Civil Procedure Commons^™

The Right Of A Jury In A Criminal Case To Render A Verdict Against The Law And The Evidence, Edson R. Sunderland

Articles

One George D. Horning was convicted of the criminal offense of doing business as a pawnbroker in the District of Columbia without a license. The jury, which rendered the verdict of guilty, were told by the court, in the course of the charge, that there really was no issue of fact for them to decide; that the evidence showed a course of dealing constituting a breach of the law, and that they were not warranted in capriciously saying that the witnesses for the government and for the defendant were not telling the truth; that it was their duty to accept …

Due Process Of Law In Procedure, Edson R. Sunderland

Articles

There are two classes of cases which may arise under the "due process" provisions of the 5th and 14th Amendments of the United States Constitution, so far as rules of procedure are concerned. One embraces cases of new remedial processes which may be criticized as too radical. The other consists of cases of old processes which may be criticized as obsolete and out of harmony with prevailing conceptions of justice. Due process may thus be said to fill the wide space between those innovations which carry us so far away from established methods as to remove the safeguards which are …

Declaratory Judgments, Edson R. Sunderland

Articles

The widespread interest in this new form of remedial instrument, which was somewhat dashed by the recent decision of the Michigan Supreme Court in Anway v. Grand Rapids Ry. Co. (1920), 211 Mich. 59, holding declaritoty relief to be non-judicial and outside the constitutional power of courts (19 MICH. LAW REV. 86), has been revived by the action of the legislature of Kansas in enacting a declaratory judgment statute almost identical with the Michigan act. This was done with full knowledge of the decision in the Anway case, and inasmuch as it is well known that some of the judges …

Adversary Parties - Same Person As Both Plaintiff And Defendant, Edson R. Sunderland

Articles

Under the regulations promulgated by the Railroad Administration in 1918, all actions for injury to persons or property growing out of the possession or control of any railroad or system of transportation by the Director General of Railroads were required to be brought against the Director General. ORDER No. 50. Some courts refused to follow this order on the ground that it was contrary to the statute creating federal control. Lavalle v. Northern Pacific Railway Company, (1919), 143 Minn. 74; Franke v. Chicago & N. W. Ry. Co., (1919), 170 Wis. 71. But Order No. 50 has been generally observed, …

Preventive Justice Through Declaratory Relief, Edson R. Sunderland

Other Publications

Professor Sunderland describes the history, and current directions, of declaratory judgments. "The practice of making declarations of right has completely revolutionized English remedial law. The American lawyer who peruses the current English reports is bewildered by their novelty...."

Joinder Of Actions, Edson R. Sunderland

Articles

There is a further striking failure which must be charged to the legal profession in America, which grows out of the one just noted, and that is its ignorance of and indifference to improvements in procedural practice developed in other jurisdictions. It is safe to say that if a new method of treating cancer were discovered and successfully employed in England; every intelligent doctor in the world would almost immediately know about it and attempt to take advantage of it. But it is equally safe to say that if a new and successful method of treating some procedural problem were …

Writs Vs Rights An Unended Contest, Lyman P. Wilson

Michigan Law Review

It is desired in the following pages, even at the expense of repeajing much that is already common knowledge, to emphasize that as yet we are not done with the formulary system of the common law, despite the fact that codes of civil procedure in most of our states have purported to end the varied and interesting career of forms of action at common law by legislating them out of existence. However, that legislative edict has been about as effecttive as was the famous, but probably mythical, order of King Canute to the waves of the sea. Certain well-known illustrations …

Patent Law, John Barker Waite

Books

The comparatively small size of the book is not due to any conscious superficiality of treatment nor omission of pertinent subject matter. It purports to cover only the substantive law of patents, their nature, validity, effect, and their characteristics as property. Matters of procedure in securing patents or suing on them, and the difficult subject of the amount of compensation recoverable by suit, would require a volume for themselves and are not included here. But of the matter which is included, it has been my desire to present every issue which has come before the courts....

This book is intended …

Nebulous Injunctions, Edgar N. Durfee

Articles

Injunctive relief is sought against alleged wrongdoing which is merely incidental to the conduct of a legitimate business. The wrong is established and the court is satisfied that an injunction should issue. Yet some nice questions remain as to the scope and terms of the decree.

