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Michigan Law Review

Articles 661 - 690 of 947

Full-Text Articles in State and Local Government Law

Taxation -Interstate Commerce- Levy On Use By Interstate Carrier Of Gasoline Bought Outside State Jun 1936

Taxation -Interstate Commerce- Levy On Use By Interstate Carrier Of Gasoline Bought Outside State

Michigan Law Review

A statute of New Mexico imposed "an excise tax of five cents (5c) per gallon upon the sale and use of all gasoline and motor fuel . . . " The effect of the statute was to compel the appellee corporation, a common carrier, to pay a tax upon the use of motor fuel purchased in and brought from another state and used only in such transportation. This suit was brought to enjoin enforcement of the foregoing statutory provision on the ground that it constituted a regulation of interstate commerce in contravention of the commerce clause of the Federal Constitution. …


Public Utilities-Injunction Restraining Enforcement Of Rate Order Of State Commission-Jurisdiction Of Federal Court Under Johnson Act Jun 1936

Public Utilities-Injunction Restraining Enforcement Of Rate Order Of State Commission-Jurisdiction Of Federal Court Under Johnson Act

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiffs sued in a federal district court for an injunction restraining enforcement of an order of the Corporation Commission of Oklahoma reducing gas rates. The plaintiffs alleged that the new rates were confiscatory and in violation of due process of law under the Fourteenth Amendment. It appeared that there was much uncertainty in the decisions of the Supreme Court of Oklahoma as to whether the appeal to that court from the orders of the Corporation Commission were legislative or judicial. Held, that in view of the uncertainty of an opportunity for judicial review of the orders of the Commission, …


Municipal Corporations-Fencing Ordinances May 1936

Municipal Corporations-Fencing Ordinances

Michigan Law Review

Defendant city passed an ordinance which prohibited the erection of fences that exceeded four feet in height, or which were composed wholly or in part of barbed wire. Plaintiff was refused permission to build a woven wire fence, six feet high with barbed wire attached to arms extending inward at the top. Plaintiff thereupon sued to enjoin defendant city from enforcing this ordinance, claiming that it deprived her of property without "due process." Held, by the court, that the right to fence one's land is a right of property that cannot be unreasonably interfered with. The ordinance in question …


Attack On Decrees Of Divorce, Albert C. Jacobs Apr 1936

Attack On Decrees Of Divorce, Albert C. Jacobs

Michigan Law Review

This paper deals with attacks on decrees of divorce. The attack may arise in the state of the divorce or elsewhere. F-1 is used to designate the state in which the divorce was granted; F-2 a state other than that in which the decree in' question was rendered. The attack in F-1 may be on purely local or non-jurisdictional grounds, such as fraud, collusion, duress or perjury, or upon the ground that the proper jurisdictional requirements were lacking. The attack in F-2 will generally be on jurisdictional grounds, though in certain situations a decree has been impeached for non-jurisdictional factors. …


Municipal Corporations-Standards Required In Licensing Ordinances Feb 1936

Municipal Corporations-Standards Required In Licensing Ordinances

Michigan Law Review

Defendant appealed from conviction for operating a used auto business without obtaining a license for such business under a city ordinance requiring same to be granted by the city commission if in its opinion applicant was a proper and suitable person, the place to be used was proper, having in mind the nature and character of the business and possibility of commission of crime, and the sanitary facilities thereon were proper. There was no specific legislative grant for passage of such ordinance. Defendant's application was rejected by the commission mainly because of lack of proper sanitary facilities. Held, standards …


Future Interests - Effect Of Eminent Domain Proceedings Feb 1936

Future Interests - Effect Of Eminent Domain Proceedings

Michigan Law Review

This study is concerned with the effect of condemnation proceedings upon future interests. The problems which arise are chiefly whether the owner of a future interest has such an interest in land as to be awarded a share of the fund given as compensation for the land, and if he does have such an interest as to be awarded a share, how it will be determined or apportioned to him and at what time. The first part of the study is a consideration of the question: what types of future interests are compensable? The second part involves an examination of …


Trusts-Liability Of Trust Estate For Torts Of Trustee Feb 1936

Trusts-Liability Of Trust Estate For Torts Of Trustee

Michigan Law Review

Defendants, trustees of land which had been leased for years to plaintiff, demanded that plaintiff stop removing crops from the land until the past-due rent was paid. Such a removal of crops was a criminal offense by South Carolina statute. In a suit for libel against the defendants in their representative capacity, held, defendants' demurrer sustained. Ross v. Moses, 175 S. C. 355, 179 S. E. 757 (1935).


