THE NEW FEDERAL SECURITIES ACT

A proper understanding of the purposes of this new Act and the reasons for its enactment can probably best be obtained by a short discussion of the manner in which the sale of securities has been regulated prior to this time

EVIDENCE - ADMISSIBILITY OF PAROL EVIDENCE SHOWING THAT CONTRACT IN WRITING WAS EXECUTED ONLY AS SHAM

An individual is sued on a written contract or, suing on an alleged oral agreement, is confronted by a written contract which he has signed. He offers testimony that, although he executed the instrument which bears his name freely and with full knowledge of its contents, he is not to be held liable thereon because the agreement between the parties was that it should never be legally enforceable, the sole purpose of its execution having been to deceive some third person into a belief that the parties to the instrument had contracted together as in the instrument set forth

EVIDENCE--RECENT DEVELOPMENTS (A SERVICE FOR RETURNING VETERANS)

The developments in the law of evidence in the war years have not been great. They have been mainly along the lines of tests for witnesses, the use of confessions in criminal cases, the interpretation by the courts of the so-called Business Entries Act and the adoption by the American Law Institute of a proposed Code of Evidence

EVIDENCE -ADMISSIBILITY OF STATEMENTS OF FACT MADE DURING NEGOTIATION FOR COMPROMISE

At present, the various jurisdictions hold with comparative uniformity that while offers to settle a dispute are not admissible in evidence, statements of independent fact made during such compromise negotiation are admissible. The routes of logic by which the courts arrive at this similarity in result are marked by some fundamental differences, as will be shown later, but the result is the same under any theory. The question therefore presents itself, whether the distinction made by the courts between the admissibility of offers to compromise and statements of fact made during compromise negotiations can be justified under a system of jurisprudence whose essential aim is justice between litigants

WIGMORE ON EVIDENCE-A REVIEW

In 1887 John Henry Wigmore graduated from Harvard Law School. Only four years later, in 1891, there came from his pen an article in the Harvard Law Review entitled Nemo Tenetur Seipsum Prodere, which showed to the profession that there had arrived at the bar a writer who was not only a deep student of legal history and knew his law of evidence, but who had no hesitation in smashing images, regardless of how sacredly they had theretofore been worshiped

SCIENTIFIC PROOF AND RELATIONS OF LAW AND MEDICINE

Ever since lawyers first began the practice of employing expert witnesses in cases where there were questions of fact to be determined, involving the existence and extent and the causes of bodily ailments, these experts-physicians, surgeons, anatomists, chemists, pathologists, and roentgenologists-have been generous in their proffering of advice to the practicing attorney as to the matters to which his preparation for trial should be directed, the proper theories to be adopted by him as to recovery or damages and his methods of examining and cross-examining witnesses of this character. The shelves of any large law library will be found to be filled with texts on this subject by learned men of all nationalities and races. A large number of those works would now probably be regarded as obsolete by the members of the profession; but, in the past twelve years, in this country there have been published at least seven more or less exhaustive treatises on the whole or on various parts of this general subject

EVIDENCE OF SURVIVORSHIP IN COMMON DISASTER CASES

Almost daily, newspapers recount the details of another automobile accident or airplane crash in which numerous persons are killed--a common disaster. And determination of survivorship in common disaster cases presents some of the most vexing problems that lawyers and judges meet. Lawyers must search for evidence, frequently hard to obtain, and then must face difficult questions of relevancy, materiality, and probative value, since in almost all cases where any evidence is available it is wholly circumstantial. Judges must decide preliminary disputes over who shall bear the burden of proof, and then must rule on the sufficiency of evidence, which is usually sparse. And if, as in fully half the cases, there is no evidence tending to prove survivorship, both lawyers and judges must wrestle with a question which cannot be solved except arbitrarily. On this last question much has been written. But strangely enough, almost no attention has been given to the questions which arise when it is sought to establish survivorship by proof, a course which all courts agree is open to litigants in common disaster cases. The writers propose, therefore, to suggest some of these questions, to point out possible sources of evidence of survivorship, and to indicate how courts may be expected to deal with such evidence. But first it is necessary to know what is a common disaster and why survivorship must be determined

THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

The Congress has enacted and the President has just signed an act for the regulation of stock exchanges, to be known as the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. In order that we may understand the nature of the Act and the reasons for its enactment, it will be well first to consider briefly the organization and functions of stock exchanges, the evils that are claimed to have arisen from their existence, and some of the previous attempts which have been made to prevent the occurrence of such evils