Family Law Commons^™

Books Received, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

In Common Law in Southern Africa, Kutner surveys the judgments that are published in South African Law Reports and the official law reports of other southern African states from 1947 to the present. English language commentaries on the cases and statutes discussed in the text are cited in the notes. A Table of Statutes, Table of Cases, Conflict of Laws Index and Torts Index also are provided.

Defining "Support" Under Bankruptcy Law: Revitalization Of The "Necessaries" Doctrine, Sheryl L. Scheible

Vanderbilt Law Review

In recognition of the social reality that marriage often does not last forever, divorce law in the United States has undergone radical changes in the past few decades.' All states have relaxed restrictions on divorce by adopting some form of no-fault divorce grounds. In addition, recent developments have facilitated the termination of a married couple's relationship in economic terms as well. For instance, states today are less inclined to consider the role of marital fault in the settlement of the financial incidents of divorce, and encourage divorcing couples to end their marriages by negotiation and contract in order to minimize …

Relatives By Blood, Adoption, And Association: Who Should Get What And Why, Jan E. Rein

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Article explores the questions that courts and legislatures must address in order to integrate the social phenomenon of adoption into our succession laws, monitors the progress that has and has not been made in dealing with these questions, and proposes a comprehensive approach to the treatment of adoptees in matters of succession. Specifically, part I introduces the traditional approach to relationship by adoption, while part HI compares the past and present goals of adoption. Part IV discusses the legal status of adoptees in the context of intestate succession. This discussion explores past and present trends and examines the special …

Human Leukocyte Antigen Testing: Technology Versus Policy In Cases Of Disputed Parentage, Patricia B. Blumberg

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Note assumes that the judicial trend of using HLA test results as affirmative evidence" will continue, and accepts the proposal that these results are scientifically reliable.' The Note will focus on the policy considerations and arguments that should affect the admissibility of the HLA blood test as affirmative evidence in various disputed parentage cases.This Note first examines the use of HLA test results to determine the paternity of illegitimate children who do not have a legal father, and concludes that courts should admit the results unconditionally in these circumstances. Second, the Note analyzes the use of the HLA blood …

Book Reviews, Stephen C. Hicks, David A. Elder, Edward A. Laing

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

THE FAMILY IN INTERNATIONAL LAW: SOME EMERGING PROBLEMS

Edited by R. Lillich

Charlottesville: Michie, 1981. Pp. xii, 164

Reviewed by Stephen C. Hicks

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TREATIES OF THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA, 1949-1978: AN ANNOTATED COMPILATION

By Grant F. Rhode and Reid E. Whitlock

Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1980. Pp. ix, 207. $25.00.

Reviewed by David A. Elder

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STATE AND DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY

By Charles Lewis London:

Lloyd's Press of London, Ltd., 1980. Pp. xv, 135. 16f.

Reviewed by Edward A. Laing

Books Received, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

International Regulation of Internal Resources By Mahnoush H. Arsanjani Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia,1981. Pp. 558. $37.50.

ANTITRUST AND AMERICAN BUSINESS ABROAD By James R. Atwood and Kingman Brewster, 2nd ed. Colorado Springs: Shepard's/Mc-Graw-Hill, 1981. Pp. 359 and 355.

FAMILY VIOLENCE: AN INTERNATIONAL AND INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDY By John M. Eekelar and Sanford N. Katz Toronto: Butterworth's, 1978. Pp. 572.

THE ARAB STATES AND THE PALESTINE CONFLICT By Barry Rubin Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1981. Pp. 298. $22.00.

THE KURDISH QUESTION IN IRAQ By Edmund Ghareeb Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1981. Pp. 223. $22.00.

THE CAMBRIDGE LECTURES Edited by Derek Mendes …

Before The Best Interests Of The Child, Douglas J. Besharov

Vanderbilt Law Review

This book has been hard to criticize for one who, like this reviewer, agrees with its basic premises: (1) that the weakness of child protective capability requires a policy of minimum state intervention into family life, and (2) that when intervention occurs,it should be much more decisive. Yet, application of the rules that the authors suggest would be at great cost, not only to the endangered children whom they exclude from protection, but also to our own view of ourselves. Society cannot turn its back on the real and present suffering of children and still retain its sense of humanity,and …

Defining The Parent's Duty After Rejection Of Parent-Child Immunity: Parental Liability For Emotional Injury To Abandoned Children, Reid H. Hamilton

Vanderbilt Law Review

Child neglect and abandonment are serious problems in the United States. The number of children in foster care in the United States has risen from a third of a million in 1971 to over 750,000 in 1979. A significant number of these children have been abandoned voluntarily and permanently by their parents. Abandoned children suffer marked psychological consequences; even after receiving the best available foster care, such children suffer adverse emotional effects throughout their adult lives.' Due to the traditional American rule granting parents immunity from personal injury suits by their minor children, abandoned children generally have been uncompensated for …

Books Received, C. A. P.

