Common Law Commons^™

The Institute's Restatement And The Michigan Law, Herbert F. Goodrich

Michigan Law Review

The task which the American Law Institute has undertaken is to make a statement of the common law, in its various branches. The end in view is not codification; indeed the idea is directly opposed to codification. It is hoped to have, when the work is completed, an accurate statement of existing common law, carefully and systematically made, from which local variations and peculiarities have been ironed out. It is hoped, in other words, to restore both accuracy and continuity to the pattern of the common law fabric as it is woven in our judicial mills.

A Rational Theory For Joinder Of Causes Of Action And Defences, And For The Use Of Counterclaims, William Wirt Blume

Michigan Law Review

In discussing, first, the joinder of actions it will be convenient to consider three groups or classes of cases:

Class I : Where one plaintiff (or joint plaintiffs) unites in a single proceeding two or more causes of action against one defendant (or joint defendants).

Class 2: "Where two or more plaintiffs, each having a cause of action against the same party (or parties), unite their causes of action in one proceeding.

Class 3: Where one plaintiff (or joint plaintiffs) having several causes of action, each against a different party, unites them in one proceeding.

In considering each group or …

Joinder And Splitting Of Causes Of Action, Charles E. Clark

Michigan Law Review

The pleading rules concerning joinder and splitting of causes of action are complements of each other, though designed to achieve different objectives. The joinder rule is that separate causes cannot be "joined" or pleaded in the same suit unless they fall within one of the classes of permissible joinder specified in the codes. The purpose of the rule is to prevent too wide a field of litigation and too diverse issues in a single suit and thus to avoid a case of undue confusion and complexity. The rule against splitting is that a single cause shall not be "split" or …

Arson-Statutory Chance Of Common Law Requisites

Michigan Law Review

At common Jaw, arson was a clearly defined felony, including only certain kinds of burnings. According to Lord Coke, it was the malicious and voluntary burning!' of the house of another by night or by day, 3 INST. 66. There were certain well-understood essentials constituting the crime. The structure must have been a house or an out-house; it must have been the house of another; it must have been inhabited, though not actually occupied, at the time of the burning. The structure must have been a completed one; there must have been an actual burning-at least to the extent of …

Jurisdiction Over Unincorporated Associations Composed Of Nonresidents

Michigan Law Review

New York has a statute which provides for suits against unincorporated associations consisting of seven or more members. It reads as follows: An action or special proceeding may be maintained, against the president or treasurer of such an association, * * * upon any cause of action, for or upon which the· plaintiff may maintain such action or special proceeding, against all the associates * * *· Any partnership; or other company of persons, which has a president or treasurer, is, deemed an association within the meaning of this section." General Associations Law (Consol. Laws of N. Y.), sec. 13. …

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 …

Book Reviews

Michigan Law Review

A collection of book reviews by multiple authors.

New Types Of Negotiable Paper

Michigan Law Review

Admirers of the common law are prone to point with pride to its adaptability to meet changing conditions. In codification the tendency toward rigidity would seem to be almost inevitable, particularly in so far as there is an indulgence in attempts at definition. The Uniform Negotiable Instruments Law affords examples of the price to be paid in departing from the ready elasticity of the common law.

Rights Of Action Under Death And Survival Statutes, Bowen E. Schumacher

Michigan Law Review

Upon the injury of a person by the wrongful act of another and his death subsequent to and as a result of the injury, it would seem at a glance that there has been two wrongs done. First, there is the wrong to the injured person, giving rise to an action of tort against the wrongdoer, and secondly the injury to the relatives who, by the death, are deprived of support or financial contribution from the decedent. At common law the right of action accruing to the person before his death, i. e. the action for the tort, abated at …

Legitimation And Adoption In The Conflict Of Laws, Herbert F. Goodrich

Michigan Law Review

Legitimation is defined in Bouvier's Law Dictionary as the act of giving the character of legitimate children to those who were not so born. To make the description complete, it should be added that the natural relation of parent and child must exist between the parties (if strangers in blood the case becomes one of adoption) and that the act or acts of legitimation must be provided for by law.

