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University of Michigan Law School

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Articles 391 - 420 of 600

Full-Text Articles in Commercial Law

Municipal Corporations - Police Power - Validity Of Ordinance Fixing Closing Hours, Michigan Law Review Mar 1938

Municipal Corporations - Police Power - Validity Of Ordinance Fixing Closing Hours, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A municipal ordinance required that all local business concerns selling or distributing food stay open for business only during the hours of duty of the municipal meat and food inspector. Hotels, restaurants, boarding houses, confectioneries, drug stores, soda fountains, and milk and cream dispensers were expressly excepted from these requirements. Plaintiff, a general grocery store, sought an injunction against the enforcement of these provisions, alleging that they were unreasonable and that the exceptions were discriminatory. Held, that under its police power to protect the public health, the municipality was authorized to pass such an ordinance as an aid to …

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Interstate Commerce - Federal Motor Carrier Act - Extent Of Supersedure Of State Jurisdiction, William Stout Gordon Jan 1938

Interstate Commerce - Federal Motor Carrier Act - Extent Of Supersedure Of State Jurisdiction, William Stout Gordon

Michigan Law Review

Prior to the passage of the Federal Motor Carrier Act of 1935, interstate motor carriers were subject to regulation by the states to a limited extent. This power to regulate may be briefly summarized as follows: (1) a state could not require interstate motor carriers to show that their operation was required in the interest of public convenience and necessity; (2) it could regulate to some extent the service and facilities offered by such carriers but it could not regulate their rates; (3) it could require them to carry liability insurance for the protection of third parties but it could …

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Interstate Commerce - Constitutionality Of Weight And Size Limitations Of Motor Carriers - Commerce Clause And Due Process Clause, Donald H. Larmee Jan 1938

Interstate Commerce - Constitutionality Of Weight And Size Limitations Of Motor Carriers - Commerce Clause And Due Process Clause, Donald H. Larmee

Michigan Law Review

The District Court for the Eastern District of South Carolina had recently before it a well-presented case, Barnwell Bros. Inc. v. South Carolina State Highway Dept., involving the authority of the state to regulate the size and weight of motor vehicles operating on South Carolina's highways. The South Carolina statute in question limited the width of motor trucks (including semitrailers) to ninety inches, and their gross weight 4 to 20,000 pounds. The validity of this statute was challenged upon three distinct grounds: (1) that it was a denial of due process guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment; (2) that the …

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The Effect Of The Contract Clause And The Fourteenth Amendment Upon The Power Of The States To Control Municipal Corporations, E. B. Schulz Jan 1938

The Effect Of The Contract Clause And The Fourteenth Amendment Upon The Power Of The States To Control Municipal Corporations, E. B. Schulz

Michigan Law Review

Although the power to establish systems of local government is reserved to the states under the Federal Constitution, they are obliged to exercise it in conformity with the limitations, direct or indirect, by which their powers in general are circumscribed. Since a state lacks authority to delegate powers which it does not possess, it may not confer upon municipal corporations, to cite but a few examples, the power to pass ex post facto laws and bills of attainder, to coin money, to emit bills of credit, to regulate foreign and interstate commerce, or to levy taxes for strictly private purposes. …

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Municipal Corporations - Regulation Of Weights And Measures - Due Process Of Law, Milton Rabinowitz Jun 1937

Municipal Corporations - Regulation Of Weights And Measures - Due Process Of Law, Milton Rabinowitz

Michigan Law Review

An ordinance of the city of Chicago required the net weight of all commodities sold in load lots in the city to be determined by a municipal weighmaster prior to delivery of the load to the purchaser. This necessitated weighing the vehicle of transportation first empty, and then again when loaded. On indictment for violation of the ordinance defendant, a coal dealer, whose place of business was located 63 miles outside the municipal limits, asserted that compliance with the ordinance would involve extremely expensive rehandling of the load unless the trucks were first sent into the city unloaded, a financially …

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Police Power - Validity Of A State Statute Fixing Maximum Charges For Tobacco Warehousemen, Peter S. Boter Jun 1937

Police Power - Validity Of A State Statute Fixing Maximum Charges For Tobacco Warehousemen, Peter S. Boter

Michigan Law Review

A statute of the state of Georgia prescribed maximum charges for handling and selling leaf tobacco. In this action, warehousemen sought to restrain the enforcement of the act, attacking it as an arbitrary exercise of state power contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution and also as placing a substantial burden on interstate commerce in violation of the commerce clause. Held, that the statute was a constitutional exercise of the state's police power. Townsend v. Yeomans, (U.S. 1937) 81 L. Ed. 840.