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Books Received ================

Documents on Prisoners of War Edited by Howard S. Levie Newport, Rhode Island: Naval War College Press, 1979. Pp. 841.

Chinese Family Law and Social Change in Historical and Comparative Perspective Edited by David C. Buxbaum Seattle, Washington: University of Washington Press, 1978. Pp. 553. Bibliography and Chinese-English Glossary

The Definition of Law By Herman Kantorowicz Edited by A. H. Campbell New York: Octagon Books, 1980. Pp. 89. $13.50

The Legal Regime of Islands in International Law By Derek W. Bowett Dobbs Ferry, New York: Oceana Publications, Inc.,1978. Pp. 337. Diagrams and Maps.

International Norms and National …

Book Reviews, Morris L. Cohen, Judith T. Younger

Vanderbilt Law Review

Dictionary of Legal Abbreviations Used in American Law Books by Doris Bieber

The proliferation of legal sources and abbreviations poses two related problems--first, the need for standardized citation forms,and second, the need for guides to commonly used abbreviations. The first problem has been difficult to solve, and universal acceptance of standard citations is unlikely to be achieved. A Uniform System of Citation, published by the Harvard Law Review Association, in collaboration with the Columbia Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and the Yale Law Journal, has attained wide acceptance and has become the authoritative guide for legal citations …

Alternatives To Absolute Termination Of Parental Rights After Long-Term Foster Caret, Andre P. Derdeyn, Andrew R. Rogoff, Scott W. Williams

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Article will explore in detail the variety of child placement arrangements, both within and outside the system, which can be tailored to meet the needs of children and their biological or foster parents. This examination will reveal numerous statutory reforms and recent judicial decisions that promise increasingly flexible approaches to the traditional custodial alternatives following long-term foster care. Particular emphasis will be devoted to the termination of parental rights case that first united the authors and confronted them with the fact that none of the traditional legal alternatives available to those children could adequately meet their emotional needs.

Case Digest, Journal Staff

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

The purpose of the Case Digest is to identify and summarize for the reader those cases that have less significance than those which merit an in-depth analysis. Included in the digest are cases that apply established legal principles without necessarily introducing new ones. This initial digest includes cases reported from January through September,1971. Henceforth, the Winter issue will include cases reported from April through September, and the Spring issue will contain cases reported from October through March. The cases are grouped into topical categories, and references are given for further research. It is hoped that attorneys, judges, teachers and students …

Book Notes, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Law Review

The Child Savers: The Invention of Delinquency By Anthony M. Platt Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969. Pp. ix, 202.$8.50.

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Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas (rev. ed.) By Clifford R.Shaw & Henry D. McKay Chicago: University of Chicago Press,1969. Pp. 394.

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The Positive School of Criminology Edited by Stanley E. Grupp Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1968. Pp. vi, 114. $5.95.

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State and Local Tax Problems Edited by Harry L. Johnson Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1969. Pp. xiii, 190. $7.50.

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Tension in the Cities By James A. Bayton Philadelphia: Chilton Book Co., 1969. Pp. x, …

The Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act: A Legislative Remedy For Children Caught In The Conflict Of Laws, Brigitte M. Bodenheimer

Vanderbilt Law Review

The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws has approved and recommended for enactment in all the states a Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act. This Act is designed to alleviate the plight of "interstate children" an apt phrase coined by Professor Ehrenzweig and descriptive of the rootlessness of children shifted from state to state--who are the victims of custody battles often fought in the courts of more than one state or a state and a foreign country. In this article, Mrs. Bodenheimer, Reporter for the Special Committee which drafted the Act, describes the social and legal causes of the …

Book Reviews, T. A. Smedley, E. Blythe Stason

Vanderbilt Law Review

Law of Domestic Relations By Homer H. Clark, Jr. St. Paul,Minn.: West Publishing Co., 1968. Pp. XIX, 754. $12.00.

