Contributory Negligence of the Disfavored Driver Under the Right of Way Statute

The automobile collision at intersections of two streets, neither of which is arterial, is perhaps one of the most common subjects of litigation. For the past twenty-three years such litigation has been governed in part by the statute entitled Look out approaching intersection—Vehicles to right, \u27 which provides as follows: It shall be the duty of every operator of any vehicle on approaching public highway intersections to look out for and give way to-vehicles on their [sic] right, simultaneously approaching a given point within the intersection, and whether such vehicle first reach and enter the intersection or not: Provided, This section shall not apply to operators on arterial public highways. This enactment is the statutory basis of the doctrine which is commonly termed the Favored Driver Rule. This rule gives the motorist on the right the right of way over another entering the same intersection to the left of the first. It is the purpose of this comment to ascertain the limits to which the court will extend this right in barring recovery against this favored driver in actions commenced by the driver on the left with whom the former collides in a nonarterial intersection

In Memoriam: John W. Richards

Noting the passing of Professor John W. Richard

Land Grant Application- Huston, John (Sanford)

Land grant application submitted to the Maine Land Office for John Huston for service in the Revolutionary War.https://digitalmaine.com/revolutionary_war_me_land_office/1481/thumbnail.jp

AGENCY-LIABILITY OF AGENT ON CONTRACT FOR PRINCIPAL-EFFECT OF ADDING AGENT TO SIGNATURE

Defendant, a real estate broker purporting to act for X, made a contract with plaintiff for the sale to plaintiff of X\u27s farm. The only evidence in the writing of defendant\u27s agency was the word agent which he appended to his signature. Plaintiff paid defendant $1000.00 as a deposit which defendant tendered to X who returned$500.00 to defendant as his commission for the sale. Upon destruction of an important part of the premises before execution of the contract, plaintiff brought suit against X and defendant to rescind the contract and recover the deposit. Recovery against X was limited to $500.00 which X had already returned before suit, and the bill was dismissed as to defendant. Upon plaintiff\u27s appeal, Held: defendant was liable in the sum of$500.00 as a party to the contract, the word agent being sufficient neither to indicate that he acted solely in a representative capacity nor to raise an ambiguity as to parties. Bissonnette v. Keyes, (Mass. 1946) 64 N.E. (2d) 926

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW-PUBLIC UTILITY HOLDING COMPANY ACT--VALIDITY OF HOLDING COMPANY DEATH SENTENCE CLAUSE

Petitioner was the topmost holding company in a public utility holding company system which included eighty subsidiaries and served three million customers in seventeen states. By provision of section 11 (b) (1) of the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, the Securities and Exchange Commission was empowered to limit the operations of a holding company registered with it under the act to a single integrated public utility system. Acting under this authority, the commission ordered petitioner, a registered company, to divest itself of all its subsidiary holdings excepting certain interests regarded by the commission as a single integrated system within the. meaning of the act. In seeking to have the order of the commission set aside, petitioner contended that the measures provided by section 11 (b) (1) were without the power of Congress under the commerce clause of the Constitution and violated due process secured by the Fifth Amendment. Held, the challenged measures are constitutional. The North American Company v. Securities and Exchange Commission, (U.S. 1946) 8 66 S. Ct. 785

LABOR LAW-FAIR LABOR STANDARDS ACT-DETERMINATION OF REGULAR RATE FOR COMPUTATION OF OVERTIME PAY

Two recent decisions interpret the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act: (1) Previous to the enactment of the act, defendant company paid employees at an hourly rate for an eight hour day, seven day week. In order to comply with section 7a requiring payment of time and a half the regular rate of pay for hours in excess of the weekly maximum set by the act, defendant contracted to pay employees for six straight time and two overtime hours each day but at a new, lower rate such that payment at the new rate for six straight time hours and time and a half the new rate for two overtime hours would equal the former daily wage. Held, the new hourly rate cannot qualify as the regular rate for compensating overtime in compliance with the act. Walling v. Alaska Pacific Consolidated Mining Company, (C.C.A. 9th, 1945) 152 F. (2d) 812. (2) Defendant\u27s employees were paid a monthly salary for varying hours of work. To comply with the overtime provisions of the act, defendant adopted new employment contracts guaranteeing a weekly wage corresponding to the former measure of compensation and fixing an hourly rate at such a figure that payment of the rate for straight time hours and time and a half the rate for overtime hours usually worked would not exceed the guaranteed sum. Held, the contracts satisfy the overtime requirements of the act. Walling v. Halliburton Oil Well Cementing Company, (C.C.A. 9th, 1945) 152 F. (2d) 622

Computer-aided design of bevel gear tooth surfaces

This paper presents a computer-aided design procedure for generating bevel gears. The development is based on examining a perfectly plastic, cone-shaped gear blank rolling over a cutting tooth on a plane crown rack. The resulting impression on the plastic gear blank is the envelope of the cutting tooth. This impression and envelope thus form a conjugate tooth surface. Equations are presented for the locus of points on the tooth surface. The same procedures are then extended to simulate the generation of a spiral bevel gear. The corresponding governing equations are presented

LABOR LAW-FAIR LABOR STANDARDS ACT-DETERMINATION OF REGULAR RATE FOR COMPUTATION OF OVERTIME PAY

Previous to the enactment of the Fair Labor Standards Act, respondent had paid its employees monthly salaries for work schedules which fluctuated from week to week according to the demands of business. After the effective date of the act, respondent sought to comply with section 7 (a), requiring the payment of one. and one half times the regular rate of compensation for hours worked above the statutory maximum, by adopting new employment contracts which guaranteed weekly salaries equivalent to the former compensation and fixed an hourly rate which, multiplied by the maximum hours permitted by the act and by one and a half times the normal number of overtime hours, would approximate the guaranteed figure. If in any week an employee should work more hours than would be covered by the guarantee, the additional hours were to be compensated at time and a half the basic rate. In a suit filed by the Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division to enjoin respondent\u27s use of its contracts on the theory that the stated hourly rate could not qualify as the regular rate for the purposes of the overtime provisions of the act, the federal district court dismissed the complaint on the authority of Walling v . A. H. Belo Corp. The circuit court of appeals affirmed. On certiorari to the Supreme Court, held, affirmed. The regular rate as determined in respondent\u27s contracts satisfies the requirements of section 7 (a). Justices Murphy and Black dissented. Walling v. Halliburton Oil Well Cementing Co., (U.S. 1947) 67 S. Ct. 1056

TRUSTS.....CHARITABLE ACCUMULATIONS-PROVISION FOR INDEFINITE ACCUMULATION

Testatrix left real and personal property in trust with directions that one half of the income should be paid to nine designated charities and that the other half should be invested and reinvested . . . for the preservation of the . . . Memorial Fund in perpetuity. In a suit for instructions filed by the executor and the trustee, held, reversing the decision below, the trust is void as a private trust created to endure longer than the period limited by the rule against perpetuities. The dominant purpose of the testatrix, as revealed in the provision for accumulation, was not to benefit charity but to secure the perpetual preservation of the fund. Porter v. Bayard, (Fla. 1946) 28 S. (2d) 890