Admiralty Commons^™

Book Reviews

Michigan Law Review

A collection of book reviews by multiple authors.

The Case Of The S. S. "Lotus", George Wendell Berge

Michigan Law Review

A momentous judgment was rendered by the Permanent Court of International Justice, sitting at the Hague, on September 7, 1927, in the Case of the S.S. Lotus. Interest in the case is especially manifest among students of international and maritime law, as well as others, because it is perhaps the first case to come before the Permanent Court in which the question for decision was a point of general international law. Thorough analysis and comment on the questions involved would fill a good-sized volume. Only a few observations can be made in this article on the merits of the …

The Uniformity Of The Maritime Law, George L. Canfield

Michigan Law Review

In 1871, Richard Henry Dana commenced a masterly article on the "History of Admiralty Jurisdiction in the Supreme Court of the United States,'' by writing, "After seventy yea.rs of baffling winds and cross currents in the region of admiralty jurisdiction, the Supreme Court of the United States has sailed out into deep water." In 1924, Charles Merrill Hough concludes his delightful "Admiralty Jurisdiction-of Late Years," with the statement, "The years since 1906 have not increased the certainty of maritime law, and they have impaired the tradition of enforceable customs of the sea." And others writing in current legal periodicals have …

Is The Crime Of Piracy Obsolete?, Edwin D. Dickinson

Articles

"A few years ago it might have been surmised that in America at least a good deal of the old code in respect to piracy had passed from the law in reserve into the law in history. The important cases were nearly all one hundred years old or more....

There have been recent events, however, which challenge the assumption that the law of piracy is chiefly of historical significance. The country had hardly entered upon the new period of national prohibition when the rum ships descended upon its coasts... There sprang up, in consequence, to prey upon the rum ships, …

Prize Cases Decided In The United States Supreme Court, 1789-1918, Edwin D. Dickinson

Reviews

"It seems something of a paradox that our first and only complete collection of Supreme Court prize decisions should be published at last under the auspices of an endowment for international peace... And it has been the admirable purpose of the Carnegie Endowment to promote peace by rendering more available all authoritative sources of information about international affairs.

"There is more in common, indeed, between peace and prize cases than a mere matter of contact with international affairs. The development of international law, both as a general system and as a part of municipal law, has been developed by prize …

The Ship Mortgage Act Of 1920, George L. Canfield

Michigan Law Review

Maritime loans have been usually secured by either bottomry bonds or ship mortgages. The former constituted maritime liens of high and privileged character, while the latter had no standing in admiralty at all except as to remnants after all other claims against the ship had been satisfied. The statute now under discussion, being part of general legislation for the revival of the American merchant marine, makes "preferred mortgages" thereunder maritime liens, enforceable by admiralty process in rem. The changes made by the statute in existing law are radical and its construction by the Supreme Court will be of great …

Note And Comment, Edwin C. Goddard, George Seletto, Edson R. Sunderland, Victor H. Lane, Burke Shartel, George E. Longstaff

Michigan Law Review

Carriers - Second Cummins Amendment - It was seven years after the Carmack Amendment of the Hepburn Act of i9o6 before the Supreme Court began that series of decisions, extending from Adams Express Co. v. Croninger, 226 U. S. 491 (1913), to George N. Pierce Co. v. Wells, Fargo & Co., 236 U. S. 278 (1915), which directly resulted in the First Cummins Amendment of March, 1915. One has only to read those cases, reviewed in 13 Micn. L. REv. 59o, and other notes referred to in 17 MICH. L. Rzv. 183, to see that the language of the Cummins …

Supreme Court's Construction Of The Federal Constitution In 1920-1921, Thomas Reed Powell

Michigan Law Review

Cases Arising under the Constitution or Laws of the United States. The question whether a case presents a "federal question," so called, is raised in a number of the controversies in which the asserted federal question was considered and answered. Only a few of these instances need special mention. In Hartford Life Ins. Co. v. Blincoe,3 after reversal by the Supreme Court of a state judgment against a defendant, a second judgment was rendered by the state court on different grounds. These included holding an assessment on an insurance policy to be void for the inclusion of a state tax …

Note And Comment, George E. Longstaff, George L. Clark, Edwin D. Dickinson

Michigan Law Review

Constitutionality of the LA Follette Amendment to the Internal Revenue Law of 1921 - The United States Senate on November 5, 1921, inserted in the Revenue Act, then before the Senate, a provision that taxpayers in their income tax returns must specify what state and municipal bonds they hold, or else be subject to a penalty of five per cent. That provision was dropped out in conference, but it will come up again, and it is well to look at its constitutionality under the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution prohibiting unreasonable searches.

Requisitioned And The Government-Owned Ship, J. Whitla Stinson

Michigan Law Review

Jurisdiction over requisitioned and government-owned merchantmen and their liabilities under maritime laws are questions which present no real novelty. They were regarded by the ancient sea-law and were as familiar to it as they have recently become,-on account of the exigencies of the late war, to the admiralty systems of to-day. The maritime law of Rome supplies modem cases with the most cogent parallels and is reflected today in the jurisprudence of France and other continental and Latin countries. The jurisdictional question which figures most prominently in these cases relates to the authority to arrest or libel the property of …

Recent Important Decisions

Michigan Law Review

A collection of recent important court decisions.