Contracts--Modern Rules As To Past Consideration Furnished At Request

Michigan Law Review

Very early in the history of contract law it was recognized that goods delivered or services rendered in the past could not furnish valid consideration for a present promise, for there was no quid pro quo, no element of exchange. But the equities in favor of the promisee in such cases, in view of the fact that assumpsit would lie only on an express promise, were frequently so strong that in 1615 we find an exception created. Lampleigh v. Brathwait, Hobart 105, held, that if the past services or goods had been furnished at request, the present promise …

Arrest Without A Warrant, Horace L. Wilgus

Michigan Law Review

The word arrest comes from the Latin through the French, and literally means to stop, stay or restrain. In law it relates to restraints upon a person's liberty of locomotion, movement from place to place. To require one to keep her mouth shut is not an arrest, even if wrongful. Every detention or "confinement of the person is an imprisonment, whether it be in a common prison, or private house, or in the stocks," or in the open street or elsewhere. Where codes define false imprisonment "as the unlawful violation of the personal liberty of another," the gist of the …

Book Reviews

Michigan Law Review

A collection of book reviews by multiple authors.

Coke-Parliamentary Sovereignty Or The Supremacy Of The Law?, R. A. Mackay

Michigan Law Review

Few legal authorities have received such conflicting interpretations as Sir Edward Coke. American jurists have turned to him as the legal father of judicial review, English jurists have found in him the authority for Parliamentary Supremacy, The cause of these conflicting interpretations is partly Coke's obscure style. Coke was an encyclopedist rather than a philosopher of the law: his ideas must be dug out and fused together from an heterogeneous mass of apparently unrelated statements. Even his Reports are legal and literary puzzles, a mixture of advocates' pleas, judicial decisions, and probably Sir Edward Coke's personal opinions as well. Hence …

What Is Consideration In The Anglo-American Law Of Contracts?, Hugh Evander Willis

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Perpetuity Statutes, Edwin C. Goddard

Michigan Law Review

The common law of perpetuities is one of the most interesting examples of almost pure judicial legislation. De Donis, The Statutes of Uses and of Wills, but· gave wider scope to the development by the courts of rules of law to thwart the attempt of the great landowners to tie up their landed estates in their families in perpetuity. One body of rules to this end limited restraints upon alienation, another the creation of future interests vesting at too remote a period. Restriction of restraints upon alienation, and the rule against perpetuities, these two were developed for the same end, …

The Change In The Meaning Of Consortium, Evans Holbrook

Michigan Law Review

Lawyers have long boasted of the flexibility of the common law, or its ability to adapt itself to the needs of changing conditions of society, of its responsiveness to sociological progress. And while eager reformers have often--and with much reason--complained that the law is laggard in its response to the needs of the people, yet it is clear that sooner or later the courts generally bring themselves into accord with "what is sanctioned by usage, or held by the prevailing morality or strong and preponderant public opinion to be greatly and immediately necessary to the public welfare." This responsiveness to …

Rights Of Finders, Ralph W. Aigler

Michigan Law Review

Much of the confusion and uncertainty in the law regarding the topic indicated above is due to a failure to distinguish between several types of situations and to appreciate the applicability of certain fundamental principles. The words "lost" and "find" are used in such widely varying senses that the all too common method of reaching a conclusion by first applying a name to a thing or situation has 'in this particular field led to special difficulty.

Challenges To The Array

Michigan Law Review

Trial by jury demands impartial jurors as the indispensable basis for public confidence. And the first requisite for obtaining impartiality is indifference on the part of those who select the jury. This was fully recognized at the common law, and ever since the days when jurors ceased to be witnesses and became triers of facts, it was a good objection to the entire panel that the sheriff was not indifferent between the parties in the selection and summoning of the jury. Prejudice on the part of individual jurors could be met by challenges to the polls, but when favor lurked …

The Necessity Of Planning A Traverse, L. C.

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Rights Of Finders, Ralph W. Aigler

Articles

Much of the confusion and uncertainty in the law regarding the topic indicated above is due to a failure to distinguish between several types of situations and to appreciate the applicability of certain fundamental principles. The words "lost" and "find" are used in such widely varying senses that the all too common method of reaching a conclusion by first applying a name to a thing or situation has in this particular field led to special difficulty.

