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Reformation Of Wills On The Ground Of Mistake: Change Of Direction In American Law?, John H. Langbein, Lawrence W. Waggoner

Articles

Although it has been "axiomatic" that our courts do not entertain suits to reform wills on the ground of mistake, appellate courts in California, New Jersey, and New York have decided cases within the last five years that may presage the abandonment of the ancient "no-reformation" rule. The new cases do not purport to make this fundamental doctrinal change, although the California Court of Appeal in Estate of Taff and the New Jersey Supreme Court in Engle v. Siegel did expressly disclaim a related rule, sometimes called the "plain meaning" rule. That rule, which hereafter we will call the "no-extrinsic-evidence …

Beyond Custody: Expanding Collateral Review Of State Convictions, Timothy C. Hester

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This article advocates extension of collateral review to embrace all parties alleging deprivation of federally guaranteed rights in the state criminal process, regardless of whether the party fulfills the habeas corpus custody requirement. Part I assesses the sufficiency of Supreme Court certiorari jurisdiction to monitor adequately state adjudications of federal constitutional rights, coupled with an evaluation of the technical competency and institutional posture of state courts. Part II examines the significance of the custody limitation on collateral review, both as a substantive element of habeas corpus relief and as a mechanism for funnelling limited judicial resources. Part III presents two …

Survival Of Rights Of Action After Corporate Merger, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Once a corporation ceases to exist, most courts permit neither primary nor derivative suits to be brought in its name. If a merger precipitates that corporate demise, courts usually hold that standing to sue, like other assets of the "merged" corporation, passes to the surviving corporation. This Note ponders the merit of that rule of passage.

Section I categorizes the cases defining the rule of passage. Some courts have steadfastly adhered to the rule and denied standing to the merged corporation's shareholders. Other courts, fearing that the rule would preclude meritorious actions, have created exceptions allowing these shareholders to sue …

The Evolution Of State Supreme Courts, Robert A. Kagan, Bliss Cartwright, Lawrence M. Friedman, Stanton Wheeler

Michigan Law Review

Part I of this Article describes in broad quantitative terms the changing relationship between the caseload of supreme courts and the population of the states in which these courts sit. Part II examines the various means states used to control supreme court caseloads, the political problems involved, and the types of courts that have resulted. Part III presents evidence that changes in court organization in response to caseload pressure are accompanied by changes in the kinds of cases state supreme courts hear, the style of their opinions, and the results of the cases.

Adjudication Of Federal Causes Of Action In State Court, Martin H. Redish, John E. Muench

Michigan Law Review

The first section of this article considers the power of state courts to hear federal cases. Since it is now well established that state courts have the constitutional power to adjudicate federal causes of action if Congress so desires, the significant questions concern the method by which the judiciary is to decipher congressional intent. Although the courts have no difficulty where Congress has explicitly addressed the issue of state court jurisdiction, problems do arise in situations where Congress has remained silent on the question. The first section critically examines the traditional criteria employed by the courts for determining congressional intent …

Enforceability Of Religious Law In Secular Courts--It's Kosher, But Is It Constitutional?, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

In several different contexts-for example, in enforcing contracts that refer to religious law or in enforcing secular laws that use religious terminology-secular courts may be called upon to apply and even to interpret laws established by religious bodies. The limitations imposed by the first amendment on the courts in these areas will be discussed here in the specific context of Judaism. It is the thesis of this Note that the courts may not be as constrained in enforcing laws of religious bodies and in resolving disputes about those laws as would appear at first glance.

The New Federalism In Criminal Procedure: State Court Evasion Of The Burger Court, Donald E. Wilkes Jr.

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of The Uniform Probate Code On Court Structure, Ralph P. Dupont

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

After considering the present pattern of probate court structure in the United States, this article considers the need for probate court reform as reflected in the deficiencies of the present system. It further indicates that a realistic choice of court structure by legislatures will ultimately be made from among three options: (1) to enlarge the jurisdiction of the present probate court of the state more nearly to approximate the form currently obtaining in several states; (2) to appoint a new body of probate judges and thus create an entirely new court; and (3) to enlarge the jurisdiction of the present …

The Consumer Class Action, Arthur H. Travers Jr., Jonathan M. Landers

Publications

No abstract provided.