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Constitutional Law - Interstate Commerce Validity Of State Statute Regulating Automobiles Driven Into The State For Purpose Of Sale, Walter Probst Jr. May 1937

Constitutional Law - Interstate Commerce Validity Of State Statute Regulating Automobiles Driven Into The State For Purpose Of Sale, Walter Probst Jr.

Michigan Law Review

A statute of California forbade the transportation of automobiles from without the state for the purpose of sale within or without the state unless there be attached to each vehicle a special permit issued by the State Motor Vehicle Department, for which a fifteen dollar fee was exacted. A suit was brought to restrain state officers from enforcing this statute. Held, the statute imposed an unconstitutional burden upon interstate commerce. Ingels v. Morf, (U.S. 1937) 57 S. Ct. 439, affirming (D. C. Cal. 1936) 14 F. Supp. 922.

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The Problem Of Transfers Under Bulk Sales Laws: A Study Of Absolute Transfers And Liquidating Trusts, Thomas Clifford Billig, William L. Branch Jr. Mar 1937

The Problem Of Transfers Under Bulk Sales Laws: A Study Of Absolute Transfers And Liquidating Trusts, Thomas Clifford Billig, William L. Branch Jr.

Michigan Law Review

Although the first bulk sales law in the United States was enacted more than forty years ago, the host of decisions still emanating from the courts bears ample witness to the fact that this field of legal learning remains remarkably fertile. For the first decade following the original Louisiana Bulk Sales Act of 1894 the several state legislatures were busily engaged in passing statutes of similar import. During the next three decades the courts became as fully occupied as had been the legislatures in determining precisely what the legislatures meant by the language employed in the several acts. This process …

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Constitutional Law -- Interstate Commerce -- Validity Of Federal Statute Prohibiting Interstate Shipment Of Prison-Made Goods, Joseph H. Mueller Feb 1937

Constitutional Law -- Interstate Commerce -- Validity Of Federal Statute Prohibiting Interstate Shipment Of Prison-Made Goods, Joseph H. Mueller

Michigan Law Review

The recent decision of the Supreme Court in Kentucky Whip & Collar Co. v. Illinois Central R. R., provides an effective method of circumventing the doctrine of Hammer v. Dagenhart, which held that Congress may not prohibit the interstate transportation of commodities which are harmless except for their economic effect in the state of destination. It is hailed by the advocates of reform as furnishing an avenue of approach to such problems as the regulation of minimum wages and hours and child labor.

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Constitutional Law-Resale Price Maintenance -Fair Trade Acts, Joseph H. Mueller Feb 1937

Constitutional Law-Resale Price Maintenance -Fair Trade Acts, Joseph H. Mueller

Michigan Law Review

Four cases upholding the validity of the California and Illinois Fair Trade Acts were recently sustained by the United States Supreme Court. All four cases involved a similar set of facts. Plaintiffs, the owners or authorized distributors of certain well known trade-marked articles, entered into a series of contracts with wholesalers and retailers fixing the resale prices of their branded products. When defendants, certain retailers who had refused to enter into such agreements, persisted in reselling the articles below the prices stipulated in the contracts with other retailers, plaintiffs sued to enjoin them under the provisions of the state Fair …

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Interstate Commerce - Taxation Of Motor Vehicles In Interstate Transportation For Sale Nov 1936

Interstate Commerce - Taxation Of Motor Vehicles In Interstate Transportation For Sale

Michigan Law Review

A New Mexico statute exacts a flat permit fee for the privilege of transporting motor vehicles, on their own wheels, over the highways of the state, for purpose of sale within or without the state. Held, this does not impose an unconstitutional burden on interstate commerce nor does it discriminate against a citizen of another state engaged in transporting automobiles on their own wheels, in processions or caravans, for sale outside of New Mexico. Morf v. Bingaman, (U.S. 1936) 56 S. Ct. 756.