Constitutional Law-Martial Law-Suspension Of The Law Jan 1936

Constitutional Law-Martial Law-Suspension Of The Law

Michigan Law Review

Fifteen thousand workmen in a county struck, forced business houses to close, cut off the milk supply even to hospitals, threatened electric and water company employees with violence, stopped all transportation services, and congregated in mobs. On request of the local authorities the governor issued a proclamation suspending the right to carry arms, the right of assembly, and the right to enter or leave the county, and directed the military to disperse all crowds, picketers, or other assemblages. A striker imprisoned by the military forces sued to enjoin the governor and military officials from carrying out the proclamation on the …


Eminent Domain-Validity Of State Statute Jan 1936

Eminent Domain-Validity Of State Statute

Michigan Law Review

As upon certiorari, the New Mexico Supreme Court considered the question, whether it is "within legislative competence to declare a public use in the industry of coal mining, so as to permit taking private property in aid of it." Plaintiff had obtained a judgment of condemnation, and defendant attacked it as offensive to the New Mexico constitutional provision: "Private property shall not be taken or damaged for public use without just compensation." The opinion recognized the existence of an "orthodox" and a "liberal" doctrine of construing "public use." While the court found that, unlike Nevada's or Utah's, New Mexico's well-being …


Banks And Banking-National Banks Subject To State Statute Providing Reward For Finders Of Lost Goods Jan 1936

Banks And Banking-National Banks Subject To State Statute Providing Reward For Finders Of Lost Goods

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff found $105,000 hidden in a roadside junk heap. The money had been stolen from defendant national bank in an early morning hold-up, and cached by the robbers in the rubbish pile, With the police, plaintiff returned the money to the bank. Plaintiff then sued the bank for a ten per cent reward provided by an Iowa statute for the return of "lost goods." The Supreme Court of Iowa reversed a decision that the statute did not apply to stolen money. In a rehearing, defendant put in an amended plea that the statute could not impose any liability on national …


Municipal Corporations-Constitutionality Of Municipal Debt Readjustment Act Jan 1936

Municipal Corporations-Constitutionality Of Municipal Debt Readjustment Act

Michigan Law Review

To avail itself of the remedial provisions of the National Bankruptcy Act as amended by section 80, the Imperial Irrigation District, a taxing district within the State of California, filed a petition for the readjustment of its debts. Pursuant to the requirements of section 80 the petition alleged that the District was unable to meet its debts and that a plan of readjustment had been accepted by 87.31 per cent of the creditors. Contestants, owners of petitioners' bonds, intervened. Held, section 80 of the National Bankruptcy Act as applied to the readjustment of the debts of an irrigation district …


Corporations-Amendment Of Corporate Charters-Power Of The Legislature To Authorize Changes In Intracorporate Affairs Jan 1936

Corporations-Amendment Of Corporate Charters-Power Of The Legislature To Authorize Changes In Intracorporate Affairs

Michigan Law Review

In 1819, in the leading Dartmouth College case, Justice Story suggested that a state might easily retain control over its corporations by the simple expedient of reserving the power to alter, amend, or repeal the charter. The states were quick to accept the suggestion, but the real extent of this reserved power has never been definitely ascertained. A minority of the state courts, led by New Jersey, have held that this reserved power extends only over the contract between the state and the corporation; whereas a great majority have adopted the view that it extends over the contract between the …


Municipal Corporations-Regulation Of Gas Stations-Delegation To Property Owners Of Power To Modify Zoning Restrictions Jan 1936

Municipal Corporations-Regulation Of Gas Stations-Delegation To Property Owners Of Power To Modify Zoning Restrictions

Michigan Law Review

A city ordinance prohibited the installation of gasoline filling stations within the city except after obtaining the written consent of 51 per cent of the property owners within a radius of six hundred feet from the site. Relator, without obtaining the required consent, asked for a writ of mandamus, which was refused. The court held the regulation not arbitrary but substantially relating to the public safety and welfare, and not a delegation of legislative powers. State ex rel. Standard Oil Co. v. Combs, 129 Ohio St. 251, 194 N. E. 875 (1935).