Fraudulent Conveyances In The Conflict Of Laws: Easy Cases May Make Bad Law, Albert A. Ehrenzweig, Peter K. Westen

Michigan Law Review

It has been said that hard cases often make bad law. The recent decision by the New York Court of Appeals in James v. Powell suggests that easy cases, too, may make bad law-especially where a scholarly judge ventures beyond the demands of the case before him.

Substantive Interests And The Jurisdiction Of State Courts, Paul D. Carrington, James A. Martin

Michigan Law Review

Pennoyer indeed is dead. The primitive ritual of service of process could not survive as a general solution to the problem of state power over individuals. Committed as we are to the idea that the judicial power should be exercised in a manner that is responsive to the common welfare, we could not suffer the limits of power to be determined irrationally by the random success of process servers. Offering only the virtues of simplicity and economy, the ritualistic method had to yield in order to make the judicial power a sharper and more effective tool with which to pursue …

Legal Aid--Lay Control And Organizational Complexity Render Oeo Legal Service Program Unacceptable To New York Court--In Re Community Action For Legal Services, Inc., Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

The Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) and the New York City Council Against Poverty approved the organization and the OEO funding of three legal service corporations as part of a comprehensive program to provide legal assistance to New York City's poor. According to the plan, the first corporation, Community Action for Legal Services, Inc. (CALS), was to approve proposed plans for setting up and operating neighborhood law offices with OEO funds and then to supervise and coordinate the agencies that sought to put those plans into operation. These agencies, operating as delegates of CALS, and under subcontracts with it, were …

The Use Of Coerced Confessions In State Courts, J. A. Spanogle

Vanderbilt Law Review

It is now well settled that involuntary confessions must be excluded from evidence in all criminal trials in state courts. It has been difficult, however, to distinguish a voluntary confession from an involuntary one, because the term "involuntary" is not well defined. This lack of definition, which creates great problems for state trial and appellate courts in attempting to apply the rule to individual cases, has, in turn, stemmed from a lack of understanding of the reasons for excluding involuntary confessions. The United States Supreme Court has handed down thirty-four coerced confession cases, holding confessions admissible in some factual situations …

Gideon V. Wainwright: The Art Of Overruling, Jerold H. Israel

Articles

During the 1962 Term, the Supreme Court, on a single Monday, announced six decisions concerned with constitutional limitations upon state criminal procedure. The most publicized of these, though probably not the most important in terms of legal theory or practical effect, was Gideon v. Wainwright. In an era of constantly expanding federal restrictions on state criminal processes, the holding of Gideon-that an indigent defendant in a state criminal prosecution has an unqualified right to the appointment of counsel-was hardly startling. And while Gideon will obviously have an important effect in the handful of states that still fail to appoint counsel …

Federal Jurisdiction In Diversity And Related Cases, Wencelas J. Wagner

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Jurisdiction Of United States District Courts In Multiple-Claim Cases, Thomas F. Green Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

The jurisdictional problem peculiar to a case which involves more than one claim is: Shall the court entertain the entire action when it would have jurisdiction of one or more of the claims, but not all, if they were sued separately?' The application of this question to the United States district courts raises conflicting considerations. On the one hand is the fact that most of the claims which would not be within federal jurisdiction if sued alone, present questions of state rather than federal law. In general the more appropriate tribunals to deal with such questions in the first instance …

Developments In The Law Of Coerced Confessions, Howard Klemme

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Common Law: An Account Of Its Reception In The United States, Ford W. Hall

Vanderbilt Law Review

The story of the extent to which the common law of England has been received and applied in the United States, is one of the most interesting and important chapters in American legal history. However, many courts and writers have shown a tendency simply to say that our colonial forefathers brought the common law of England with them, and there has often been little or no inclination to look further into the question. Nevertheless, the problem of the reception of the common law in America has at various times occupied the attention of many of our most eminent jurists and …

State Constitutions, State Courts And First Amendment Freedoms, Monrad G. Paulsen

Vanderbilt Law Review

We have recently been reminded that one of the current and recurrent quandaries of the Supreme Court of the United States arises from the American constitutional system's counterpart of the philosophical problem of the One and the Many. When an individual's freedom is involved, the question is whether and to what degree state legislators, public officials and judicial officers shall be called upon to enforce standards of respect for personal liberties defined by the Federal Constitution and the United States Supreme Court; or, put another way, how far the first eight amendments of the Federal Constitution are incorporated into the …

Jurisdiction Of Employee Suits Under The Fair Labor Standards Act, George W. Crockett Jr.