Should A Correct Verdict Be Set Aside Because The Jury Failed To Follow Erroneous Instructions?, Edson R. Sunderland

Articles

One of the common grounds of a new trial is that the verdict is contrary to law. What law is meant,--the law as it really is, or the law that was given to the jury by the court's instruction? Most cases hold to the latter view. It is the duty of the jury to take the law from the court, whether the court in so giving it is right or wrong. Hence, the jury violate their duty if they fail to follow instructions, even if the instructions are wrong, and a verdict based on a breach of the jury's duty …

New Trials For Technical Errors, Edson R. Sunderland

Articles

A witness called to testify is presumed to be of good character. Hence no proof of it is necessary. But out of abundant caution this presumption is fortified by evidence. The witness is thus shown to be in fact exactly what the law presumes him to be. Result-the case is reversed for the commission of this grave and prejudicial error.-Lockett v. State (Ark. 1918), 207 S. W. 55. No one but an American lawyer could treat the above statement seriously. Only an American court could announce so extraordinary a decision. In no other English speaking country would the people tolerate …

Verdicts, General And Special, Edson R. Sunderland

Articles

The most remarkable thing about this case of Georgia v. Brailsford is that a matter of such elementary importance in the daily administration of the law, after being announced in so dramatic a way by the Supreme Court of the United States at the very threshold of its career, could have dropped into oblivion for a hundred years only to be repudiated in a way hardly less dramatic by a sharply divided court. The controversy here disclosed goes to the very heart of the jury system as it has been developed by the common law and is still almost universally …

Logic V Common Sense In Pleading, Nathan Isaacs

Michigan Law Review

Michigan's experiment in pleading--or the suppression of pleading-is being carefully watched throughout the country. Not that it is likely that many other states will go to the extreme, for it is an extreme, of substituting notice-pleading for essential-fact-pleading: but it is a fact that even the code states are experiencing a reaction in that general direction. It will probably lead to a multiplication of their "short forms," rather than to a sweeping provision that

Options And The Rule Against Perpetuities, John R. Rood

Articles

"The question to be discussed in this article is whether an option to buy property is void by reason of the fact that it may be exercised at a period more remote from the time of its creation than the law of the state permits contingent interest to vest."

Simplification Of Judicial Procedure In Federal Courts, Edson R. Sunderland

Articles

In 1914 the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives unanimously reported favorably upon a bill (H. R. 133) authorizing the Supreme Court of the United States to prescribe by rule the forms, kind and character of the entire pleading, practice and procedure to be used in all actions and proceedings at law in the federal courts, with a view to their simplification, which rules should, when promulgated, take precedence of any law in conflict therewith. On January 2, 1917, a similar bill (S. 4551) was favorably reported from the Senate Judiciary Committee by a distinguished graduate of this Law …

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.

Procedural Reform, Robert Mcmurdy

Michigan Law Review

In legal fetters, bound upon us largely by our own consent, the profession struggles, afraid to free itself, partly because of the word reform with its accepted implications.

Sane Procedural Reform, Robert E. Bunker

Articles

In these later days much is said about reforming the procedure of our courts, about recalllng our judges, at arbitrarily appointed times, and about reversing their decisions by popular vote. Most of what is said about these matters is said by those who have least reason to say it. It is no exaggeration to assert that those who are most severe in their criticism of the courts and of their procedure and most lavish in their suggestions of reform are they who know little, beyond the most general, about the courts and nothing about their procedure from personal contact with …

The Proposed Michigan Judicature Act, Edson R. Sunderland

Articles

The Michigan Legislature, at its last session, passed an act (No. 286, Public Acts of 1913) providing for the appointment of a Commission to revise and consolidate the laws of the State relating to procedure. The Governor appointed Alva M. Cummins, J. Clyde Watt, and Mark W. Stevens as members of this commission, and the result of their labors has just appeared in the form of a proposed bill regulating the entire subject of procedure in all the courts of the State. The bill is a long one, embracing 565 printed pages, but it is much less voluminous than the …

The Form Of Summons Under The Recent Michigan Judicature Act, W. Gordon Stoner

Articles

It would be rather remarkable if in revising such a large portion of the statutes as was undertaken by the Commission on Revision and Consolidation of Statutes of the State of Michigan, appointed in 1913, which reported to the legislature the recently enacted Judicature Act (Public Acts of Michigan, 1915, § 314), some ambiguity or uncertainty were not to appear in the revision. The Judicature Act is no exception to the general rule, as the lawyer who attempts to begin suit by summons under it will discover at the very outset.

Proposed Remedies In Court Procedure, Willis B. Perkins

Michigan Law Review

It is the judgment of the writer that the chief function of the legislature is to declare substantive rights. Court procedure being but the machinery by which substantive rights are determined, the responsibility for the effectiveness of that machinery should rest alone upon the courts. Unnecessary prolixity and confusion too frequently result from the present two-fold source of procedural law.

