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University of Michigan Law School

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Articles 1771 - 1800 of 2298

Full-Text Articles in Constitutional Law

Judges -Appointment Of Substitute For Recused Judges - Disqualification Of Judges, Julian Caplan Apr 1938

Judges -Appointment Of Substitute For Recused Judges - Disqualification Of Judges, Julian Caplan

Michigan Law Review

The problems of the disqualification of judges because of prejudice and of the appointment of substitutes for judges so disqualified were considered in the recent case of State ex rel. Thompson v. Day. One of the defendants in a labor injunction suit had filed with the governor an affidavit setting forth facts showing that the sole judge of the district in which the dispute had arisen had anti-labor tendencies to such extent that the petitioner could not obtain a fair trial and requested that the regular judge be disqualified from hearing the injunction proceedings and a substitute appointed. The …

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Constitutional Law - Separation Of Powers - Validity Of Statute Requiring Reference Of Disputes To Commissioner Of Labor, Edward D. Ranson Apr 1938

Constitutional Law - Separation Of Powers - Validity Of Statute Requiring Reference Of Disputes To Commissioner Of Labor, Edward D. Ranson

Michigan Law Review

The plaintiff was conducting a private employment agency under a license issued by the commissioner of labor. The defendant, a movie actress, secured an engagement through the plaintiff's influence, pursuant to a contract. A dispute arose as to the amount of compensation due the plaintiff under the terms of the contract. A statute required reference of such disputes to the commissioner of labor, who was to hear and determine the same. Within ten days a dissatisfied party could appeal to the superior court and have a hearing de novo. The plaintiff, failing to comply with the statute, commenced the action …

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Federal And State Cooperation Under The Constitution, Louis W. Koenig Mar 1938

Federal And State Cooperation Under The Constitution, Louis W. Koenig

Michigan Law Review

Federalism, as a system of government, is peculiar in that it involves a union of several autonomous political entities for · common purposes which may be achieved through apportioning the sum total of legislative power between a "national" or "central" government, on the one hand, and constituent "states" on the other. In our own federation, a written Constitution has sought to define the functions of both these centers of government, assigning to each certain spheres of influence upon all persons and property within a given territory. At the Constitutional Convention, the committee of detail carefully listed the powers of the …

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Freedom Of The Press And Of The Mails, Eberhard P. Deutsch Mar 1938

Freedom Of The Press And Of The Mails, Eberhard P. Deutsch

Michigan Law Review

It should be unnecessary to amend the Federal Constitution to accommodate the facilities of government to the needs of society, as those needs develop with the social and scientific advance of civilization. But the trend of legislative effort to reach beyond constitutional limits to satisfy fleeting economic or political expediencies, without regard for the vital distinction between sound and substance, and of courts to seek justification for such excursions, under the benefit of constitutional doubt due "solemn expressions of legislative will," may lead to highly dangerous situations. As this trend is permitted to reach extremes, the erasure of the well-defined …

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Constitutional Law - Public Works Administration - Validity - Requisite Interest To Challenge Constitutionality, Gerald L. Stoetzer Feb 1938

Constitutional Law - Public Works Administration - Validity - Requisite Interest To Challenge Constitutionality, Gerald L. Stoetzer

Michigan Law Review

After three years of prolonged litigation which has deprived the nation of many intended immediate benefits, another New Deal measure commonly known as the Public Works Administration has withstood the legal attacks persistently made upon it. One of the earliest enactments of the Seventy-third Congress during the present administration, Title II of the National Industrial Recovery Act, passed with the view of directing the country from an economic abyss, recently received judicial sanction in the United States Supreme Court, although Title I of the same act was early attacked and decreed unconstitutional in Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States. Title …

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Taxation - Income Taxation Of Stock Dividends, Wallace Mendelson Feb 1938