reviewer: T.A. Smedley

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Law and the Social Role of Science Harry W. Jones, Editor New York: Rockefeller University Press, 1967. Pp. 243. $6.00.

reviewer: E. Blythe Stason

Domestic Relations -- 1964 Tennessee Survey, T. A. Smedley

Vanderbilt Law Review

Though most of the family law decisions of the supreme court and appellate courts of Tennessee reported during 1964 were of the common garden variety, four cases presented issues of notable significance, and in three of them the supreme court seems to have decided questions of first impression in this jurisdiction. As usual, the most common cause of controversy lay in matters of alimony, child support, and property settlements; but there were also decisions regarding grounds for divorce, child custody, the wife's right to damages for loss of the husband's consortium, and the parents' liability for a child's tort. Three …

Domestic Relations -- 1963 Tennessee Survey, T. A. Smedley

Vanderbilt Law Review

During 1963, the Tennessee Supreme and Appellate Courts faced a wide variety of problems in the domestic relations field, but handed down no decisions of outstanding significance. The legislature made several minor revisions in relevant statutes, one of which may prove to be a rather important change in this state's divorce law.

Challenge And Response In Family Law, Max Rheinstein

Vanderbilt Law Review

The invitation to write for this symposium on Stability and Change Through Law a short article about challenges and responses in the field of family law has been a challenge. I accepted it hesitatingly. The time limit allowed was too short to permit investigation or elaboration. However, it has given me an opportunity to express some judgments I have come to form in some thirty years of occupation with family law. With one exception all these judgments are based on general impression rather than systematic incisive research. A topic on which extensive research has been undertaken is that of divorce; …

Recent Case Comments, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Law Review

Recent Case Comments --

Accounting--Return To Be Allowed Utilities on Deferred Tax Reserves Instituted in Connection with Accelerated Depreciation Methods

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Conflict of Laws--Torts--Repudiation of Place of Injury Rule

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Constitutional Law--Due Process--Juvenile Court Proceeding a Bar to Subsequent Criminal Trial for the Same Act

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Family Law--Divorce--Insanity as a Defense to Action--for Divorce on the Ground of Cruelty

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Labor Law--Unemployment Compensation-Status of Laid-Off Worker Under No--Strike Clause

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Real Property--Future Interests--Valuation of Possibility of Reverter

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Taxation--Federal Income Tax--Deductibility of Contingent Witness Fees

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Torts--Warranty--Relation of Foreseeability of Risk to the Implied Warranty of a Cigarette Manufacturer

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Domestic Relations -- 1962 Tennessee Survey, William J. Harbison

Vanderbilt Law Review

The case of Folk v. Folk' dealt with a long-continued domestic dispute in which the husband sought unsuccessfully to terminate a separate maintenance decree. The litigation had begun in 1954 as a divorce suit by the wife. Although her prayer for divorce had been denied, she had been allowed separate maintenance from her husband because of his mistreatment of her. The chancellor in that action had provided that the separate maintenance payments should continue unless the wife should unreasonably reject a sincere attempt at reconciliation by the husband. The court of appeals had stricken this portion of the decree but …

Priority Paradoxes In Patent Law, Richard H. Stern

Vanderbilt Law Review

The constitutional provision governing patents gives Congress the power to promote the progress of useful arts "by securing for limited Times to... Inventors the exclusive Right to their... Discoveries. "'Because an "exclusive right" suggests an exclusive grant, the Patent Office interference proceeding has been created for the purpose of determining administratively the question of priority of rights between two or more parties claiming substantially the same invention. This article attempts to state in terms of an informal axiomatic system the rules of law for determining priority of invention, and then examine that system to explore its possible paradoxes Finally, an …

Domestic Relations -- 1961 Tennessee Survey (Ii), William J. Harbison

Vanderbilt Law Review

The definition of "abandonment" within the meaning of the Tennessee adoption statutes was clarified in the case of Ex parte Wolfenden. The stepmother of the subject child filed a petition for adoption, joined in and consented to by the natural father. A cross-petition was filed by the child's uncle and his wife, seeking to adopt the child and alleging that the natural father had abandoned the child and had delivered her to the home of the uncle for permanent rearing. The circuit judge granted the cross-petition upon the ground that adoption by the uncle was for the best interest of …