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Interstate Commerce - Jurisdiction Of Interstate Commerce Commission - "Tacking" Of Intrastate Hauls Nov 1936

Interstate Commerce - Jurisdiction Of Interstate Commerce Commission - "Tacking" Of Intrastate Hauls

Michigan Law Review

The coal company shipped coal from its mines in Pennsylvania by means of its own private railway, river barges, and tugs to a point in Ohio where the coal was unloaded, washed, freed from impurities, and sorted into appropriate sizes. Thereafter it was delivered by the company to a common carrier in Ohio for transportation to points within the state to .fill orders often not received until after the coal left the mines. Held, the haul by the common carrier in Ohio is not subject to the jurisdiction of the Interstate Commerce Commission and is intrastate commerce which may …

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Uniform Corporation Laws Through Interstate Compacts And Federal Legislation, Robert S. Stevens Jun 1936

Uniform Corporation Laws Through Interstate Compacts And Federal Legislation, Robert S. Stevens

Michigan Law Review

It is the purpose of the present article to suggest that another means of accomplishing the end exists in the possibility of an interstate compact for uniform corporate legislation, coupled with supplementary federal legislation appropriate to make the interstate compact effective.

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Conflict Of Laws-Jurisdiction Over Nonresident Carriers As Limited By Doctrine Of Unreasonable Burden On Interstate Commerce May 1936

Conflict Of Laws-Jurisdiction Over Nonresident Carriers As Limited By Doctrine Of Unreasonable Burden On Interstate Commerce

Michigan Law Review

There is little question today but that a foreign corporation may be subject to suit and a personal judgment in a state where it is doing business if service has been had upon a proper agent of the corporation, designated by law or otherwise. There may be consider able question as to what constitutes "doing business." The fact that the business carried on by a corporation is wholly interstate in character will not prevent that corporation from being subject to service in the same manner as though it were doing intrastate business as well a It also seems clear that …

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Municipal Corporations-Standards Required In Licensing Ordinances Feb 1936

Municipal Corporations-Standards Required In Licensing Ordinances

Michigan Law Review

Defendant appealed from conviction for operating a used auto business without obtaining a license for such business under a city ordinance requiring same to be granted by the city commission if in its opinion applicant was a proper and suitable person, the place to be used was proper, having in mind the nature and character of the business and possibility of commission of crime, and the sanitary facilities thereon were proper. There was no specific legislative grant for passage of such ordinance. Defendant's application was rejected by the commission mainly because of lack of proper sanitary facilities. Held, standards …

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Retail Responsibility And Judicial Law Making, John Barker Waite Feb 1936

Retail Responsibility And Judicial Law Making, John Barker Waite

Michigan Law Review

When the corner grocer sells a can of beans and a peck of fresh spinach, does he make himself responsible for the contents of the can, or acquire liability because of a green worm buried deep in the leaves?

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Sales - Status Of Title-Retaining Instruments As Against Third Persons Feb 1936

Sales - Status Of Title-Retaining Instruments As Against Third Persons

Michigan Law Review

The exploitation of the legal concept of divided property interests in chattels by ingenious draftsman-lawyers has resulted in the variety of title-retaining instruments commonly used today in the creation of vendor-vendee relationships. Among the more familiar forms may be mentioned the conditional sale, bailment lease, chattel mortgage, and trust receipt. The chief motive of the seller in resorting to these devices seems to lie in the belief that the buyer is a poor credit risk, and the particular instrument which a seller will employ in a given situation will depend largely upon the relative legal advantages which he seeks to …

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Sales-Corporate Reorganization Proceedings Under Section 77b-Right Of Conditional Vendors To Reclaim Property Feb 1936

Sales-Corporate Reorganization Proceedings Under Section 77b-Right Of Conditional Vendors To Reclaim Property

