Courts Commons^™

Indemnity Act Of 1863 A Study In The War-Time Immunity Of Governmental Officers, James G. Randall

Michigan Law Review

One of the familiar measures of the Union administration during the Civil War was the suspension of the habeas corpus privilege and the consequent subjection of civilians to military authority. The essential irregularity of such a situation in American law is especially conspicuous when one considers its inevitable sequel-namely, the protection of military and civil officers from such prosecution as would normally follow invasion of private rights and actual injury of persons and property. Such protection was supplied by a bill of indemnity passed in 1863, and this law, with its amendment of i866, forms a significant chapter in the …

Supreme Court's Construction Of The Federal Constitution In 1920-1921, Thomas Reed Powell

Michigan Law Review

Cases Arising under the Constitution or Laws of the United States. The question whether a case presents a "federal question," so called, is raised in a number of the controversies in which the asserted federal question was considered and answered. Only a few of these instances need special mention. In Hartford Life Ins. Co. v. Blincoe,3 after reversal by the Supreme Court of a state judgment against a defendant, a second judgment was rendered by the state court on different grounds. These included holding an assessment on an insurance policy to be void for the inclusion of a state tax …

Note And Comment, Edwin C. Goddard, Edson R. Sunderland, George D. Clapperton, Herman A. August

Michigan Law Review

Public Utility Valuations and Rates - In comparing the reports of the public utility commissions with the decisions of the courts on questions of valuation of public utilities, nothing is more striking than this-that as time goes on the commissions are growingly impatient of the cost of reproduction theory, while the courts still insist there is no inflexible method of fixing value, but continue to prefer largely figures as to supposed reproduction cost. This attitude of the commissions is remarkable in view of the fact that every finding may be carried to the courts for review and possible reversal. The …

Note And Comment, Henry M. Bates, Lewis H. Mattern, Paul W. Gordon, Jean Paul Thomas

Michigan Law Review

Freedom of Press and Use of the Mails - Strangely enough, the First Amendment to the Federal Constitution, although it guarantees against federal attack highly important and fundamental rights, has received very little authoritative interpretation by our courts. It remained for the Gr&t War and conditions following in its train to bring before that tribunal almost the first really important controversies relating to freedom of press and of speech. The case of U. S. ex rel. Milwaukee Social Democratic Publishing Company, Plaintiff in Error, v. Postmaster-General Albert S. Burleson, decided March 7, 192i, is the- latest of a series of …

Note And Comment, Horace Lafayette Wilgus, Edson R. Sunderland, Carl G. Brandt, A George Bouchard

Michigan Law Review

Boycott - Clayton Act - In Duplex Printing Press Company v. Deering et al. (January 3, 192I) 41 S. Ct. 172, the facts were: The plaintiff, a Michigan corporation, manufactures at Battle Creek, and sells throughout the United States, especially in and around New York City, and abroad, very large, heavy and complicated newspaper printing presses. Purchasers furnish workmen, but ordinary mechanics alone are not competent to do this, and so they are supervised by specially skilled machinists furnished by plaintiffs. The plaintiffs have always operated on the "open shop" plan, without discrimination against union or non-union labor, either at …

Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Adverse Possession - Color of Title - Written Instrument. - Where the defendant under a parol gift of an entire tract of land, but without any "paper" titlq took actual possession of only a part of the tract, but claimed title up to its well-defined boundaries for the statutory period, it was held, in an action by the heirs of the donor, that the defendant had acquired title to the whole tract. Nelson v. Johnson (Ct. of App., Ky., r92o), 226 S. W. 94.