Change In The Meaning Of Consortium, Evans Holbrook

Articles

LAWYERS have long boasted of the flexibility of the common law, of its ability to adapt itself to the needs of changing conditions of society, of its responsiveness to sociological progress. And while eager reformers have often-and with much reason complained that the law is laggard in its response to the needs of the people, yet it is clear that sooner or later the courts generally bring themselves into accord with "what is sanctioned by usage, or held by the prevailing morality or strong and preponderant public 'opinion to be greatly and immediately necessary to the public welfare." This responsiveness …

Rights Of Finders, Ralph W. Aigler

Articles

Much of the confusion and uncertainty in the law regarding the topic indicated above is due to a failure to distinguish between several types of situations and to appreciate the applicability of certain fundamental principles. The words "lost" and "find" are used in such widely varying senses that the all too common method of reaching a conclusion by first applying a name to a thing or situation has in this particular field led to special difficulty.

Labor And The Law In The Public Utility Field, George Jarvis Thompson

Michigan Law Review

To the cynical this title may suggest a rhetorical antithesis, and the average citizen cannot but be a bit cynical as a result of his observation and experience of the actuality of the failure of the law to function for the preservation of the continuity of these essential public services in the frequently recurring outbreaks between organized capital and organized labor. In a great measure, he has only himself to blame for this unfortunate condition. He lent ear to the vote-seeking politician and to the propaganda of the interested parties, taking sides with one or the other without thought of …

The Spirit Of The Common Law, Thomas Porter Hardman

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Assignments- Assignment of an Expectancy - Joseph and James were two of six children. A contract witnessed "that Joseph Snyder has sold to James Snyder one undivided sixth of the real estate owned by the mother, Susan Snyder; to secure said interest to James after her death, the mother unites in the conveyance of said interest The said Joseph warrants and defends the interest from all claims." The contract was signed by Joseph and by the mother. Held, Joseph had no estate which he could convey, and the contract, though made with the consent of the mother, was unenforceable either …

Book Reviews, Edwin W. Patterson, Edson R. Sunderland, C E. Griffin

Michigan Law Review

The title of this brilliant little volume might, more accurately, have been, "The Spirits of the Common Law," for it depicts the common law as the battleground of many conflicting spirits, from which a few relatively permanent ideas and ideals have emerged triumphant. As a whole, the book is a pluralistic-idealistic interpretation of legal history. Idealistic, because Dean Pound finds that the fundamentals of the 'common law have been shaped by ideas and ideals rather than by economic determinism or class struggle; he definitely rejects a purely economic interpretation of legal history, although he demands a sociological one (pp. io-ii). …

Mutuality In Specific Performance, Edgar N. Durfee

Articles

Prior to the present century, the subject of mutuality in specific performance was an unsolved puzzle. The decisions of the courts were in the main wise, but the attempts both of courts and text writers to formulate a statement of the principle governing these decisions were far from happy. After two centuries of litigation and discussion, the current formula was that the remedy must be mutual, must be equally available to both parties. The worst fault of this formula was its plausibility. Equality is equity, and perfect equality between the parties to a contract is not attained unless remedies are …

Departure From Precedent, H W. Humble

Michigan Law Review

With the death of the reason for it, every legal doctrine dies.' * * * The fact that the reason for a given rule perished long ago is no just excuse for refusing now to declare the rule itself abrogated, but rather the greater justification for so declaring; and if no, reason ever existed, that fact furnishes additional justification. The doctrine of stare decisis does not preclude a departure from precedent established by a series of decisions clearly erroneous, unless property complications have resulted and a reversal would work a greater injury and injustice than would ensue by following the …

Damage Liability Of Charitable Institutions, Carl Zollman

Michigan Law Review

The question of the liability of charitable institutions to actions for damages presents great difficulties. This is not due how- -ever to a lack of cases. The question has peculiarly "engaged the attention of the bench and bar of the country. The problem has been scrutinized from every conceivable viewpoint. The arguments for and against have well nigh been exhausted, and little, if anything, new remains to be advanced".' In their opinions the courts have frequently gone back to certain English cases disregarding the points decided but stressing certain dicta which have been uttered by the judges which decided them. …