Taxation - Income Taxation Of Stock Dividends, Wallace Mendelson

Michigan Law Review

In 1929 a stock dividend was paid to the holders of common stock in preferred stock of the dividend paying corporation, which had both common and preferred stock outstanding at the time the stock dividend was declared and paid. The taxpayer, as a holder of common stock, received his pro rata share of the dividend and subsequently within the same taxable year sold the preferred stock which he had so received as a dividend. Held, that under the Revenue Act of 1928, (1) the receipt of the stock dividend was not a taxable occasion, and ( 2) the basis …

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Constitutional Law - Religious Freedom - Compulsory Salute And Pledge Of Allegiance To Flag By School Children -Validity, Dan K. Cook Jan 1938

Constitutional Law - Religious Freedom - Compulsory Salute And Pledge Of Allegiance To Flag By School Children -Validity, Dan K. Cook

Michigan Law Review

A Massachusetts statute imposed a duty upon each public school teacher to lead his pupils, at least once each week, in a salute and pledge of allegiance to the flag. Petitioner was in his third year as a pupil in the public schools, and, in obedience to his father's commands, refused to participate in the salute and pledge. For such refusal, the school committee expelled the petitioner from the school, and he thereupon submitted a petition for a writ of mandamus, to compel his readmission to the school. Held, that the writ be denied, inasmuch as the statute did …

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Constitutional Law - Zoning - Amendment Of Zoning Ordinance As Impairing Vested Rights, Ralph Winkler Jan 1938

Constitutional Law - Zoning - Amendment Of Zoning Ordinance As Impairing Vested Rights, Ralph Winkler

Michigan Law Review

The town plan commission amended the municipal zoning ordinance to permit the erection of an incinerator in a class C residence district. The particular tract upon which the incinerator was to be located had been a municipal garbage dump, and as such, a non-conforming use under the zoning ordinance. The board of health by ordinance declared the garbage dump to be a nuisance. The facts revealed there was an immediate need to dispose of the garbage, etc.; that the erection of an incinerator was the best means of so doing; that the proposed site was a suitable location; that the …

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Municipal Corporations - Constitutional Limitations On Amount Of Debts - Obligations Of Other Public Corporations As Debts Of City, Michigan Law Review Jan 1938

Municipal Corporations - Constitutional Limitations On Amount Of Debts - Obligations Of Other Public Corporations As Debts Of City, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

The city of Troy, New York, had obtained federal aid for a Public Works Administration project involving the erection of a new high school building, conditioned upon the city's supplying $786,000 as its share of the cost. The constitutional debt limitation did not permit the city to borrow this amount. The legislature came to the aid of the city and enacted a law providing that the bonds should be issued as "general obligations" of the city school district by the district's board of education. The act expressly stated that the bonds should not be considered as part of the debt …

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Eminent Domain - Public Housing And Slum Clearance As A "Public Use", Wayne E. Babler Dec 1937

Eminent Domain - Public Housing And Slum Clearance As A "Public Use", Wayne E. Babler

Michigan Law Review

The recent legislation providing for housing and slum clearance raises the interesting and practical problem of whether a taking of land for such housing and slum clearance purposes by means of an eminent domain proceeding is condemnation for a "public use," within the meaning of that term in eminent domain proceedings. Such a taking was held to be for a public use in the recent case of Spahn v. Stewart.

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Constitutional Law - Separation Of Powers - Power Of The Courts And Legislature To Regulate The Practice Of Law And Procedure, Peter S. Boter Nov 1937

Constitutional Law - Separation Of Powers - Power Of The Courts And Legislature To Regulate The Practice Of Law And Procedure, Peter S. Boter

Michigan Law Review

In theory, the doctrine of separation of powers presents a governmental system with spheres of power for each department, separated by clear lines of demarcation. Yet in practice it does not follow that a complete separation of powers could be effected or would be desirable. The concurrent exercise of a power by two coordinate branches of a government may result in conflicting regulations and also in charges that the exercise of the power by one department is an unconstitutional encroachment on the powers to be exercised by another and coordinate department. This situation is present in the concurrent exercise of …

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Public Utilities - Constitutionality Of Statute Imposing Regulatory Costs Upon Utilities, Charles W. Allen Nov 1937

