Horsky: The Washington Lawyer

A Review of THE WASHINGTON LAWYER. By Charles A. Horsky

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW-CIVIL PROCEDURE-DUE PROCESS REQUIREMENTS FOR STATE JURISDICTION OVER FOREIGN CORPORATIONS

The plaintiff, a nonresident of Ohio, brought an action in Ohio against the defendant, a sociedad anonima organized under the laws of the Philippine Islands, on claims which neither arose in Ohio nor were connected with the defendant\u27s activities in Ohio. Defendant\u27s president, who was also its general manager and principal stockholder, had returned to his home in Ohio when the company\u27s mining operations were suspended by the Japanese occupation of the Philippines. During the war years, he conducted such business as was possible in Ohio, holding directors\u27 meetings, carrying on correspondence, maintaining bank accounts, but the defendant did not appoint a statutory agent or otherwise consent to service of process in Ohio. Process was served upon the defendant\u27s president, but the Ohio Supreme Court, after ruling that the defendant\u27s legal status under Philippine law was equivalent to that of a corporation, granted defendant\u27s motion to quash service on the ground that a state court had no jurisdiction in personam over a foreign corporation without that corporation\u27s consent when the cause of action did not arise from corporate activities within the state. Despite some question whether the Ohio court\u27s decision rested on federal constitutional grounds, the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari and vacated the judgment, holding: the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process clause does not prohibit state jurisdiction in the instant case, even though the corporation has not expressly consented to jurisdiction and the cause of action was unconnected with the defendant\u27s activities within the state. Perkins v. Benguet Consolidated Mining Co., 342 U.S. 437, 72 S. Ct. 413 (1952)

LABOR LAW-LABOR-MANAGEMENT RELATIONS ACT-EFFECT OF AFFIRMATIVE DEAUTHORIZATION VOTE UPON EXISTING UNION-SHOP CONTRACT

One month after the employer and the union entered into a two-year contract containing a union-shop provision, a group of employees filed a petition under section 9(e)(1) of the NLRA as amended in 1951 seeking an election to rescind the union\u27s authority to make a union-shop agreement. The union argued (1) that the contract was a bar to the election and (2) that even if an immediate election was ordered and an affirmative deauthorization vote cast, the existing union-shop clause should be held effective during the remainder of the contract term. The Board ruled, 3/2, that section 9(e)(1) as amended in 1951 specifically contemplated immediate union-shop deauthorization elections and therefore normal contract bar principles did not apply, and further that if an affirmative deauthorization vote was cast, the union-shop clause would be immediately rescinded. Members Murdock and Styles dissented. Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Co., 100 N.L.R.B. No. 251 (1952)

Short-term effects of CO₂-induced low pH exposure on target gene expression in Platynereis dumerilii

Objective: Increasing atmospheric CO₂ concentration are causing changes to the seawater carbonate chemistry, lowering the pH and we study potential impacts of these changes at the molecular level in a non-calcifying, marine polychaete species Platynereis dumerilii. Methods: we investigate the relative expression of carbonic anhydrase (CA), Na+/H+ exchangers (NHE), and calmodulin (CaM) genes from P. dumerilii under acidified seawater conditions (pH 7.8) induced by CO₂ using qPCR. Results: mRNA expression of CA in the CO₂-induced worms was significantly up-regulated at low pH conditions (pH 7.8, 1h), suggesting changes in acid-base balance. In contrast, the expression of NHE and CaM showed no significant change. In addition, we compare these results to a previous study using inorganic acid (HCl)-induced pH changes. Conclusions: results suggest that carbonate chemistry has an impact on gene expression that differs from pH-associated change. To our knowledge, this is the first study that compares low pH exposure experiments using HCl and CO₂ as the inducing agents

REGULATION OF BUSINESS-RESALE PRICE MAINTENANCE-CONSTITUTIONALITY OF NON-SIGNER PROVION IN MICHIGAN FAIR TRADE ACT

Plaintiff, a manufacturer of trade-marked products, brought a bill to restrain defendant-retailer from selling plaintiff\u27s products at prices below the minimum prices established by plaintiff in contracts made pursuant to the Michigan Fair Trade Act. Defendant admitted such sales; but contended that because it had not signed a fair trade agreement with plaintiff, enforcement of the Michigan act against defendant would violate its rights under the due process clause of the state constitution. The trial court, treating the transactions involved as being exclusively in intrastate commerce, held the Michigan Fair Trade Act, as applied to non-signers of fair trade agreements, unconstitutional as a deprivation of property without due process of law. On appeal, held, affirmed. The non-signer provision in the Michigan Fair Trade Act is beyond the scope of the state police power inasmuch as it bears no reasonable relation to public morals, health, safety or the general welfare. Justices Butzel and Reid dissented as to this ground for decision. Shakespeare Co. v. Lippman\u27s Tool Shop Sporting Goods Co., 334 Mich. 109, 54 N.W. (2d) 268 (1952)

TORTS-STATUTORY RIGHT OF PRIVACY

Defendants used the name and portrayed the career of one Jack Donahue in a motion picture and exhibited this film in Utah. Plaintiffs, Donahue\u27s heirs, brought suit under a Utah statute which creates a remedial action for the use of the name, portrait, or picture of a person, living or dead, for advertising purposes or purposes of trade without the written consent of that person or his heirs. There was no use of Donahue\u27s name, portrait or picture for the purpose of advertising the film. The film \u27\u27biography was in part without factual basis. The defendants contended that the late Donahue was a public figure, having attained wide popularity as an entertainer during his lifetime, and that the Utah statute was not intended to protect public figures from the use of their names and careers in films such as this. The federal district court entered a summary judgment dismissing the complaint, but the court of appeals, in a close decision, reversed and remanded the cause, holding: Donahue\u27s status as a public figure does not make it permissible, under the Utah statute, for the defendants to present a fictional treatment of his career for purposes of trade. Donahue v. Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc., (10th Cir. 1952) 194 F. (2d) 6

WHOM WE SHALL WELCOME: REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT\u27S COMMISSION ON IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION.

A Review of WHOM WE SHALL WELCOME: REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT\u27S COMMISSION ON IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION. Washington, D.C.: Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

LABOR LAW-STATE REGULATION OF RECOGNITION AND ORGANIZATIONAL PICKETING

Just as the fixed circumference of spheres of influence tends to reduce clash and friction in world affairs, so peaceful industrial relations are fostered by definite legal rules of conduct. Recent litigation, both by its amount and variety of result, testifies to a continued uncertainty as to the permissible scope of peaceful, primary picketing. The major problems may be subsumed under the loose category of stranger picketing, but a distinction of some legal significance has developed within this category between picketing by the non-representative union for recognition by the employer and picketing for organizational purposes, that is, to win the reluctant: employees into the union\u27s fold. The complexity of human motivation makes this distinction difficult to administer, even if it were valid; the fact that, whatever the union\u27s motivation, the effect of such picketing upon the business enterprise is likely to be the same suggests the invalidity of such a distinction as a fulcrum of legal decision. The distinction, however, will be recognized in the structure of this comment because of its acceptance by some courts.\u3c.p\u3