Book Reviews

Costigan, Jr.: handbook on American Mining Law; Minor: The Law of Real Property (Based on Minor\u27s Institutes); Mikell: Cases on Criminal Law, selected from decisions of English and American Courts; Beecher: The Annotated Constitution of Michigan, with Introduction by Fred A. Bake

Acquiring Jurisdiction without Personal Service, Seizure of Aid of Statute

It is often assumed that courts can acquire jurisdiction only by personal service to give jurisdiction in personam, or by a seizure to give jurisdiction in rem; but it is not so. The assumption is induced no doubt by the fact that in the ordinary common law actions jurisdiction is acquired in that way. Mr. Justice Field very distinctly pointed out in the case of Pennoyer v. Neff (1877), 95 U. S. 714, that it was not the fact that the land was not seized that rendered the judgment void. It was the fact that the land was not the res in litigation in the prior case that made the judgment void

The Way of the Tansgressor Is Easy

The Way of the Transgressor is Easy, if he is shrewd enough to take an immunity bath, or avail himself of any of a dozen other provisions of the law made with good intentions and left lying about loose enough to be misappropriated. One rule that has served him many a good turn, is that there is no contribution between tort-feasors. Another way of stating it is that the courts are not open to help rogues out of the predicaments into which their dishonest dealings placed them, and the counterpart of the doctrine in equity is that he who comes into equity must come with clean hands. So far therefore as civil liability is concerned, all that is necessary to protect the knave is to get his dupe to join in the knavery. This successfully done he may fleece his victim with impunity. This doctrine has even been applied to criminal liability, under the notion that the prosecution is in some way for the redress of the person injured (McCord v. People, 46 N. Y. 470; State v. Crowley, 41 Wis. 271), theerby extending the immunity to both civil and criminal liability; but at this, most of the courts have balked, saying that if both are guilty, that is no reason why each should not be punished, and pointing out that the doctrine is inapplicable, because, in the criminal suit, the state is seeking relief and is no party to the knavery. Criminals have never been allowed to escape by merely showing that others are guilty and have not been punished (Com. v. Morrill, 8 Cush. 571; In re Cummins, 16 Colo. 451, 27 Pac. 887, L. R. A. 752, 25 Am. St. Rep. 291). In this connection the thing desired by the professional criminal is something that will afford him ample protection against criminal prosecution; for he has sufficient civil protection in the doctrine above mentioned

Rule against Perpetuities as Applied to Options

Does the rule against perpetuities render unlimited options void? This is a question which the English courts answered affirmatively some thirty-five years ago; new aspects of the question have been frequently presented to those courts since that time, and conclusions not easy to reconcile have been reached. It is believed that the present status of the law in England is that an option is like any other interest in land, void if it may arise at too remote a time, otherwise not. This conclusion is based on the decision in Borland\u27s Trustees v. Steel Bros. & Co. [1901] 1 Ch. D. 279, sustaining an option of a corporation to buy or call in its stock at any time; and Southeastern Ry. Co. v. Associated Portland Cement Mfgrs. [1910] 1 Ch. D. 12, sustaining a reservation of the right to tunnel under a railway at any time, reserved in the grant of the right of way. The American courts are just getting into the muddle, and it remains for the future to tell what will come of it, and, if the doctrine is accepted, how our courts can reconcile it with our kindred decisions since the first settlement. The most extreme view yet advanced is in a recent West Virginia case. Defendants sold two parcels of land, reserving to themselves and their heirs the right at any time to purchase the minerals under one piece at $1 an acre, and to purchase the minerals under the other at the same price at any time within 99 years. Plaintiffs, claiming title under these deeds, sued to have the options declared void and the cloud removed from the title. A decree for defendants was reversed on appeal, and decree according to the prayer ordered. Woodall v. Bruen (W. Va. 1915), 85 S. E. 170

The Disposition to Be Made of Property the Subject of a Power if the Power Is Not Exercised

The object sought in this article is to collect and classify the cases in which the courts have passed on the question as to what shall be done with property over which a power of appointment has been given; when it finally turns out for some reason that the power has not been exercised. It is not the object to establish any particular thesis, but rather to ascertain how the adjudicated cases stand

The Way of the Tansgressor Is Easy

The Way of the Transgressor is Easy, if he is shrewd enough to take an immunity bath, or avail himself of any of a dozen other provisions of the law made with good intentions and left lying about loose enough to be misappropriated. One rule that has served him many a good turn, is that there is no contribution between tort-feasors. Another way of stating it is that the courts are not open to help rogues out of the predicaments into which their dishonest dealings placed them, and the counterpart of the doctrine in equity is that he who comes into equity must come with clean hands. So far therefore as civil liability is concerned, all that is necessary to protect the knave is to get his dupe to join in the knavery. This successfully done he may fleece his victim with impunity. This doctrine has even been applied to criminal liability, under the notion that the prosecution is in some way for the redress of the person injured (McCord v. People, 46 N. Y. 470; State v. Crowley, 41 Wis. 271), theerby extending the immunity to both civil and criminal liability; but at this, most of the courts have balked, saying that if both are guilty, that is no reason why each should not be punished, and pointing out that the doctrine is inapplicable, because, in the criminal suit, the state is seeking relief and is no party to the knavery. Criminals have never been allowed to escape by merely showing that others are guilty and have not been punished (Com. v. Morrill, 8 Cush. 571; In re Cummins, 16 Colo. 451, 27 Pac. 887, L. R. A. 752, 25 Am. St. Rep. 291). In this connection the thing desired by the professional criminal is something that will afford him ample protection against criminal prosecution; for he has sufficient civil protection in the doctrine above mentioned

Leading and Illustrative Cases: with notes on the law of Judgments, Attachments, Garnishments and Executions

The prior edition being exhausted, this one became necessary. The scope of the book has been considerably changed by developing the law of jurisdiction and the estoppel by judgments. Room for this has been obtained by dropping some of the less important cases on other topics. In several instances a case has been displaced by another on the same point, because thought to cover the matter better.https://repository.law.umich.edu/books/1052/thumbnail.jp

Attachments on Unliquidated Demands

If the creditor should not have the aid of attachment to recover on unliquidated demands, why not? It is true that attachment as a security for the satisfaction of the judgment that may be recovered in an action pending or just commenced was unknown to the general common law of England, and existed only in a restricted form as a special custom of London and other places in the form of garnishment till it was introduced into the New England colonies by an early statute of Massachusetts, whence its utility commended it so that it was soon adopted in all the colonies. Therefore, it may be said that if there is no authority for attachment on unliquidated demands under the statute there is no authority at all-that the proceeding is purely statutory, and authority must be found in the statute for each case

Contingent Gifts and Incorporation by Reference

The courts have had great difficulty in reconciling certain contingent gifts with the statutes requiring wills to be in writing duly executed. At first glance there appears no inconsistency, but in practice troubles accumulate

Substitutional Gifts to Classes

In some recent cases we have fresh reminder of the futility of Sir William Grant\u27s distinction between original and substitutional gifts, a rule over which courts have quarreled and disagreed ever since it was promulgated, and which never was applied to the exclusion of anyone without disappointing the wish of the testator. In speaking of this rule in Re Hickey, [1917], 1 Ch. D. 601, 604, Neville, J., says: The alleged principle seems to be that the meaning of the word \u27substitute\u27 involves the idea of replacing one thing by another. One cannot \u27substitute\u27 something for nothing. The proposition appears to me axiomatic but not very illuminating. If the testator uses the word its meaning must affect the construction of his will; but where the court uses it, it is merely a mode of expressing a view of the construction already formed