Common Law Commons^™

The Attaint, John M. Zane

Michigan Law Review

The practice of attainting a jury was the method by which for centuries the English law corrected an erroneous finding of fact by the body of men who, in course of time, came to be called a jury. Today this necessary corrective of judicial administration is very inadequately performed by the judge or judges presiding over the trial. The proceeding is now called a motion for a new trial. The new trial is inadequate for the reason that it does not, as did the attaint, substitute a correct verdict for the one given. It merely reverses or sets aside the …

Rule Against Perpetuities As Applied To Options, John R. Rood

Articles

Does the rule against perpetuities render unlimited options void? This is a question which the English courts answered affirmatively some thirty-five years ago; new aspects of the question have been frequently presented to those courts since that time, and conclusions not easy to reconcile have been reached. It is believed that the present status of the law in England is that an option is like any other interest in land, void if it may arise at too remote a time, otherwise not. This conclusion is based on the decision in Borland's Trustees v. Steel Bros. & Co. [1901] 1 Ch. …

The Sheriff's Return, Edson R. Sunderland

Articles

When William the Conqueror found himself military master of Britain, he was confronted by a governmental problem quite different from that which has usually accompanied foreign conquest. He did not subdue a nation already organized, substituting his power for that of its former ruler in the conventional way of conquerors. Britain was a geographical unit but politically and socially it was a congeries of loosely related communities. The natural law of survival of the fittest normally operates upon peoples as upon individuals, and develops centralized power as a means of self-preservation. But Britain had a substitute for this. The sheltering …

Civil Law And The Common Law A World Survey, R W. Lee

Michigan Law Review

In universities and other seats of learning, where men devote themselves to the pursuit of truth, certain great events or movements in the world's history claim attention as essentially and always proper subjects of investigation. Whatever the future may bring, we can hardly suppose a time when the art of Greece, the literature of England, the religions of the East will not be studied. Nor before an assembly of lawyers is it necessary to urge the claims of a great system of law as a subject which may well engage the amplest resources of the human intellect. For many centuries …

Anomalous Growth Of The Common Law -- The Anglo-American Quest For Justice, Hugh Evander Willis

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Revocability Of Licenses - The Rule Of Wood V. Leadbitter, Ralph W. Aigler

Articles

That a mere license purporting to create in the licensee a new right or privilege is revocable at law at the will of the licensor seems to have been definitely settled in England by Wood v. Leadbitter, 13 M. & W. 838 (1845). It was there held that the plaintiff who had entered the close of the defendant's master after the purchase of a proper ticket could be forcibly ousted, notice having been first given that he should leave. The only remedy open to the ousted ticket holder-in law at least-no excessive violence1 having been used, is to sue for …

The Liability Of The Common Carrier As Determined By The Recent Decisions Of The United States Supreme Court, Edwin C. Goddard

Articles

An understanding of the present day liability of the common carrier under conditions as they exist, especially in interstate shipments, is best reached by an historical journey from the early decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States to the end of the year just past.

Note And Comment, Henry Rottschaefer, Walter Mckenzie, Karl J. Mohr, John G. Cedergren, J G. Tucker Jr

Michigan Law Review

The Use of Multiple in Determining the Value of Railroad Lands - The case of Chicago & N. W. Ry. Co. v. Smith et al., decided by the United States District Court for the District of South Dakota and reported in 21o Fed. 632, contains an interesting suggestion as to the means to be employed in determining the value of lands used for railway purposes, which 'Was not, however, accepted by the court.

Some Myths Of The Law, Walter Clark

Michigan Law Review

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things." These words of the great Apostle to the Gentiles apply to every calling and to every profession under the sun save only that of the law.

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 …

The History Of Contract In Early English Equity, W. T. Barbour

Books

“Mr. Barbour’s contribution to the Studies is an attempt to characterize with some precision and detail the functions of the Chancery in the fifteenth century. The court was gradually differentiated from the King’s Council, and the writs of Edward III’s time calling on persons to appear under penalty of a fine or imprisonment (subpoena), and other special injunctions, was generally framed in terms which leave it undecided whether proceedings were to be taken by the King’s Council, or by the Council under the chairmanship of the Chancellor himself with or without the aid of assessors. By the time of Richard …

Corporations And Express Trusts As Business Organizations, Horace Lafayette Wilgus

