Jurisdiction Commons^™

International Law--Witholding Of Political Recognition--Suit By Russian Corporation In Court Of Equity, Edwin D. Dickinson

Articles

"The plaintiff corporation was incorporated in Russia under the Imperial government. Prior to the Russian Revolution it had deposited certain securities and moneys with the defendant, as trustee, as required by the New York statutes, for the protection of policy-holders and creditors. In this suit to compel the return of the funds the defendant claimed that the plaintiff corporation was no longer in existence because of the Russian Soviet decrees.... Held, that although the court cannot recognize the legal validity of the decrees of the Soviet government, the facts of the situation are such that justice and reason require …

The Russian Reinsurance Case, Edwin D. Dickinson

Articles

Professor Dickinson's second commentary on Russian Reinsurance Company v. Stoddard and Bankers Trust Company: "The facts in the Russian Reinsurance Company case were without precedent. The Reinsurance Company had been incorporated in Russia in 1899 under a special statute constituting its charter and by-laws.... In 1917 the revolutionary Soviet Government was established in Russia and seven of the eight persons constituting the company's board of directors was driven into exile. In 1918 Soviet decrees nationalized the company, confiscated its property, and apparently terminated its corporate existence. Nevertheless, the exiled directors held meetings in Paris and continued to direct the …

Waiver Of State Immunity, Edwin D. Dickinson

Articles

"English and American courts have come to regard it as 'an axiom of international law' that foreign states should be immune from suit in the national tribunals unless they to the expressly or impliedly waive their immunity and submit to the jurisdiction.... Yet it has not been doubted that states may waive immunity and submit to the local jurisdiction if they wish. In practice they frequently find it advantageous to do so. Some difficult questions arise when it becomes necessary to define the requisites of a waiver or to determine its precise effect in a particular case."

Subrogation-The Effect On Equity Jurisdiction Of The Legal Remedy Becoming Adequate

Michigan Law Review

As the common law courts develop and discard many of their technical rules it often happens that a remedy at law formerly inadequate becomes perfectly adequate to administer substantial justice to all parties concerned. When such a situation arises the question is raised as to whether or not equity jurisdiction in that field has been ousted. Historically the greatest factor in equitable relief was the inadequacy of the remedy at law. From a strictly logical point of view it would seem that when the remedy at law becomes adequate the Chancellor is pro tanto deprived of his· right to give …

War Crimes, Elbridge Colby

Michigan Law Review

Grant that as far as military jurisdictions are concerned, the superior order justifies the act of the subordinate. Yet is such a judgment valid outside of military circles? Grant that public armed troops and soldiers have generally been held exempt when acting under the orders of their sovereign, and are responsible only to their own government. Is this an absolute protection? Is it true that, by the authority vested in him, "the commanding general determines what measures are necessary unless restrained by the orders of his government, which alone is his superior." Are there no qualifications to the idea that …

Recent Recognition Cases, Edwin D. Dickinson

Articles

"The prolonged interval during which the United States declined to recognize the government functioning in Mexico, and the still more protracted period during which recognition has been withheld from the de facto government in Russia, have produced some unusually interesting problems with respect to the appropriate judicial attitude toward an unrecognized de facto foreign government."

International Law, Edwin D. Dickinson

Reviews

Professor Dickson reviews "International Law," by C. G. Fenwick, noting that there are many such books available on the topic: monographs, casebooks, digests, collections of documents etc. He finds some of the material worthy of passing criticism and notes that "The chapters vary somewhat in quality and quantity." But Dickinson also praises "the fine tone of impartiality which makes it possible to present matters both recent and controverted in the restrained and temperate manner of the true scientist."

Permanent Court Of International Justice, Edwin D. Dickinson

Reviews

"The author of this volume of collected papers and addresses is well known as the Bemis Professor of International Law in Harvard Law School, sometime member of the Legal Section of the Secretariat of the League of Nations, and the most efficient advocate of the new Permanent Court of International Justice in America. His enterprise as an advocate is sufficiently attested by the fourteen brilliant papers reproduced in this volume and the nine other titles of similar nature listed in the bibliography, all of them produced during the last three years....

"The exceptional timeliness of the book and the quality …

Right To Determine The Place Of Burial Of A Corpse

Michigan Law Review

A dead body is not property, but a sort of quasi-property, so in a strict legal sense there are no property rights in a corpse. This is especially true after burial, as many courts make a distinction between rights existing prior to burial, and those after burial. Nevertheless, relatives have certain rights against others for mutilation, removal, etc. of a corpse, whether based on property or not. Cases where damages are recovered for mutilation before burial are common, and in England v. Central Pocahontas Coal Co. 86 W. Va. 575, the plaintiff was allowed an action of trespass against …

International Political Questions In The National Courts, Edwin D. Dickinson

Articles

"Much has been made of the principle, in England and America, that international law is part of the national law to be applied by national courts in appropriate circumstances. As Mr. Justice Gray has expressed it, in the Paquete Habana: 'International law is part of our law, and must be ascertained and administered by the courts of justice of appropriate jurisdiction, as often as question of right depending upon it are duly presented for their determination...'