Public Utilities - Constitutionality Of Statute Imposing Regulatory Costs Upon Utilities, Charles W. Allen

Michigan Law Review

A state statute imposed an annual fee of one-tenth of one per cent of gross operating revenues upon public utilities. The fees were placed in a state revolving fund used to defray the expenses of administration of the public service law. Plaintiff railroad paid the fees under protest and brought an action to recover that amount, claiming that the act was unconstitutional. The trial court held that the act was unconstitutional on its face. The state supreme court revised this decision, holding that act valid and placing the burden of proof on the plaintiff to show that it had become …

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Labor Law - Constitutionality Of State Anti-Injunction Acts - Existence Of A "Labor Dispute", Theodore R. Vogt Jun 1937

Labor Law - Constitutionality Of State Anti-Injunction Acts - Existence Of A "Labor Dispute", Theodore R. Vogt

Michigan Law Review

Organized labor has long contested the use of the injunction in labor disputes and since the turn of the century has been active in legislative circles to secure statutory relief from the paralyzing effect of the too-freely granted temporary injunction and restraining order. A substantial step forward was the enactment of the Clayton Act by Congress. Similar legislation was adopted by several states, some before and some after the congressional action. However, the expected benefits to labor did not accrue, for the Supreme Court in Duplex Printing Press Co. v. Deering so narrowly construed the statute as to rob it …

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Constitutional Law - Protection Of Freedom Of Speech Under The Fourteenth Amendment, Jack L. White Jun 1937

Constitutional Law - Protection Of Freedom Of Speech Under The Fourteenth Amendment, Jack L. White

Michigan Law Review

The appellant, a negro member of the Communist Party, was engaged in work as a paid party organizer in Atlanta in 1932. Shortly after leading a hunger march of unemployed he was arrested, and was tried and convicted under a state statute, enacted in the Reconstruction Period, which made criminal "any attempt, by persuasion or otherwise, to induce others to join in any combined resistance to the lawful' authority of the State." At the time of his arrest the appellant had in his possession evidence of his organization activities and also a quantity of party literature, but there was no …

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Constitutional Law - Retroactivity - Federal Stamp Tax On Profits Accruing From The Sale Of Silver Bullion, William J. Isaacson Jun 1937

Constitutional Law - Retroactivity - Federal Stamp Tax On Profits Accruing From The Sale Of Silver Bullion, William J. Isaacson

Michigan Law Review

Respondent purchased silver bullion on May 3, 1934, subsequently selling it on May 23 and 24. On the profits of this transaction he was required to pay a tax which he unsuccessfully attempted to have refunded. The Silver Purchase Act of June 19, 1934, imposed a fifty per cent tax consisting of stamps attached to the memorandum of sale on all profits arising from such transfers. The act further provided that the tax was to be applicable on all sales made on or after May 15, 1934. The court of claims upheld the respondent's contention that the act was unconstitutional …

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Constitutional Law- Right To Jury Trial - Petty Statutory Offenses, James H. Roberton Jun 1937

Constitutional Law- Right To Jury Trial - Petty Statutory Offenses, James H. Roberton

Michigan Law Review

The defendant was tried before the police court of the District of Columbia for selling, as a second-hand dealer, unused return-trip railroad tickets without a license, contrary to an Act of Congress. The act provides for a maximum penalty of $300 fine or ninety days in jail. The defendant was denied a jury trial. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia found the defendant entitled to a jury trial. On appeal to the United States Supreme Court, it was held by a majority of the Court, that the Federal Constitution does not guarantee the defendant a jury trial …

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Constitutional Law - Unreasonable Search And Seizure - Unauthorized Examination Of Telegrams, Peter S. Boter Jun 1937

Constitutional Law - Unreasonable Search And Seizure - Unauthorized Examination Of Telegrams, Peter S. Boter

