Civil Code: Notes for an Uncelebrated Centennial

This is the first installment of a projected study of the Dakota Civil Code. While this portion deals with the historical background of the Code and its content as drafted for New York by David Dudley Field, a subsequent article will deal with its fate in the hands of the bar, the legislature and the courts in New York, California, and especially the Dakotas

Encouraging Courage: Law\u27s Response to Fear and Risk

Our three papers provide a helpful review of the many things that can go wrong with our system for the protection of civil liberties under the pressures of war or other emergencies. Professor Winfield focuses on the U.S. Attorney General, the non-judicial officer from whom the public might expect the highest fidelity to the law and the constitution. She offers a sobering perspective on the ways in which those expectations can be and have been disappointed. The star of her taxonomy, I take it, is the Leveler, who reaches an independent (and rights-protective!) view of the law and works to persuade the administration to respect it. Sadly, we have not had nearly as many Francis Biddles as we would wish for

Coercive Appointments of Counsel in Civil Cases in Forma Pauperis: An Easy Case Makes Hard Law

The power to appoint an unwilling attorney, whether judicial or statutory in origin, has been challenged in principle on three grounds, founded in the Federal Constitution and its state counterparts: (i) that to require the lawyer to serve constitutes involuntary servitude, within the meaning of the thirteenth amendment;\u27 (ii) that it constitutes an unlawful taking of property, or at the very least constitutes a taking for a public use which requires just compensation, under the fifth amendment;8 and (iii) that to subject attorneys as a class to such an obligation constitutes discrimination which would deny them equal protection of the laws, under the fourteenth amendment. If the issue is whether or not such a power exists at all, acceptance of the justifying propositions is generally regarded as sufficient to overcome the constitutional objections, by treating the burden as a condition of the license to practice. However, to the extent that the power exists and is considered discretionary in character, its exercise in a particular case may be challenged as an abuse of discretion, an unfair imposition on the lawyer in the specific circumstances. In this context, the considerations of fairness underlying the constitutional objections reappear as conditions of the exercise of the power in particular cases

Notice, Costs, and the Effect of Judgment in Missouri\u27s New Common-Question Class Action

On December 1, 1972, the Missouri Supreme Court greatly expanded the potential usefulness of the class action device in our state courts by adopting the most recent version of the federal class action rule

European Analogues to the Class Action: Group Action in France and Germany

For the civil proceduralist in the United States the most perplexing problems of recent years have been presented by claims of large numbers of persons against large economic interests. A single error in manufacturing design can cause a relatively small injury to each of a large number of consumers; a misrepresentation in national advertising for such goods can have similar consequences; the polluting effects of a single enterprise can be dispersed among a large neighboring population. The result is that the stake of each potential claimant in the outcome of the litigation can be greatly outweighed by the magnitude of the wrongdoer\u27s total potential exposure and by the expenses of litigating the substantive issues

Legal Aid Program for North Dakota

Since the summer of 1965, the State Bar Association of North Dakota, through a special subcommittee on Legal Aid and Defense of Indigents and its standing committee on the same subject,1 has been investigating the need for legal aid in North Dakota, possible sources for funds to finance legal aid programs in the state, and possible forms which a program might take to meet the need. As a result of these investigations, a proposal has been prepared by the committee for submission to the Legal Services Program of the Office of Economic Opportunity (headed by Mr. Bamberger), for federal funds to help establish and maintain a comprehensive state-wide legal aid program