This principle is useful, where it is applicable, but it is subject to limitations which are sometimes inadequately appreciated ..."

Is The Crime Of Piracy Obsolete?, Edwin D. Dickinson

Articles

"A few years ago it might have been surmised that in America at least a good deal of the old code in respect to piracy had passed from the law in reserve into the law in history. The important cases were nearly all one hundred years old or more....

There have been recent events, however, which challenge the assumption that the law of piracy is chiefly of historical significance. The country had hardly entered upon the new period of national prohibition when the rum ships descended upon its coasts... There sprang up, in consequence, to prey upon the rum ships, …

International Law-Extraterritorial Seizures In Times Of Peace-The Recent "Rum" Treaties

Michigan Law Review

It is commonly accepted as a general rule of the law of nations that the territorial jurisdiction of a littoral state extends three miles into the adjacent sea. 1 HYDE, INTERNATIONAL LAW, §141; EVANS, CASES ON INTERNATIONAL LAW, 2nd ed., p. 152, note. It has been held that even this rule does not preclude rights of innocent passage within three miles of the coast, The Queen v. Keyn (1876) L. R. Z. Exchq. Div. 63; EVANS, supra, p. 155 note; HYDE, supra; or of involuntary entrance by "stress of weather or by inevitable necessity'', 1 HYDE, supra, …

Tort Obligations And The Conflict Of Laws, Herbert F. Goodrich

Articles

"This article is an extract from a textbook on 'The Conflict of Laws,' by Professor Goodrich, now in course of preparation, and is here published by permission of the West Publishing Company."--Footnote

Contracts With The United States, Grover C. Grismore

Michigan Law Review

It has been settled since a comparatively early day in the history of our government that "the United States being a body politic, may, within the sphere of the constitutional powers confided to it, and through the instrumentality of the proper department to which those powers are confided, enter into contracts not prohibited by law, and appropriate to the just exercise of those powers." While this proposition became established without much of a struggle, it has not been so freely admitted that such contracts are to be given the same construction and effect as the contracts of individuals. In Smoot's …

Legitimation And Adoption In The Conflict Of Laws, Herbert F. Goodrich

Michigan Law Review

Legitimation is defined in Bouvier's Law Dictionary as the act of giving the character of legitimate children to those who were not so born. To make the description complete, it should be added that the natural relation of parent and child must exist between the parties (if strangers in blood the case becomes one of adoption) and that the act or acts of legitimation must be provided for by law.

The Permanent International Court Of Justice

Michigan Law Review

The writer has already commented, in an earlier number of this Review, upon the plan for a Permanent Court of International Justice which was formulated by a committee of jurists at The Hague in the summer of 1920 and amended and approved by the Council and Assembly of the League of Nations in December of the same year. 19 MICH. L. REV. 413. The plan became operative upon ratification by a majority of the members of the League in September, 1921, and judges were elected immediately thereafter. The Court's first session opened at The Hague in January, 1922. The present …

Cases On Procedure Annotated. Trial And Appellate Practice, Edson R. Sunderland

Books

“A dozen years ago the present editor published a case-book for law school use on Trial Practice. It was then a subject unknown in the law school curriculum. But in the years that have passed the teaching of trial practice has become a common feature in American legal education….

The editor’s earlier volume on Trial Practice has not been incorporated in the present book, but that subject has been entirely reorganized and rewritten. Legal Ethics in connection with trial work has been treated more adequately, new sections on the Verdict and Judgment have been added, certain topics, such as Instructing …

Prize Cases Decided In The United States Supreme Court, 1789-1918, Edwin D. Dickinson

Reviews

"It seems something of a paradox that our first and only complete collection of Supreme Court prize decisions should be published at last under the auspices of an endowment for international peace... And it has been the admirable purpose of the Carnegie Endowment to promote peace by rendering more available all authoritative sources of information about international affairs.

