. Barnes

Mercer Law Review

A goodly number of cases involving some phase of real property law reached the appellate courts during the year, however, the great majority turned on a question of pleading or practice rather than of real property law. Since a detailed analysis and discussion of all the cases will not be possible, only those decisions which indicate the establishment of new, or the growth, extension, or clarification of existing, principles will be mentioned.

Williams v. Thomas County is in line with the modern doctrine that any present interest in land is alienable. A possibility of reverter or a right .of entry …

Damages, Edgar Hunter Wilson

Mercer Law Review

During the period of this survey the appellate courts of Georgia have reaffirmed the following general principles of the law of damages: Exemplary damages may not be recovered in actions on contracts. A jury finding as to the amount of damages will not be upset unless the amount is so small or so large as to indicate "gross mistake or undue prejudice." "General damages are such that the law presumes to flow from any wrongful act, which the law denominates a tort, and may be recovered without proof of any amount." The amount of general damages or injury to the …

Statutory Construction And The Legislative Process, James C. Quarles

Mercer Law Review

Although important principles of statutory construction were reiterated by the Georgia courts during the survey period, the chief interest in these cases derives from the application of these principles rather than from any novel development of doctrine.

Security Transactions, Eli M. Spark

Mercer Law Review

The cases in this field during the period covered were both more numerous and more varied than in the preceding corresponding period.

Practice And Procedure, Arnold Shulman, Joseph C. Jackson

Mercer Law Review

Unfortunately in writing on the subject of practice and procedure there is little or no opportunity to indulge in attempts at anticipatory law. The writers of substantive topics may, on occasion, give a conning tower view of what should be the law and theorize on the progressive trend in various fields. However firm the trend may be toward simplification of practice and procedure, the facts only too well bear out the statement that pleading is statutory and rule-made law, and leaves to the courts very little ground for interpretive opinions. Also, all too frequently, the courts take occasion to use …

Agency, Griffin B. Bell

Mercer Law Review

During the survey period there were no statutory changes in the law of agency in Georgia. Some new principles were enunciated by the courts, while established doctrines were followed in other instances.

In a case of first impression, Studebaker Corp. v. Nail, the Court of Appeals, where an automobile purchaser had sued the automobile manufacturer direct on an express warranty, said that where manufacturer's warranty of new automobile was delivered to dealer with automobile for purpose of delivery to buyer, an agency for that purpose existed and that the suit would lie. The court pointed out, however, that no …

Municipal Corporations, Robert H. Hall

Mercer Law Review

The General Assembly of Georgia in its 1951 session enacted several statutes dealing with municipalities and counties. The Municipal Home Rule Law, which is certainly the most important enactment, is summarized at the end of this paper. The cases and other statutes are discussed under their customary topics.

Trusts, Henry S. Barnes

Mercer Law Review

The year's crop of litigation in the trusts field merely explained, extended, and applied familiar doctrines. No material departure from established principles was made. The cases will be discussed briefly.

An oral agreement between husband and wife that, upon the death of the husband, his widow should hold both his estate and her separate proerty for her life, and upon her death the combined estates should be distributed to the husband's children by a former marriage, did not create a trust. The trial court sustained a general demurrer to the petition which set out the agreement and alleged that the …

Sales, James C. Quarles

Mercer Law Review

By far the greatest number of sales cases of interest were those involving warranties. Two of the cases show that treating an action for breach of-warranty as a contract action rather than as a tort has important consequences. In C. M. Miller Co. v. Ramey, plaintiff's action on an open account was met by a set-off arising from defendant's expenditures in obtaining the release from condemnation of flour plaintiff had represented had no g6vernment action pending or contemplated against it. Plaintiff urged that defendant's demand sounded in tort (fraud and deceit) and could not be set off against plaintiff's …

Torts, Charles J. Hilkey

Mercer Law Review

In considering a summary of the tort cases during the year, it is found among the numerous decisions, many merely restate principles which are well established and contain nothing that is novel. Other cases, however, deserve special consideration because they contain graphic statements of old doctrines; apply such doctrines to new factual situations; or announce new legal principles. These decisions only will be included in the following discussion.