The Newberry Case, Ralph W. Aigler

Articles

Senator Newberry of Michigan and sixteen others were convicted in the United States District Court on the charge that they "unlawfully and feloniously did conspire, combine, confederate, and agree together to commit the offense [in the Newberry indictment] on his part of wilfully violating the act of Congress approved June 25, 1910, as amended, by giving, contributing, expending, and using and by causing to be given, contributed, expended and used in procuring his nomination and election at said primary and general elections, a greater sum than the laws of Michigan permitted and above ten thousand dollars," etc. The Act of …

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 …

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 …

Child Labor Law Case, Commerce Power Of Congress And Reserved Powers Of The States, Henry M. Bates

Articles

The decision in the Child Labor Law case, Hammer v. Dagenhart, - U. S. -, 62 L. ed. -, decided June 3, 1918, would have caused much less surprise twenty-five years ago than it did when announced last June, for it is based upon two constitutional provisions concerning which the much wider and more varied experience of the last quarter century had developed theories, better defined and sounder than those of the earlier period. Those two provisions are the Tenth Amendment regarding the powers reserved to the States and the Commerce Clause. There has been an astonishing amount of faulty …

Inducing Breach Of Agreement By Employees Not To Join A Labor Union, In Order To Compel Unionization Of Plaintiff's Business, Horace Lafayette Wilgus

Articles

In Hitchnan Coal & Coke Compazy v. John Mitchell, et al., (Dec. 10, 1917), 38 Sup. Ct. 65, the novel question was presented to the Supreme Court of the United States, as to whether or not members of a labor Union could be enjoined from conspiring to persuade, and persuading, without violence or show of violence, plaintiff's employees, not members of the Union,-and who were working for plaintiff not for a specified time, but under an agreement not to continue in plaintiff's employment if they joined the Union, this agreement being fully known to defendants,-secretly to agree to join the …

Power Of The U.S. Supreme Court To Enforce Judgments Against States, Henry M. Bates

Articles

Four and one-half centuries later the "sovereign state" of Virginia sued the "sovereign state" of West Virginia to recover a sum of money alleged to be due upon the agreement of West Virginia to assume its proportionate share of the debt of the old state of Virginia. The suit was brought in the Supreme Court of the United States, which after prolonged consideration rendered judgment for the plaintiff. No execution or other compulsory process was issued, however. But now after delays for various reasons and pretexts urged by West Virginia the court is compelled to face the problem of what …

Full Faith And Credit And Jurisdiction, Willard T. Barbour

Articles

The judgment of a sister state, when assailed by collateral attack, is often said to occupy a position intermediate between foreign and domestic judgments. Though the older American cases were inclined to examine into the merits of any foreign judgment, the present tendency is toward the adoption of the English view according to which a foreign judgment may be attacked collaterally only for want of jurisdiction or fraud. Dicey, Conflict of Laws (ed. 2) Ch. XVII; see note to Tremblay v. Aetna Life Insurance Co., 97 Me. 547, in 94 Am. St. Rep. 521, 538. But whereas any statement of …

A Modern Evolution In Remedial Rights - The Declaratory Judgment, Edson R. Sunderland

Articles

In early times the basis of jurisdiction is the existence and the constant assertion of physical power over the parties to the action, but as civilization advances the mere existence of such power tends to make its exercise less and less essential. If this is true, it must be because there is something in civilization itself which diminishes the necessity for a resort to actual force in sustaining the judgments of courts. And it is quite clear that civilization does supply an element which is theoretically capable of entirely supplanting the exercise of force in the assertion of jurisdiction. This …

Carmack Amendment In The State Courts, Wayland H. Sanford

Michigan Law Review

Prior to the leading case of Adams Express Co. v. Croninger,'- decided January 6th, 1913, there was much diversity in the decisions of the state courts as to the validity of contracts between shippers and carriers limiting the amount of the carrier's liability for injuries to goods shipped. Such limitations were held valid in some states, but invalid in others, and in some were declared invalid by statutes or constitutional provisions.2 State rules were applied to interstate as well as intrastate shipments, it being supposed that Congress had not legislated upon the subject. The CARMACK AmlNDVNT of i9o6s provided that …

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.