Articles

PRESIDENT BUTLER of Columbia University is reported to have said in an address before the New York Chamber of Commerce in 1911, that "the limited liability corporation is the greatest single discovery of modem times, whether you judge it by its social, by its ethical, by its industrial, or, in the long run--after we understand it and know how to use it,--by its political, effects." 1

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 New Federal Equity Rules, Robert E. Bunker

Articles

On November 4, 1912 the Supreme Court of the United States, by formal order, adopted and established a code of rules for the courts of equity of the United States, which should take the place of all rules theretofore prescribed by the Supreme Court and then in force. Rule 81 provides: "These rules shall be in force on and after February 1, 1913, and shall govern all proceedings in cases then pending or thereafter brought, save that where in any then pending cause an order has been made or act done which cannot be changed without doing substantial injustice, the …

Admiralty Jurisdiction And State Waters, John B. Waite

Articles

The case of Ex parte Boyer1 closes with the statement that it "does not raise the question whether the admiralty jurisdiction of the district court extends to waters wholly within the body of a state, and from which vessels cannot so pass as to carry on commerce between places in such state and places in another state or in a foreign country; and no opinion is intended to be intimated as to jurisdiction in such a case." Nor does any other case appear directly to intimate such an opinion, unless it be that of Stapp v. Clyde2 wherein a state …

How To Beat The Rule Against Perpetuities, John R. Rood

Articles

Many people seem to think that the lawyer's problem is not so much to know what the law is as to know how to get all they want while obeying the law to the letter. In the case of perpetuities the history of nearly a thousand years of our law shows an almost unbroken series of disastrous failures of the best-laid schemes to violate the public policy of freedom of alienation.

Note And Comment, Ralph W. Aigler, Robert L. Mayall

Michigan Law Review

The Law School; Possession Under Mistake, as Adverse Possession; Limitation of Carrier's Common-Law Liability; The Force and Effect of State Insolvency Laws Under the Bankruptcy Act of 1898;

The Lien Or Equitable Theory Of The Mortgage--Some Generalizations, Edgar N. Durfee

Articles

The question is--What is the nature of the rights of a real property mortgagee in those jurisdictions which adopt the lien or equitable theory3 of the mortgage? In one sense this question calls for a full statement of the law of mortgages but that, of course, is not the sense in which the writer puts it. He means by it to put a broader and more scientific question--a question, be it at once confessed, of jurisprudence--yet a question which has an important bearing on, if it is not in fact conclusive of, several specific problems in the law, which will …

Note And Comment, Gordon W. Stoner, Sigmund W. David, Victor R. Jose Jr.

Michigan Law Review

The Law School; Pleading Estoppel; Libels on Person and on Property; The Conflict Between a Patentee's Right to Monopoly and a State Anti-Monopoly Statute

Note And Comment, Horace Lafayette Wilgus, John R. Rood

Michigan Law Review

Power of the Governor General to Expel Resident Aliens from the Insular Territory of the United States; Confusion of the Doctrine of Estoppel with that of Bona Fide Purchase for Value without Notice; The Way of the Transgressor is Easy; Duty of the Mortgagee to Give Notice and Proff of Loss Under Standard Policy

Pleading Estoppel, W. Gordon Stoner

Articles

No subject is fraught with more difficulties for the pleader than that of estoppel. The problems of "when" and "how" to plead seem never so perplexing as when they arise in connection with this subject. That these problems are not confined to any day or age is evidenced by the reports from the time of Lord COKE down to the latest advance sheets of the present day reporter systems, and the lawyers of no generation have been wholly agreed on their solution. No system of pleading yet established has been free from these questions and with each general change in …

The Reasons For Some Legal Fictions, Sidney T. Miller

Michigan Law Review

In this age of fact, fancy is at a discount. Consequently legal fictions, which required the play of some fancy in their beginning, have fallen not only into disuse but also into disfavor. Many of them, however, have done good work in the past, and some are doing it now. Therefore it may not prove uninstructive to consider some in a discursive way. A legal fiction is probably best defined as "a legal assumption that something is true which is, or may be, false-being an assumption of an innocent and beneficial character, made to advance the interests of justice."1 From …

Note And Comment, Edson R. Sunderland, Frederick H. Schmidt, John R. Rood, Ralph W. Aigler, Robert T. Hughes