"There is more in common, indeed, between peace and prize cases than a mere matter of contact with international affairs. The development of international law, both as a general system and as a part of municipal law, has been developed by prize …

The Ship Mortgage Act Of 1920, George L. Canfield

Michigan Law Review

Maritime loans have been usually secured by either bottomry bonds or ship mortgages. The former constituted maritime liens of high and privileged character, while the latter had no standing in admiralty at all except as to remnants after all other claims against the ship had been satisfied. The statute now under discussion, being part of general legislation for the revival of the American merchant marine, makes "preferred mortgages" thereunder maritime liens, enforceable by admiralty process in rem. The changes made by the statute in existing law are radical and its construction by the Supreme Court will be of great …

Venue--Jurisdiction In Criminal Cases

Michigan Law Review

In a recent case in Oklahoma the defendant was prosecuted for bigamy, under a statute which read as follows: "It shall be unlawful for either party to such divorce to remarry any other person within six months from the degree of divorcement. * * * Any person marrying contrary: to the provisions of this statute shall be deemed guilty of bigamy, and such marriage shall be absolutely void." The defendant remarried in another state and returned to Live in Oklahoma. The court held that it had no jurisdiction. Jennings v. State, 17 Okla. Cr. R. 698.

The Supreme Court's Adjudication Of Constitutional Issues In 1921-1922, V, Thomas Reed Powell

Michigan Law Review

By the terms of Article III of the Constitution the federal judicial power extends to cases and controversies of various kinds, and it is established that no dispute, even though otherwise cognizable, can be brought before the federal courts unless they are technically a case or a controversy. In illustration of this, Fairchild v. Hughes held that a private citizen with no other interest at stake than his personal opposition to woman suffrage can not bring a bill to restrain the Secretary of State from issuing a proclamation declaring the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment.

Book Reviews

Michigan Law Review

A collection of book reviews by multiple authors.

The Supreme Court's Adjudication Of Constitutional Issues In 1921-1922, Iv, Thomas Reed Powell

Michigan Law Review

That contracts between private parties cannot stand in the way of exercises of the police power for the promotion of health, morals and safety is firmly established. This principle was invoked against objection to rent regulation in decisions of the preceding term, and it is reiterated in Edgar A. Levy Leasing Co. v. Siegel. In one of the cases involved in this decision a tenant was relieved of a contract made after the statute was enacted, and the landlord here encountered the further doctrine that "of course, a lease made subsequent to the enactment of a statute cannot be …

Equity-Federal Court Requirements As To Bringing Suits By A Shareholder In The Name Of The Corporation

Michigan Law Review

It cannot "successfully be argued that it is a matter of course for any individual members of a corporation to assume to themselves the right of suing in the name of the corporation." The corporation and its aggregate members are not the same in law nor in equity. In the equity practice of our federal courts the conditions under which a shareholder can bring a suit have not run a smooth course.

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 …

Les Gouvernements Ou États Non Reconnus En Droit Anglais Et Américain, Edwin D. Dickinson

Articles

Professor Dickinson tackles the subject of non-recognition of governments or states in English and American law: "Pour conclure, voici les propositions de l'auteur. La reconnaissance d'un Gouvernement or Etat etranger est exclusivement une question politique. L'existence d'un Gouvernement ou Etat etranger est exclusivement une question de fait.... C'est une chose deja grave que de voir d'une menace dans les conflits diplomatiques..."

Procedure And Practice Before The Federal Trade Commission, John Leland Mechem

Michigan Law Review

The Federal Trade Commission, now in its eighth year, has successfully withstood the attacks, judicial and political, which threatened at times to destroy it, or, at least, to render it impotent. The act creating it has been held constitutional; its powers and duties have been defined; the present administration has indorsed it; and the public have come to realize its power for good. As its activities have expanded its influence has become definitely felt by the business world. The increasing interest of both business men and members of the profession warrants a brief exposition of the practice before the Commission, …

Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

No abstract provided.

Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Assignments- Assignment of an Expectancy - Joseph and James were two of six children. A contract witnessed "that Joseph Snyder has sold to James Snyder one undivided sixth of the real estate owned by the mother, Susan Snyder; to secure said interest to James after her death, the mother unites in the conveyance of said interest The said Joseph warrants and defends the interest from all claims." The contract was signed by Joseph and by the mother. Held, Joseph had no estate which he could convey, and the contract, though made with the consent of the mother, was unenforceable either …

Note And Comment, Edwin C. Goddard, George Seletto, Edson R. Sunderland, Victor H. Lane, Burke Shartel, George E. Longstaff

Michigan Law Review

Carriers - Second Cummins Amendment - It was seven years after the Carmack Amendment of the Hepburn Act of i9o6 before the Supreme Court began that series of decisions, extending from Adams Express Co. v. Croninger, 226 U. S. 491 (1913), to George N. Pierce Co. v. Wells, Fargo & Co., 236 U. S. 278 (1915), which directly resulted in the First Cummins Amendment of March, 1915. One has only to read those cases, reviewed in 13 Micn. L. REv. 59o, and other notes referred to in 17 MICH. L. Rzv. 183, to see that the language of the Cummins …