Wills And Administration Of Estates, Floyd M. Buford

Mercer Law Review

Most of the recent Georgia cases dealing with this subject adhere to age-old rules. The manner in which such rules are applied to new factual situations, is the significance of these cases. An attempt has been made to treat and classify the cases according to their respective descriptive headings.

Workmen's Compensation, Lamar W. Sizemore, Robert E. Hicks

Mercer Law Review

The decisions in the field of workmen's compensation during the survey period represent no significant change in, or departure from, existing law. The volume of cases decided in the appellate courts of Georgia during the year covered is less by one-third than the number in the previous corresponding period. The author of last year's survey' on -this subject reviewed the workmen's compensation statutes and the principal decisions which serve as landmarks and guideposts through this somewhat special and ever-expanding field of law; it is, therefore, deemed appropriate only to supplement last year's exhaustive survey with those decisions which represent developments …

Constitutional Law, Morris B. Abram, Robert B. Mckay

Mercer Law Review

Georgia appellate courts did not in the year under discussion have the occasion to pass on as many interesting and complex constitutional situations as in-the prior year. To a large extent the constitutional questions in the period related to matters of criminal law and procedure, and it was in this field, perhaps, more than any other that the principal decisions lay.

Domestic Relations, John L. Westmoreland

Mercer Law Review

No abstract provided.

Legal Education In Georgia, John W. Moreland

Mercer Law Review

In the spring of 1950, the writer of this report visited the law schools of Georgia on behalf of the Survey of the Legal Profession. These visits were pursuant to the plan for the survey of legal education in America, including all schools whether or not they were approved by the American Bar Association. There are three schools in Georgia which are approved by the American Bar Association and are members of the Association of American Law Schools. They are the Walter F. George School of Law of Mercer University, Macon, Georgia; the Lamar School of Law of Emory University, …

Soviet Concepts Of International Law And Criminal Procedure At The International Conference On Military Trials, London, 1945, Solon Cleanthes Ivrakis

Mercer Law Review

The study of international criminal law has received a new impetus with the establishment of the International Law Commission of the United Nations (1947). Students of international and of comparative law have noted with interest that one of the tasks of this Commission will be the formulation of principles of international law recognized in the Charter of the International Military Tribunal which was adopted by the International Conference on Military Trials, held in London in the summer of 1945.

A Bibliography Of Textbooks On Georgia Law, James C. Rehberg

Mercer Law Review

The primary purpose of this article is to draw attention to the abundance of text materials which are available on Georgia law, and to mention the fields which have not yet been explored by the legal textwriter. No doubt, some of the works mentioned here are unknown to many Georgia lawyers-through no fault of the works themselves or of the lawyers. Some of the books to be discussed were printed for only a limited distribution and, hence, are not generally available. Then, too, some of them are out of print at the present time. Such books are included here, nevertheless, …

Workmen's Compensation: Who Is The Employer?, George E. Saliba

Mercer Law Review

In construing workmen's compensation statutes, problems which are perhaps as perplexing as the problems connected with the "arising out of and in the course of employment" test are the cases which have for determination the question of who is the employer within the meaning of the acts. This is particularly true where the controversies involve lessees and other contractors. In applying the statute to the recent case of Continental Oil Co. v. Sirhall, the Colorado court held that a filling station attendant, who was hired, paid and under the exclusive direction and control of the lessee-operator of …

Promissory Estoppel In Georgia, Burt Derieux

Mercer Law Review

The classic doctrine of consideration is that " . . . the promise and the consideration must purport to be the motive each for the other in whole or at least in part. It is not enough that the promise induces the detriment or that detriment induces the promise if the other half is wanting."' From this established concept of consideration, the doctrine of promissory estoppel is a departure.

Annexation By Municipalities In Georgia, David R. Rogers

Mercer Law Review

In the research made for the writing of this comment it was gratifying to find that the decisions are not in conflict. The law pertaining to annexation was firmly established at an early date and has remained somewhat constant, despite the formidable array of confusion and uncertainty in other phases of municipal law.

The following exposition on annexation attempts (I) to recapitulate the law as it exists in Georgia, (2) to consider the applicable statutory provisions, and (3) to conjecture as to the effect of recent decisions by the State Supreme Court collaterally affecting annexation. The attempt last mentioned will …