Michigan Law Review

A special committee of the United States Senate, appointed to investigate lobbying activities in connection with the so-called "holding company bill" sought to obtain from telegraph companies, under blanket subpoena duces tecum, all telegrams passing through their offices in Washington from February 1, 1935 to September 1, 1935. When the telegraph companies expressed reluctance to comply with the subpoenas, the Senate Committee sought aid from the Federal Communications Commission. The commission by formal resolution detailed a member of its staff to work with an examiner of the Senate Committee in the examination and copying of the telegrams. Among the messages …

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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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Constitutional Law - The Federal-State System Of Unemployment Compensation Under The Social Security Act, Elbert R. Gilliom Jun 1937

Constitutional Law - The Federal-State System Of Unemployment Compensation Under The Social Security Act, Elbert R. Gilliom

Michigan Law Review

One of the last pieces of New Deal social legislation to receive the judicial sanction of the United States Supreme Court before the end of its epoch-making October 1936 term is the tax imposed on employers of eight or more by Title IX of the Social Security Act of 1935. Through the operation of eleven expressly separable "titles," the comprehensive act (1) authorizes future appropriations to the states for old-age assistance, unemployment compensation administration, aid to dependent children, maternal and child welfare, services for crippled children, public health work, and aid to the blind; (2) establishes a system of federal …

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Constitutional Law-Due Process -Fair Trade Acts, Milton Rabinowitz Jun 1937

Constitutional Law-Due Process -Fair Trade Acts, Milton Rabinowitz

Michigan Law Review

The New York "Fair Trade Act" proclaims price maintenance agreements subservient to the public policy of the state, and renders price cutting by any merchant with knowledge of such an agreement, even though not a party thereto, actionable as unfair competition at the suit of anyone injured thereby. In Doubleday, Doran & Co. v. Macy & Co., the New York court had condemned the enactment as violating the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Subsequently, the United States Supreme Court, in Old Dearborn Distributing Co. v. Seagram-Distiller Corp., decided the contrary as to the validity of a …

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Constitutional Law - Validity Of A Compensating Use Tax - Commerce Clause, William J. Isaacson Jun 1937

Constitutional Law - Validity Of A Compensating Use Tax - Commerce Clause, William J. Isaacson

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiffs, appellees in this court, while engaged in the construction of a federal dam, brought into the state machinery purchased at retail in other states. The Washington Tax Commission demanded payment of a use tax on the machinery so purchased as required by the 1935 tax statutes. The plaintiffs refused to comply with the commission's order and received an in junction in the federal district court. The Washington legislature, under the heading "Compensating Tax," levied a two per cent excise on the use of all personal property purchased at retail after the effective date, the tax to be measured by …

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Constitutional Law - Validity Of Minimum Wage Legislation Under The Fourteenth Amendment, Jack L. White Jun 1937

Constitutional Law - Validity Of Minimum Wage Legislation Under The Fourteenth Amendment, Jack L. White

Michigan Law Review

A state statute provided that it should be unlawful to employ women at wages not adequate for their maintenance, and established a commission to fix wages according to such a standard after a public hearing and a conference of representatives of employees and employers, and disinterested persons representing the public. The appellee was employed as a chambermaid in the hotel of appellant at less than the minimum wage prescribed, and brought suit to recover the difference between these amounts. The state court gave judgment for the appellee, and on certiorari the Supreme Court held that the statute was valid and …

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Amending The Constitution Article Five: The Keystone Of The Arch, Ralph R. Martig Jun 1937

Amending The Constitution Article Five: The Keystone Of The Arch, Ralph R. Martig

Michigan Law Review

Article V is the keystone of the Constitution. For, by altering its provisions, the process of amendment can be made so rigid as to become impracticable, or so flexible that the instrument can be altered without sufficient thought. Through this article, then, we reach toward every other clause in the Constitution.