Contracts -- 1961 Tennessee Survey, Paul J. Hartman

Vanderbilt Law Review

I. Offer and Acceptance--Notification of Acceptance Before Notification of Revocation--Duration of Offer with Fixed Expiration Date

II. Implied and Quasi Contract--Claim for Services Where Family Relationship Involved

III. Parol Evidence Rule--Application of Rule to Third Party Not a Party to the Written Instrument--Pre-existing Duty as Consideration

IV. Exculpatory Contracts--Contracting Against Liability for Consequences of Own Negligent Conduct

V. Agreement in Restraint of Trade-Agreement of Seller of Business Not to Compete--Enforcement of Restraint in Area Greater than Required to Protect Purchaser

Domestic Relations -- 1961 Tennessee Survey, William J. Harbison

Vanderbilt Law Review

In the case of In re Van Huss' Petition' the Tennessee Supreme Court denied an adoption under a literal interpretation of the residence requirements inserted into the adoption statutes in 1959. Under the 1959 statutes, although the petitioners in adoption proceedings were not required to make Tennessee their legal residence, they were required to "have lived, maintained a home and been physically present in Tennessee, or on federal territory within the boundaries of Tennessee for one (1) year next preceding the filing of the petition .... -

In the Van Huss case the petitioning husband met all of the other …

Domestic Relations -- 1960 Tennessee Survey, William J. Harbison

Vanderbilt Law Review

Domestic Relations--1960 Tennessee Survey

I. Adoption of Children

II. Persons in Loco Parentis

III. Divorce, Alimony and Counsel Fees

1. Venue

2. Jurisdiction

3. Cancellation of Decree

4. Alimony and Counsel Fees

(a) Discretion To Deny Alimony

(b) In Solido--In Futuro

(c) Duty To Pay Counsel Fees

(d) Court Alteration of Support Agreement

(e) Attachment of Property-Non-Residents

5. Jointly-owned Property

IV. Family Immunity in Tort

V. Tenancy by Tenancy by the Entireties

Domestic Relations--1959 Tennessee Survey, William J. Harbison

Vanderbilt Law Review

In the case of In re Matthews, the supreme court once more was called upon to construe the adoption statutes and to determine the relationship between the juvenile court and a court in which adoption proceedings are pending. In this same case, the court had earlier held that jurisdiction of juvenile courts to declare children abandoned is not exclusive and that in adoption proceedings a chancery court may determine whether there has been an abandonment of the child proposed to be adopted. The supreme court had remanded the case to the chancery court. In that court, the Department of Public …

Recent Cases, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Law Review

In a hearing before the Commissioner of Investigation of the City of New York, appellant refused to state whether he was then a member of the Communist Party and based his refusal to answer on the fifth amendment to the United States Constitution. He was thereafter discharged as an employee of the New York Transit Authority pursuant to provisions of the New York Security Risk Law' which allows dismissal of employees of security agencies who are found to be of "doubtful trust and reliability." Without seeking administrative remedies, appellant brought a proceeding in the state court for reinstatement contending that …

Domestic Relations -- 1958 Tennessee Survey, William J. Harbison

Vanderbilt Law Review

Three cases during the survey period dealt directly or indirectly with the subject of adoptions.

In two cases which were discussed in the 1957 survey,' petitions for the adoption of two children were denied because of domestic difficulties in the home of the petitioning parents. The children were ordered to be placed in custody of the State Welfare Department. The foster mother, however, did not comply with this order promptly and was adjudged in contempt by the trial court where her petitions had been filed. The supreme court affirmed the contempt decree in a recently reported case.

Domestic Relations -- 1957 Tennessee Survey, William J. Harbison

Vanderbilt Law Review

A large number of significant cases were reported during the survey period dealing with various phases of domestic relations. The 1957 General Assembly enacted several statutes in the field which should also be noted.

An Analysis Of Marriage Trends And Divorce Policies, Robert S. Redmount

Vanderbilt Law Review

Divorce law, theoretically, is the embodiment of policies governing the dissolution of marriage. It is the legal expression of the values attached to marriage and implicitly states the law's understanding of the marital relationship, at least that part of it that reflects conflict and disturbance.

The analytic discourse which follows briefly assesses the roles and meanings of marriage, the sources and consequences of marital disharmony and the complications of marriage dissolution. The history and composition of divorce policies and laws is carefully savored and sharply scrutinized for fidelity to the reason and experience of marriage. The outcome of this analysis …