Discharge In Bankruptcy Of Principal's Inchoate Obligation To Indemnify His Surety, Evans Holbrook

Articles

In the recent case of R. P. Williams, et al. v. United States Fidelity and Guaranty Company, 35 Sup. Ct. 289, the United States Supreme Court has at last passed upon a question that has vexed the courts ever since the enactment of the Bankruptcy Act of 1898. As stated by the Supreme Court, the question is this: "Does a discharge in bankruptcy acquit an express obligation of the principal to indemnify his surety against loss by reason of their joint bond conditioned to secure his faithful performance of a building contract broken prior to the bankruptcy when the surety …

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 …

Judicial Criticism Of Legislation By Courts, Charles G. Haines

Michigan Law Review

In the application of the doctrine of judicial review of legislative acts, the federal courts of the United States have not infrequently been criticised for usurping part of the functions of the legislature. The criticisms have increased to such an extent as to raise an issue of national significance. Recently, charges against the judiciary for the usurpation of legislative functions have been made rather frequently by the justices of our federal Supreme Comt. The late Associate Justice Harlan, dissenting in part from the reasoning of the majority of the court in the Standard Oil case, brought such a criticism against …

The Standard Oil Decision: The Rule Of Reason, Horace Lafayette Wilgus

Articles

After twenty-one years the Sherman Anti Trust Act has been applied to the typical combination restraining interstate commerce, which that act was designed to prevent.

Labor Organizations In Legislation, Jerome C. Knowlton

Articles

During the first months of the current year, the Supreme Court of the United States handed down three decisions on important questions in labor legislation.1 The Employers' Liability Act was declared unconstitutional, but on grounds that may be avoided by subsequent legislation; the boycott was decided to be an unlawful conspiracy against interstate commerce, and in violation of the Anti-Trust Act and the congressional enactment providing criminal punishment for the discharge of an employee because of his membership in a labor organization was also held unconstitutional. These decisions have been unjustly spoken of by some, as unreasonably severe on labor …

Note And Comment, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Is Commerce Between a State and a Territory Interstate Comerce?; Right of Court to Instruct upon the Failure of Defendant to Testify in a Criminal Action; The Last of the Kentucky Bank Cases, and the Relations Between the State and Federal Courts; The Last of the Kentucky Bank Cases--Federal Tax Judgementss in STate Courts; Power of the Court to Order a Physical Examination in Personal Injury Cases; The Porto Rican is not an Allien; Mimicry as Infringement of Musical Composition;

Some Legal Aspects Of Special Assessments, Frank L. Sage

Articles

Taxes have been defined as "the enforced proportional contributions from persons and property levied by the state by virtue of its sovereignty for the support of the government and all public needs." The essential elements that we will notice particularly are two; first, that the contributions are proportional, that is, levied upon all in the same class according to some impartial standard, and second, that taxes can be levied for public purposes only.

The Northern Securities Decision, Horace Lafayette Wilgus

Articles

March 14 the Supreme Court of the United States decided one of the most important cases that has been before it for a number of years. The litigation referred to is the Northern Securities case. The question involved was whether the control of the Great Northern and Northern Pacific railway companies through the ownership of the majority of the stock of each of those companies by the Securities company violated the national anti-trust act. The majority of the Supreme Court held it did, but four of the judges dissented.

A Treatise On The Constitutional Limitations Which Rest Upon The Legislative Power Of The States Of The American Union, Thomas M. Cooley

Books

In the Preface to the first edition of this work. the author stated its purpose to be, to furnish to the practitioner and the student of the law such a presentation of elementary constitutional principles as should serve, with the aid of its references to judicial decisions, legal treatises, and historical events, as a convenient guide in the examination of questions respecting the constitutional limitations which rest upon the power of the several State legislatures. …

Preface to the 4th Edition: "New topics in State Constitutional Law are not numerous; but such as are suggested by recent decisions have been …

Some Checks And Balances In Government, Thomas M. Cooley

Articles

The purpose of the present paper is not to discuss the broad general subject of checks and balances in this, or any other, government. but to call attention to a few considerations only. These, in the main, affect the executive and the judiciary, rather than the legislature; and they will serve to show, perhaps, that neither of them can always, and under all circumstances, rely upon any very sure protection to its legitimate powers. It is one thing, unfortunately, to put intricate machinery in motion, and another, and quite a different, thing, to make it, under unforeseen occurrences, work out …