The Trial Brief, Edson R. Sunderland

Book Chapters

From the chapter Introduction: "The object of the preceding chapters is to show the brief maker where to find the material for his brief, how to find it, and how to select out of the mass of material found that which will be suitable for his use.... The purpose of this lesson is to outline a course of investigation suitable to the preparation of a case for trial, and to suggest methods of making the material collected during the search for authorities readily available." [p.353]

Cases On Procedure, Annotated. Common Law Pleading, Edson R. Sunderland

Books

“No subject is more intimately connected with the history and development of our law than common law pleading. In sharp contrast with the other great system of law, that founded by the Romans, the common law has not been the product of legislation, but of litigation. It has grown up in the atmosphere of courts of justice. Such a genesis would necessarily give it a strong procedural favor, and would tend to emphasize remedies at the expense of rights. Procedure might therefore be expected to play a much larger part in the development of the common law than in the …

Note And Comment, Ralph W. Aigler, Robert L. Mayall, Sidney E. Doyle, Burke W. Shartel

Michigan Law Review

The Character of User In Prescription - As the possession of the claimant in a case of adverse possession must be shown to have been adverse in order to ripen into title, so also must the user in prescription be shown to have been adverse during -the endure prescriptive period. As to the burden of proving the adverse character of the possession in the first case there seems to be doubt whether there is a presumption of adverseness by showing open possession and acts of ownership, or whether there is a burden upon the claimant to go further. See 2 …

Cases On Procedure, Annotated. Code Pleading, Edson R. Sunderland

Books

“In the present volume on Code Pleading, the editor has aimed to present the subject, in all of its more important features, as a complete working system of pleading. The code has frequently been treated as the mere ‘antithesis’ of common law pleading, and this has resulted in throwing the subject completely out of balance by unreasonably extending the discussion of those elements which are ‘characteristic’ of the code, while unduly restricting or entirely ignoring those principles which the code shares with the common law….

“The student should be able to obtain a clear conception of the system as a …

The Teaching Of Practice And Procedure In Law Schools, Edson R. Sunderland

Articles

Procedure is merely the means of co-ordinating effort, of harmonizing differences, of offering every one equality of opportunity in offense and defense before the law. Without it there would be confusion, favoritism, and injustice. If the subject were viewed in this fundamental way, and were studied conscientiously as an incident and aid to the development and determination of the merits of controversies, the criticisms now so fiercely directed against it would largely disappear. In its use it is indispensable, in its abuse only does it cause trouble. A professional conscience to curb that abuse, and professional learning and skill to …

Directing A Verdict For The Party Having The Burden Of Proof, Edson R. Sunderland

Articles

The practice of moving for a directed verdict is the modern substitute for the old demurrer to the evidence. The reason for its development at the expense of the older procedure is not far to seek. The demurrer to the evidence was in the first place cumbersome and difficult to draw, for it was required to contain a full written recital of all the facts shown in evidence by the opposite party, together with all reasonable inferences favorable to the party who introduced the evidence.1 The preparation of such a demurrer usually required the expenditure of much time and labor.

Note And Comment, Sigmund W. David, Newton K. Fox, Harold R. Curtis, Aquilla C. Lewis, Albert R. Dilley

Michigan Law Review

Civil Liability for False Testimony; Review by the Courts of the Decisions of the Land Department; Right of One Partner to Sue His Co-Partners in Conversion; Does a Tax Deed, Void on it Face, Give Color of Title; Interference With Employment by Trade Union;

Procedural Law Reform, Willis B. Perkins

Michigan Law Review

It is said that under our present practice, no matter how just the verdict and judgment of the court below may be, no lawyer can guarantee that his case may not be reversed by the Supreme Court. Is this criticism well-founded in fact; and, if so, is it a reflection upon our present methods of legal procedure? The statisticians tell us that no less than twenty per cent of all the cases taken to our appellate courts relate to questions of practice, and that throughout the country in forty per cent of these cases new trials are granted. In our …

Note And Comment, Ralph W. Aigler, Langdon H. Larwill, Walter R. Metz

Michigan Law Review

The Rule of Certainty in Damages and the Value of a Chance; Is a Bank Check an Assignment Pro Tanto of the Fund on Deposit?; The "Finger-Print" Case; Right of Husband to Recover Alimony Independent of an Action for Divorce;