Constitutional Law-Conservation Of Waters-Validity Of Statute Limiting Riparian Rights Dec 1935

Constitutional Law-Conservation Of Waters-Validity Of Statute Limiting Riparian Rights

Michigan Law Review

By the common law a riparian owner on a non-navigable stream has a vested right in the continuous natural flow of the stream on or bordering his land. An Oregon statute undertakes to cut down this right; it provides that a riparian owner's vested right to the continuous flow of the stream is limited to such flow as is necessary to preserve to him the beneficial uses to which he is already putting the water. Inasmuch as the right to the full continuous flow as against non-riparian appropriators is really a right to insist upon the availability of the stream …


The Unicameral Legislature In Nebraska, Lester B. Orfield Nov 1935

The Unicameral Legislature In Nebraska, Lester B. Orfield

Michigan Law Review

It is perhaps not exaggerating to say that no more far-reaching innovation in state government has been adopted in recent years than Nebraska's unicameral legislature. It is an axiom of political science - somewhat modified, to be sure, by the growth of administrative tribunals - that there are three branches of government: legislative, executive and judicial. Nebraska has drastically changed the first of these three by adopting a single-house legislature. This question whether the legislature shall consist of one or two houses has become the chief problem of legislative structure during recent years. The model state constitution drafted by the …


Bills And Notes - Bad Faith On Part Of Pledgee Taking Bonds May 1935

Bills And Notes - Bad Faith On Part Of Pledgee Taking Bonds

Michigan Law Review

Defendant, a Wisconsin firm, issued certain bearer bonds secured by a mortgage held by the T corporation, as trustee. A provision in the mortgage defining the duties of the trustee in the disposition of bonds delivered to it was incorporated into the bonds by reference. The trustee being insolvent, plaintiff bank, as pledgee of some of the bonds taken to secure personal loans to the trustee, petitioned the referee in bankruptcy for permission to sell them, claiming to be a bona fide pledgee for value. Held, since federal courts are bound to follow state decisions interpreting state statutes declaratory …


Legislative Attack On "Heart Balm", Nathan P. Feinsinger May 1935

Legislative Attack On "Heart Balm", Nathan P. Feinsinger

Michigan Law Review

Public resentment over the abuses incident to "heart balm" suits has recently culminated in sweeping legislative reform. Through the repeated efforts of a woman legislator, Indiana has abolished actions for seduction of females over twenty-one years of age, for breach of promise to marry, and for criminal conversation and alienation of affections. Almost immediately New York, and shortly thereafter Illinois, passed similar legislation, and at least ten other states are now considering analogous proposals.


Criminal Law And Procedure -Automobiles - Constitutional Law-Criminal Liability Of Owner Of Automobile May 1935

Criminal Law And Procedure -Automobiles - Constitutional Law-Criminal Liability Of Owner Of Automobile

Michigan Law Review

The recent decision of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in the case of Commonwealth v. Ober has brought to the fore a serious administrative problem arising out of the enforcement of traffic regulations. The problem is particularly acute in the illegal parking cases. Here it is usually impossible for the policeman to do more than tag the car, take down its registration number, and institute proceedings against the registered owner. The difficulty also often occurs in many other situations such as driving through red lights or stop streets where the offense is observed by a patrolman standing near by …


Constitutional Law -Validity Of State Mortgage Moratorium Statutes - Effect Of Emergency May 1935

Constitutional Law -Validity Of State Mortgage Moratorium Statutes - Effect Of Emergency