Michigan Law Review

The Work of the Commissioners on Uniform State Laws; Some Difficulties of Code Pleading; Applicability of Ordinances to the Distribution of Liquors by Social Clubs; Capias in Execution Without Prior Order or Arrest; The Degree of Care Required in the Operation of a Scenic Railway; Who Can Complain of Ultra Vires Acquisition of Real Estate by a Corporation?; The Heinrich Brunner Memorial;

Note And Comment, Henry M. Bates, Edson R. Sunderland, Harry W. Isenberg, James H. Brewster

Michigan Law Review

The Right of Privacy at Common Law; Limitation of a Carrier's Liability for Negligence; Validity of Corporate By-Law Vesting in Directors the Discretionary Power of Denying Stockholders the Right to Examine the Corporate Books; A Single Action of Successive Actions for a Nuisance; Status of One Holding Office Under an Unconstitutional Statute; Two Recent Decisions Preventing the Presbyterian Re-Union

New Doctrine Concerning Contracts In Restraint Of Trade, Jerome C. Knowlton

Articles

Is a covenant in restraint of a particular trade and unlimited as to space against public policy and therefore void and unenforceable? Long ago an English judge, in speaking of the making of contracts, protested against arguing too strongly upon public policy. "It is a very unruly horse, and, when once you get astride it, you never know where it will carry you."1 Right he was and is, and the judge who would keep his saddle must be a good rider, for the horse shies badly on the way at every new condition in trade and commerce, occasioned by recent …

The Struggle For A Perpetuity, John R. Rood

Articles

It is natural for us moderns to conceive of the right to alienate as an inseparable incident of ownership, since we have known no other condition; and in the modern books and decisions the subject is generally disposed of with the curt statement as if it were a truism. It is believed that to such as are not familiar with the history of that doctrine a review of the struggle through centuries, by which it was finally established on its present firm foundation, would not be devoid of interest.

Influence Of Social And Economic Ideals On The Law Of Malicious Torts, W. Gordon Stoner

Articles

"The existence and the alteration of human institutions," says DICEY, "must in a sense, always and everywhere depend upon the beliefs or feelings, or, in other words, upon the opinion of the society in which such institutions flourish."1 Undoubtedly, law, as much as any other human institution, has felt this influence of public opinion. The political, economical and ethical ideals of a people find expression in their laws. True it is that public opinion is usually, if not always, in the lead, but in a truly happy and contented society the distance is never great. As MAINE says, in progressive …

Some Difficulties Of Code Pleading, Edson R. Sunderland

Articles

The common law system of pleading was founded upon the theory that issues of fact, representing the gist of the controversy between the contending parties to a suit, should be developed by the pleadings. In practice this was not always realized, for many fictions and legal conclusions obtained recognition as legitimate allegations, and upon them issues were formed which satisfied the courts. The most striking and familiar instance of this is found in the common counts. Here there is an allegation of indebtedness, which is a mere legal conclusion, and with this as a consideration a promise to pay is …

Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Assignment for Creditors--Validity of Common Law Assignment Under State Statutes--Assignee May Maintain Replevin; Bills and Notes--Fraud--Ability to Read; Bills and Notes--Signature by Agent or Representative--Personal Liability; Boundaries--Meander Line as Boundary in Government Grants--Mistake in Survey; Carriers--Liability as Carriers of Live Stock; Contracts--Antenuptial Agreements--Performance Prevented by Party; Courts--Supreme Court--Review of Decisions of State Courts; Courts--United States Courts Enjoining Proceedings in State Courts--establishment of Railroad Rates by Commission; Criminal Law--Larceny--Fraudulent Use of Legal Process; Criminal Law--Reception of Verdict--Accused's Right to be Present; Dead Bodies--Power of Court to Order Exhumation to Procure Evidence; Evidence--Burden of Proof; Evidence--compelling Accused to Criminate Himself--Waiver of Privilege; …

Decisions, Statutes, & C., Concerning The Law Of Estates In Land, John R. Rood

Books

“The following pages have been printed from the notes made from time to time while preparing to conduct exercises in the first course on real property at the University of Michigan, using Blackstone’s Commentaries on the text.… In this edition several typographical errors in the first impression have been discovered and corrected. The scope of the work has also been extended by numerous additions throughout, and by inserting the chapters on uses, trusts, and powers, which did not appear in the first edition.

JOHN R. ROOD

Dated, Ann Arbor, February 25th, 1910” --Preface.