Michigan Law Review

The debtor, a laundry corporation, had filed a petition for reorganization under Section 77B of the Bankruptcy Act. The petition was granted, but prior to the approval by the court of a reorganization plan several conditional vendors (whose sales agreements had been filed according to the requirement of the New York law) moved to retake the articles sold, in accordance with said law relative to conditional sales, the debtor having defaulted in the agreed payments. Held, the conditional vendors were not lienors nor mortgagees, whose interests would have been covered by the reorganization petition; and since the chattels were …

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Utilization Of State Commissioners In The Administration Of The Federal Motor Carrier Act, Paul G. Kauper Nov 1935

Utilization Of State Commissioners In The Administration Of The Federal Motor Carrier Act, Paul G. Kauper

Michigan Law Review

The problem of securing effective governmental regulation of economic interests that overlap state boundary lines, while at the same time curbing the growth of a centralized bureaucracy and preventing the disintegration of local government, becomes daily more disturbing. For this reason the passage of the Motor Carrier Act in the closing days of the 74th Congress and its approval by the President on August 9, 1935, was an event of singular importance for students of American governmental administration. Important as the legislation is in its substantive aspects, it is equally noteworthy because of its administrative provisions. The striking feature of …

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Conditional Sales -Tort Liability Of Vendor For Recaption Of Property Conditionally Sold May 1935

Conditional Sales -Tort Liability Of Vendor For Recaption Of Property Conditionally Sold

Michigan Law Review

Defendant transferred a piano to plaintiff under a conditional sales contract retaining the right in case of any default in payment "to peacefully or forcibly, and without process of law, enter the premises where said property is . . . and to take . . . possession thereof." Plaintiff de-faulted in payment. Employees of defendant, entering the house of plaintiff in his absence and without notice, removed the piano. Held, plaintiff may not recover for a conversion, but may recover for a breaking and entering whether defendant's agents broke into the house with actual force, or mere technical force, …

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Bills And Notes - Rule Of Decision In Federal Courts - Application Of Swift V. Tyson To The Uniform Negotiable Instruments Law Jan 1935

Bills And Notes - Rule Of Decision In Federal Courts - Application Of Swift V. Tyson To The Uniform Negotiable Instruments Law

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff, the transferee after maturity of certain promissory notes made by defendant in Florida, sued in his own name on the notes in the Federal District Court for Pennsylvania. Under the Pennsylvania practice, an assignee after maturity could not sue in his own name unless the notes were negotiable. The District Court concluded that the notes, which contained a provision for interest on overdue interest payments, were non-negotiable and sustained a demurrer. This was affirmed by the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on the ground that although the Florida Negotiable Instruments Law was the law of the …

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Sales - Chattel Mortgages Under The Bulk Sales Statutes Jan 1935

Sales - Chattel Mortgages Under The Bulk Sales Statutes

Michigan Law Review

Gessaman, who was a dealer in new and used automobiles, was indebted to the bank and other creditors. While so indebted, he executed and delivered to the acceptance corporation a chattel mortgage upon all the furniture, fixtures, equipment and supplies used in the business. Later the mortgagee took possession of the chattels without suit, and immediately afterward Gessaman was adjudged a bankrupt. The trustee, in behalf of the bank and other creditors, seeks to subject the chattels to a trust in the hands of the acceptance corporation upon the claim that the chattels were taken under a sale in violation …

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Federal Practice- Declaratory Judgments Apr 1934

Federal Practice- Declaratory Judgments

Michigan Law Review

Alabama, for the purpose of invoking original jurisdiction, applied to the Supreme Court of the United States for leave to file a complaint in equity against nineteen States to have statutes regulating and prohibiting the sale of goods manufactured by convict labor declared void because in violation of the commerce clause of the federal Constitution. Later, Alabama was allowed to submit an amendment eliminating fourteen States. Held, leave to file bill as amended denied. State of Alabama v. State of Arizona, et al., (U. S. 1934) 1 U. S. LAW WEEK (Feb. 6, 1934), index p. 468.