Michigan Law Review

The statutory authority for employee suits under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 is found in section 16(b). Suits under this section have been instituted in both state and federal courts. In practically every case the defendant has, by a motion to dismiss, challenged the jurisdiction of the court. The usual ground for the challenge in the state courts is that such suits seek to recover penalties incurred under a statute of the United States, and are, therefore, within the exclusive jurisdiction of the district courts of the United States. The jurisdiction of the federal district courts is generally …

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 …

Legislation In Vague Or General Terms, Ralph W. Aigler

Articles

FOR some reason, probably in part the increasing complexity of our life and relationships, but more largely, perhaps, the growing tendency to regulate everybody and everything by positive law, the courts have been called upon with increasing frequency to pass upon the effectiveness of statutes and ordinances phrased in indefinite terms. In a very interesting and valuable paper, Professor Freund has pointed out the weakness and strength, on the one hand, of legislation in general terms, and on the other hand, legislation in which the rule of conduct is attempted to be laid down with precision. His interest apparently lay …

Challenges To The Array, Edson R. Sunderland

Articles

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 …

Perpetuity Statutes, Edwin C. Goddard

Articles

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, …

Divorce Problems In The Conflict Of Laws, Herbert F. Goodrich

Articles

Divorce may be considered as the termination of the legal relationship between husband and wife by an act of the law. With the purely local aspect of legal questions regarding divorce, Conflict of Laws is not concerned. If a husband and wife are married and have their home in one state, legal questions concerning their divorce are local matters only. These will include the grounds for divorce, the particular court in which the action is brought, the procedure to be followed from commencement to termination of the action. In such a case it is only when some question concerning the …

Public Utility Valuation, Edwin C. Goddard

Articles

It has been so often remarked that the "valuation" of public utilities is determined by no rule of thumb, that there are no fixed rules or formulas to guide courts or commissions, that determination of value as a rate base is matter of judgment and discretion in each case, Minnesota Rate Cares, 230 U. S. 352, 434, that the statement has come to be believed by reason in part of its much repetition. It is usually accepted as axiomatic. The glorious uncertainty resulting from such an admission will continue so long as judgments of one man or set of men …

Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Adverse Possession - What Acts of Strangers Constitute an Interruption - Claimant by adverse possession showed that he had fenced in the land in controversy, and had used it for pasturing cattle during a period sufficient to satisfy the Statute of Limitations. Defendant offered evidence to show that strangers had trapped upon this land during the greater part of this period, and that one party in particular had repeatedly set traps there over protests of the adverse claimant, and that no action had been successfully prosecuted against hi,-although adverse claimant had threatened to prosecute. It did not appear whether the …

Note And Comment, William C. O'Keefe, Edson R. Sunderland, Grover C. Grismore

Michigan Law Review

Taxation - Internal Revenue Act - Under the federal Revenue Act of i921 the taxable profit or deductible loss on sales of stock, bonds and other property is the actual profit or loss, if the purchase was after February I, 1913. Act, § 2o2 (a). The tax payer (other than a corporation) may, however, at his option, pay a flat tax of 1232% on his profit, provided he has held the property more than two years, and provided further that he first deducts losses on other property, and provided further, that his total tax is at least 1232% of his …

Note And Comment, D. Hale Brake, Joseph H. Drake, George Seletto, Ralph W. Aigler

Michigan Law Review

Attorney's Interest in His Case undera Contract for Contingent Fees - Absolute protection for an attorney who has given services in a cause wherein he runs the risk of receiving no compensation for his efforts would require that he be considered as having an equitable assignment of the specified percentage of the judgment from the filing of the first paper, and that he have the right to carry the case through to final judgment, on his own behalf, any desire of his client to discontinue, dismiss or compromise to the contrary notwithstanding. On the other hand, the courts frequently say …

Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Adverse Possession - Marketable Title - Land had been in the possession of P and his predecessors for twenty-eight years in such a manner that the court found that, beyond a reasonable doubt, title had been established by adverse possession. Held, that P could give D, a purchaser, a good and marketable title. Winer v. Hooper (Md., i92I), 115 Atl. 31.