Michigan Law Review

A Maryland statute provided that mortgagees holding less than a 25 per cent interest in a mortgage could not have recourse to summary remedies for sale of mortgaged property during an emergency period declared to exist until June 1, 1935. Plaintiff, the holder of such an interest in a mortgage providing for summary proceedings for sale upon default, had the right to foreclose in this manner, mortgagor having defaulted, if the statute did not bar his action. Held, the remedies denied were so interwoven with the rights contracted for that the abolition of such remedies impaired the right, and …


Special Assessments - Constitutionality Of Legislation Modifying Means Of Enforcement Of Special Assessment Liens May 1935

Special Assessments - Constitutionality Of Legislation Modifying Means Of Enforcement Of Special Assessment Liens

Michigan Law Review

An Arkansas statute, affecting the mortgage securing certain special assessment bonds, provided, inter alia, for the extension of the interval between default in payment and sale under foreclosure from sixty-five days to at least two and a half years, reduced the penalty for non-payment from twenty per cent to three per cent, and provided that the possession of the delinquent property owner be undisturbed for four years after sale on foreclosure, thus modifying the law existing at the time the bonds were issued. The United States Supreme Court held the statute to be invalid as violating the constitutional prohibition …


Foreign Enforcement Of Actions For Wrongful Death, William H. Rose Feb 1935

Foreign Enforcement Of Actions For Wrongful Death, William H. Rose

Michigan Law Review

Actions for wrongful death have a long history in the common law. Homicide was once a private matter giving rise to the blood feud and later to the wergild, whereby a money substitute replaced private warfare. With the development of criminal law the crown took jurisdiction over all killings. At a time when all felonies carried with them the death penalty, forfeiture of chattels and escheat of lands, the right to sue for wrongful death was scarcely of practical importance. This was especially so since felony included negligent killing, and even an accidental killing required the king's pardon if …


Public Utilities - Holding Companies - Power Of State Commission To Regulate Intercorporate Charges Jan 1935

Public Utilities - Holding Companies - Power Of State Commission To Regulate Intercorporate Charges

Michigan Law Review

The Public Service Commission of Kansas issued an order directing nine local gas companies to cease setting up as an item of operating expense more than a certain amount for gas being furnished the companies by an interstate pipe line company. The nine distributing companies and the pipe line company, all of which were affiliated companies within the meaning of a Kansas statute and ultimately controlled by the same holding company, secured an injunction in the three-judge federal court, and the commission appealed to the United States Supreme Court. Held, that the injunction should not have been granted. State …


Cooperation Between The Interstate Commerce Commission And The State Commissions In Railroad Regulation, Martin L. Lindahl Jan 1935

Cooperation Between The Interstate Commerce Commission And The State Commissions In Railroad Regulation, Martin L. Lindahl

Michigan Law Review

Cooperation between the Interstate Commerce Commission and the state commissions in railroad regulation has been developed to increase the effectiveness of public control under our dual regulatory system. The division of power between federal and state governments, based upon the traditional distinction between interstate and intrastate commerce, has led to a multitude of diverse and conflicting statutes and administrative orders applicable to the same set of transportation agencies. In large measure the problem of dual control has been solved by giving to the federal government a virtually complete occupancy of the fields of rate, finance, and service regulation of interstate …


Sales - Chattel Mortgages Under The Bulk Sales Statutes Jan 1935

Sales - Chattel Mortgages Under The Bulk Sales Statutes

Michigan Law Review

Gessaman, who was a dealer in new and used automobiles, was indebted to the bank and other creditors. While so indebted, he executed and delivered to the acceptance corporation a chattel mortgage upon all the furniture, fixtures, equipment and supplies used in the business. Later the mortgagee took possession of the chattels without suit, and immediately afterward Gessaman was adjudged a bankrupt. The trustee, in behalf of the bank and other creditors, seeks to subject the chattels to a trust in the hands of the acceptance corporation upon the claim that the chattels were taken under a sale in violation …


Corporations-Purchase Of Notes And Mortgages As "Doing Business" Dec 1934

Corporations-Purchase Of Notes And Mortgages As "Doing Business"

