Property Law and Real Estate Commons^™

Non-Assignment Provisions In Land Contracts, Edwin C. Goddard

Michigan Law Review

Many a sale of real estate is made to a purchaser who lacks the ready cash to pay the price. A deed of conveyance may be given with a mortgage back for the unpaid portion of the purchase price. But more and more in recent years the vendor has given a contract to convey conditioned upon the making of periodical payments of stipulated amounts, a deed to be given when the whole or a stated portion of the purchase price has been paid. The initial payment may be very small, and not infrequently the periodic payments are little more than …

Quasi-Contracts -Assumpsit For Use And Occupation Against A Trespasser In Modern Cases

Michigan Law Review

Perhaps the doctrine of stare decisis is sometimes deserving of severe criticism in its application to matters of substantive law; but the unfortunate results of uncritical adherence to precedent appear most clearly in regard to rules of procedure, where the demand for certainty cannot be justified by a supposed reliance of laymen on "settled" rules. The evils are aggravated where inconvenient decisions are not undermined or their effects evaded by the lawyer's typical process of "distinguishing'' cases. A forcible illustration is the firm refusal of most courts to extend quasicontractual relief to cases of use and occupation of land by …

The Kentucky Rule Of Damages For Breach Of Executory Contracts To Convey Realty, Wendell Carnahan

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Statute Of Frauds-Specific Enforcement Of Oral Contract To Convey Land-Part Performance

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Deeds-Delivery In Escrow-Effect On Income Tax

Michigan Law Review

A taxpayer, by written contract, had agreed to sell a 99-year leasehold for $195,000. $50,000 was to be paid in 1920, and the balance in 1921. The first payment was made in October, 1920, and a deed put in escrow, to be handed to the grantee on payment of the balance. The transaction was fully carried out as per contract, and the taxpayer was assessed income tax on the entire $195,000 as of 1920. Held, the deed having been delivered in escrow, the title relates back to the original delivery on performance of the condition, showing a completed transaction …

Contracts-Liability Of Assignee For Unfullfilled Duties Of His Assigned

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff contracted for the sale of lands with H., title being reserved in the plaintiff. The contract purported to bind the assigns of both parties, and contained an acceleration provision in favor of the plaintiff on default of any payment. Under North Dakota law the parties were substantially in the position of vendor-mortgagee and vendee-mortgagor. H then assigned to the defendant who made payments to the plaintiff, and there was also testimony indicating that in the printed form of the assignment defend ant had promised the assignor to assume the duties under the original contract. Upon default and foreclosure sale …

Contracts--Risk Of Loss Under Executory Land Contract--Disposition Of Insurance Process.

Michigan Law Review

When buildings, which are part of the subject matter of an executory contract for the sale of land, are accidentally destroyed by fire, there immediately arises the question of who, as between the vendor and the purchase, shall bear the loss. The majority of courts in this country place it on the purchaser. This was the result reached in the leading English case of Paine v. Meller and has been adopted in the following states: California, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and West Virginia. …

Contracts-Rescission For Substantial Breach-Lien For Improvements Given Vendee

Michigan Law Review

For statement of facts see preceding note in this issue, Younger v. Caroselli, 251 Mich. 533, 232 N.W. 378.

According to the majority view in the United States, a builder, whose substantial breach of contract (the instant case can hardly be considered one of substantial performance) is merely negligent and in good faith, can recover the value of his labor and materials less the damage caused the promisee.

Contracts-Breach Of Implied Warranty That Construction Be Usable For Purpose Intended

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff and defendant entered into a contract by the terms of which defendant was to assign to plaintiff an equity in a land contract to purchase a lot. The plaintiff was to complete the payments and sell to the defendant on a land contract this same lot with a house and garage to be erected by the plaintiff, an experienced builder, according to plans and specifications to be drawn by the latter. The defendant was to be given credit for the amount he had previously paid on the lot, and the price was further reduced by the defendant doing the …

Deeds-Side Of Lake As Boundary-Presumption That Grantee Takes To Center

Michigan Law Review

ln a conveyance of land adjoining a lake, the description read in part, "thence running northerly * * * to the Rockland Lake thence westwardly along the south side of the Rockland Lake." Held, that the grantee took to the center of the lake. White v. Knickerbocker Ice Co. et al. (N. Y. 1930) 172 N.E. 452.