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Constitutional Law - Old Age Pensions - Titles Ii And Viii Of Social Security Act - Power To Spend For The General Welfare, Royal E. Thompson Jun 1937

Constitutional Law - Old Age Pensions - Titles Ii And Viii Of Social Security Act - Power To Spend For The General Welfare, Royal E. Thompson

Michigan Law Review

In a case decided May 24, 1937, Titles II and VIII of the Social Security Act were challenged. Title VIII lays a tax on employers, which reaches a maximum in 1949 of 3 per cent of the wages paid by the employer, and also a tax on employees measured by a similar percentage of the wages they earn, and which is withheld and paid by the employer. Neither tax applies to certain kinds of occupations: agricultural labor, domestic service, governmental service, nor to wages earned by persons over sixty-five years of age. Title II provides for payment to persons over …

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Constitutional Law - Search And Seizure - Investigative Power Of Federal Trade Commission, Virginia M. Renz Jun 1937

Constitutional Law - Search And Seizure - Investigative Power Of Federal Trade Commission, Virginia M. Renz

Michigan Law Review

The Federal Trade Commission, acting pursuant to the joint resolution of Congress and the Federal Trade Commission Act, sought a writ of mandamus compelling the corporation to answer questionnaires relating to its total volume of business, net sales, net cost of materials, annual cash salary paid to each officer, etc. This information was demanded as part of a general investigation of the financial condition of agricultural products. The purpose of the investigation was to enable Congress to determine whether new legislation should be enacted or existing legislation amended. Held, the writ of mandamus should be granted. The Fourth Amendment …

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Constitutional Law - Due Process And The Frazier-Lemke Acts, Henry Earnest Halladay May 1937

Constitutional Law - Due Process And The Frazier-Lemke Acts, Henry Earnest Halladay

Michigan Law Review

Recent decisions involving the constitutional validity of the first and second Frazier-Lemke Acts have again raised the old spectre of due process. The questions involved related to the power of the Federal Government to regulate the rights, duties, and liabilities existent between debtors and creditors in the field of farm mortgages under the bankruptcy power. To forego an extended discussion of the history of due process as a limitation on governmental fiat, let it suffice to say that the concept, which began with Magna Carta ran through early definitions in the United States limiting it to procedural matters and attempts …

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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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Constitutional Law - Validity Of Criminal Syndicalism Statute, Herman Jerome Bloom May 1937

Constitutional Law - Validity Of Criminal Syndicalism Statute, Herman Jerome Bloom

Michigan Law Review

The defendant was indicted for assisting in the conduct of a meeting which was called under the auspices of the Community Party, an organization advocating criminal syndicalism. The statute defined criminal syndicalism as "the doctrine which advocates crime, physical violence, sabotage, or any unlawful acts or methods as a means of accomplishing or effecting industrial or political change or revolution," and described a number of offenses, including the presiding at, or the assisting in, the conduct of a meeting of an organization advocating criminal syndicalism as defined in the act. The state court upheld the indictment under a construction of …

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Constitutional Law - Validity Of Statute Abolishing Breach Of Promise Action, Emma Rae Mann May 1937

Constitutional Law - Validity Of Statute Abolishing Breach Of Promise Action, Emma Rae Mann

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff sued for damages for breach of promise to marry and seduction, after the enactment of a New York statute which abolished such causes of action. The court held for the defendant, basing its recognition of the validity of the statute on the ground that the legislature has plenary power to deal with the subject of marriage. Fearon v. Treanor, 272 N. Y. 268, 5 N. E. (2d) 815 (1936).

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Constitutional Law --Twenty-First Amendment And Its Effect On The Commerce Clause And Equal Protection Clause As Applied To Liquor, William Stout Gordon Apr 1937

Constitutional Law --Twenty-First Amendment And Its Effect On The Commerce Clause And Equal Protection Clause As Applied To Liquor, William Stout Gordon

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiffs were granted an injunction in the lower court restraining the enforcement of the California Alcoholic Beverage Control Act on the ground that it violated the commerce clause and the equal protection clause of the Federal Constitution. The act imposed a license fee of $500 for the privilege of importing beer, in addition to the $50 fee to be paid by all wholesalers for the privilege of selling the beer. The Supreme Court reversed the lower court's decision and held that the Twenty-first Amendment withdrew the protection of the commerce clause from liquor and that there was no denial of …

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