Michigan Law Review

C was engaged in loaning money in Idaho. He sold many of the notes and mortgages which he thus received to the plaintiff, a foreign corporation. It was his practice, nevertheless, to collect the interest on these notes and remit it to the plaintiff. The actual sales of the notes and mortgages occurred in Chicago. In this manner the plaintiff acquired the note of the defendant, a resident of Idaho and his mortgage on Idaho land. The Idaho statute forbids a foreign corporation "doing business" in the State to sue in its courts without taking certain qualifying steps. The plaintiff, …


Practice And Procedure - Direction Of Verdict - Scintilla Rule Nov 1934

Practice And Procedure - Direction Of Verdict - Scintilla Rule

Michigan Law Review

In an action to recover from the defendant gas company damage to the plaintiff's building caused by a gas explosion resulting from a defective pipe, the plaintiff's only evidence to prove the defendant's duty to repair it was that the pipe was used exclusively for the conveyance of the defendant's gas, and that the meters to which the pipe was connected were owned and controlled by the defendant. The trial court, by virtue of the scintilla rule, submitted the case to the jury which rendered a verdict for the plaintiff. Held, the scintilla rule no longer prevails in Ohio, …


Corporations--Liability Of Stockholder In Non-Complying Foreign Corporation Nov 1934

Corporations--Liability Of Stockholder In Non-Complying Foreign Corporation

Michigan Law Review

The defendant was a stockholder in the A corporation, incorporated in Indiana to go business there, but carrying on its principal business in Tennessee where It had failed to comply with a law requiring foreign corporations to domesticate; Plaintiff, a holder of a trade acceptance on which the A corporation was primarily liable, sued defendant in Indiana, liability on the trade acceptance having been incurred in Tennessee. The A corporation being insolvent, plaintiff sought to hold the defendant personally liable on the ground that the failure of the corporation to comply with domestication statutes of Tennessee made its stockholders liable …


Public Utilities-Street Railway Regulation By State Commission In Home Rule City-Permission To Withdraw From Service Nov 1934

Public Utilities-Street Railway Regulation By State Commission In Home Rule City-Permission To Withdraw From Service

Michigan Law Review

A street railway company, located in a city with a home rule charter adopted in accordance with the state constitution, petitioned the state railway commission and was granted authority to curtail its transportation by buses. The company had been in bad financial condition during recent years; the number of passengers carried had been substantially decreasing, and the company was not able to pay full interest on bonded debt. Upon the insistence of the city, the company had put bus lines in operation several years earlier and these had continually been operating at a deficit. Upon appeal, the court held that …


Bankruptcy-Debtor Proceedings-Power Of Court To Enjoin State Court Actions Jun 1934

Bankruptcy-Debtor Proceedings-Power Of Court To Enjoin State Court Actions

Michigan Law Review

A debtor proceeding was initiated in a Florida federal court and an ancillary proceeding was begun in a New York federal court. The latter court enjoined petitioner, who had obtained a tort judgment against the debtor in a New York state court, which judgment had been affirmed by the Appellate Division, from arguing the case as appellee in the New York Court of Appeals and from continuing to prosecute an action commenced by him (petitioner) against the sureties on an appeal bond filed by the debtor pending the appeal to the Appellate Division. Shares of stock had been pledged by …


Corporations-Qualifications Of Officers-Effect On Existing By-Laws Of Change In Statute Jun 1934

Corporations-Qualifications Of Officers-Effect On Existing By-Laws Of Change In Statute

Michigan Law Review

Corporate by-laws adopted under and following Act No. 84, Michigan Public Acts of 1921, required that directors be chosen from stockholders, the positions to become vacant should the directors dispose of their stock. In 1931 the statute was changed, now reading that "directors . . . need not be shareholders unless the articles so provide." The by-laws were not altered. Qualified directors subsequently disposed of their stock and petitioned the chancery court under the statute for dissolution of the corporation and appointment of a receiver. Appealing from an order granting that petition, creditors and stockholders of the corporation contended that …