Quasi-Contracts-Dutiful Intervention-Discharge Of Public Officer's Duty

Michigan Law Review

By statute in Montana the boards of county commissioners were ordered to cause such highways as were necessary for the public welfare to be "laid out, recorded, opened" and maintained. A highway was laid out through the plaintiff's land in 1903, but the county commissioners refused to continue constructing it though requested to do so by the plaintiff, instead compelling him to remove the fences on his property. His entire land being thus thrown open to the public, he constructed the road himself in 1926, with the knowledge of the commissioners, who on its completion immediately accepted it but refused …

Contracts-Risk Of Loss Between Vendor And Purchaser In Land Contract

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff entered into a contract to sell his grocery business to the defendant for a specified amount, part payment to be by way of the conveyance of a house and lot owned by the defendant, the title to pass upon payment by the plaintiff of certain outstanding debts of the grocery business. Subsequent to the execution of the contract, but before conveyance of the house and lot and while the defendant was still in possession, the house was destroyed by fire and the plaintiff sues to have $2,500 substituted, that amount being the agreed valuation at which the property was …

Specific Performance Of A Parol Agreement To Convey Real Estate. Part Performance To Take The Contract Out Of The Statute Of Frauds, J. H. W.

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Statutory Regulation Of Railway Equipment Agreements, Kenneth Duncan

Michigan Law Review

Form of Equipment Contracts. A large part of the rolling stock and equipment obtained by railroads in the United States and Canada is financed through the issue of equipment obligations. At the present time, approximately three-quarters of a billion dollars, par value, of these securities are outstanding, and they have come to constitute about six per cent. of the aggregate funded debt of railroads. Yet in spite of their large and growing importance, they are probably not as well understood as other common forms of corporate securities, and it is doubtful if many lawyers are fully cognizant of the …

Deeds--By And To Infants--Effecti Of Disaffirmance

Michigan Law Review

The disaffirmance of a contract made by an infant nullifies it and renders it void ab initio; and the parties are returned to the same condition as if the contract had never been made. Grissom v. Beidleman, 35 Okla. 343. This states the general rule both as to executed and executory contracts, and is particularly applicable to transfers of personal property. WILLISTON, CONTRACTS, § 237; PAGE, CONTRACTS, ed. 2, § 1622. Does this principle apply also to conveyances of real property? Does disaffirmance of a deed by or to an infant ipso facto nullify it and revest the …

Some Greek Legal Papyri From The Michigan Collection, A Er Boak

Michigan Law Review

The documents which form the subject of this paper are part of the Michigan Collection of Papyri recently acquired by Professor F. W. Kelsey in Egypt and secured for the University by the generosity of the Regents and certain friends and alumni, among the latter Mr. J. W. Anderson, of the Law Class of 189o. A large proportion of these documents are of a legal nature, and from these I have selected for translation four, which may be regarded as typical specimens of their respective classes.

Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

No abstract provided.

Note And Comment, Edgar N. Durfee, Cyril E. Bailey, Edwin B. Stason, William C. O'Keefe, Clyde Y. Morris

Michigan Law Review

The Basis of Relief from Penalties and Forfeitures - The equitable principle of relief from penalties and forfeitures is so far elementary as almost to defy analysis. Many, perhaps most, of the judicial explanations of the principle have based it upon interpretation or construction, appealing to the doctrine that equity regards intent rather than form. Yet a logical application of this doctrine would lead to results very different from those which have actually been arrived at in the decisions. Thus, a stipulation in a mortgage that the mortgagor waives his equity of redemption can hardly be interpreted as meaning that …

Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Admiralty - Workmen's Compensation - Is a Hydroplane a Vessel? - Claimant was employed in the care and management of a hydroplane which was moored in navigable waters. The hydroplane began to drag anchor and drift toward the beach, where it was in danger of being wrecked. Claimant waded into the water and was struck by the propeller. Held, claimant is not entitled to compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Law, since a hydroplane while on navigable waters is a vessel, and therefore the jurisdiction of the admiralty excludes that of the State Industrial Commission. Reinhardt v. Newport Flying Service Corp. …

Recent Important Decisions, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Carriers of Passengers - Duty to Stop at Station to Permit Passenger to Alight-Contributory Negligence of Passenger Plaintiff's intestate was riding in the front end of a crowded vestibule car in the coach next to the tender of the eengine. When the train stopped at his station he tried to leave by the front end, but found the door from the vestibule closed. As he did not know how to open it, or was unwilling to be carried by his station, he stepped from his platform to the bumper of the tender and tried to follow it to the side …

The Assignability Of An Option Contract, M. T. Van Hecke

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Book Reviews, Herman W. Oliphant, Ralph W. Aigler

Michigan Law Review

The Law of Contracts. Samuel Williston, Weld Professor of Law in Harvard University. New York. Baker, Voorhis & Co., 192o. In four volumes. Vol. I, pp. xxiii, 1155, Vol. II, pp. xxi, 1157-2329

Extension Of Liability Of Abstracters, Harry R. Trusler

Michigan Law Review

The General Rule.- In 1900 a standard encyclopedia said: "By the weight of authority an abstracter is liable only to the person ordering and paying for the abstract; and where this view obtains, the fact that an abstracter has knowledge that his abstract is to be used in a sale or loan to advise a purchaser or person about to lend money does not affect the rule as to his liability. In some jurisdictions, however, the abstracter's liability has been extended to protect those who, relying on the correctness of the abstract, are injured."

Equitable Servitudes In Missouri, George L. Clark

University of Missouri Bulletin Law Series

Before the decision in Tulk v. Moxhay, a contract not to use land in a particular manner was treated by equity courts in the same way as were other negative contracts; if the plaintiff was so injured in the enjoyment of his own land that damages at law did not furnish an adequate remedy, equity would specifically enforce the contract by granting an injunction against the promisor. The right thus to control the use of the property in the hands of the promisor can hardly be classified as other than a property right, but since it was enforcible only against …

Note And Comment, Ralph W. Aigler, Edgar N. Durfee, Werner W. Schroeder, Arthur A. Morrow, Harry B. Sutter, Russell H. Neilson

Michigan Law Review

Estates in Fee Tail - Quite generally estates in fee tail under the STATUTE DE DONIS were recognized by the states as a part of the common law. Statutory provisions in the way of modification and abolishment of such estates, however, are very common. The nature and scope of the statutory provisions have varied. See the states classified according to the character of the legislation in BREWSTER, CONVEYANCING, § § 142, 143.

Recent Important Decisions; Book Reviews, Edwin C. Goddard, John R. Rood

Michigan Law Review

A collection of recent important court decisions and book reviews.

Note And Comment, John B. Waite, Thomas H. Westlake, William C. Mullendore, Harry B. Sutter

Michigan Law Review

Dean Pound Harvard has honored itself in the appointment of Roscoe POUND to the deanship of its law school

Recent Important Decisions

Michigan Law Review

A collection of recent important court decisions.

Powers Of American Religious Corporations, Carl Zollmann

Michigan Law Review

Religious corporations in the United States have assumed various shapes. The original two forms, (corporation sole and territorial parish) being unsuited to our conditions, have completely passed away. In their stead have grown up four other classes, the aggregate corporation, the trustee corporation, the modern form of the corporation sole, and the Roman Catholic Church in our insular possessions. These four kinds of corporations, however diverse they may be in their history and otherwise, have a number of important qualities in common. None of them are ecclesiastical corporations in the European sense of the word. All of them owe their …

Recent Important Decisions

Michigan Law Review

A collection of recent important court decisions.