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Sales - Section 14, Uniform Conditional Sales Act - Removal To Other State Without Refiling Mar 1934

Sales - Section 14, Uniform Conditional Sales Act - Removal To Other State Without Refiling

Michigan Law Review

The plaintiff, vendor in a conditional sale contract, received notice of the removal of the goods by the vendee to another State, but failed to refile the contract in the other State as required by its statute. A creditor of the vendee attached the goods without notice of the conditional sale contract, but was given actual notice of it by the plaintiff during the prescribed filing period. In this action, the plaintiff sought to recover the goods from the attaching creditor. Held, the conditional sale contract was void as to the creditor in the absence of a refiling, notwithstanding …

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Sales - Implied Warranty Of Fitness - Restaurateur Mar 1934

Sales - Implied Warranty Of Fitness - Restaurateur

Michigan Law Review

Defendant, proprietor of a hotel and dining room, served unwholesome food to the plaintiff who became ill as a result of its impurity. The plaintiff sued for the damages resulting from his illness, on the theory that there was an implied warranty that the food was fit for human consumption. Held, the serving of food for immediate consumption on the premises was not a "sale" within the Uniform Sales Act, and therefore there was no warranty attached under the terms of the Act, and there was no implied warranty of fitness of food so served at common law. Lynch …

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Legal Problems In National Merchandising, Richard Ford Feb 1934

Legal Problems In National Merchandising, Richard Ford

Michigan Law Review

An interstate sales organization encounters an infinite number of problems of legal tactics, some of which recur with great frequency, and are more or less common to every industry. For discussion in this paper the writer has selected a few such problems, chiefly from the electric refrigeration business; these are presented in the belief that they are typical of many lines of national merchandising.

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State Taxation Of Interstate Motor Carriers, Paul G. Kauper Jan 1934

State Taxation Of Interstate Motor Carriers, Paul G. Kauper

Michigan Law Review

Motor transportation for hire, as indicated earlier in the article, has become a business of large proportions and, like every other business, should be subject to the ordinary business taxes. More particularly, since it is a form of public transportation, it should be subject to the same kinds of taxes that are exacted from other businesses of the public utilities type.

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Constitutional Law - Federal Control Over Crime - Scope Of Power To Regulate Crime Under The Commerce Clause Jan 1934

Constitutional Law - Federal Control Over Crime - Scope Of Power To Regulate Crime Under The Commerce Clause

Michigan Law Review

The increase of criminal activities interstate in scope, and the growing dissatisfaction with state enforcement of local laws, have focused attention of late upon the power of Congress to regulate crime under the commerce clause of the Constitution. Outstanding among proposals for congressional legislation are the following: making interstate felonies federal offenses; punishing criminals who flee across state lines after committing a crime; and restricting the sale and transportation of firearms. Most, if not all, of this suggested legislation must rest on the commerce clause for its validity. We purpose here to discuss the nature and scope of this power, …

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Constitutional Law - Interstate Commerce - Motor Carrier Operating Within - Single State As A Link In Interstate Transportation, Paul G. Kauper Dec 1933

Constitutional Law - Interstate Commerce - Motor Carrier Operating Within - Single State As A Link In Interstate Transportation, Paul G. Kauper

Michigan Law Review

The plaintiff was engaged in business as a common carrier of goods by motor vehicle. He transported goods between the docks of Los Angeles harbor and points in and around Los Angeles, but all the goods which he carried were originally shipped in from or were consigned to destinations outside the State. His operations, however, were independent of the operations of connecting carriers. The California Railroad Commission ordered the plaintiff to cease operations until he secured a certificate of public convenience and necessity. Held, on review, that the plaintiff was engaged in interstate commerce, and that the Commission's order …

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State Taxation Of Interstate Motor Carriers, Paul G. Kauper Dec 1933

State Taxation Of Interstate Motor Carriers, Paul G. Kauper

Michigan Law Review

Though the Supreme Court has never had occasion to express its views as to the gasoline tax in its relation to interstate motor carriers (see first instalment of this article), it has been confronted with a series of cases involving automobile registration taxes. Every State today imposes such taxes. A brief discussion of the theory and nature of such taxes will aid in understanding their legal consequences.

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