(PUBLIC, OFFICIAL, AND STATUTORY MATTERS.) which they shall be paid. (Tenn.) 541. by a county is held to constitute a defense without mentioning the kind of money in against such a levy for the enforcement of a judgment against a county, although the validity of the debt on which the judgment was rendered may be conclusively established thereby. (Wyo.) 835. The exemption of the roadbed of a railroad company from city taxation is held not to extend to the whole of a strip of land 1,500 feet wide used as a coal and ore terminal, although a large part of it is covered by tracks; but on a sale of such a yard to satisfy tax liens the purchaser takes subject to the easement of the tracks. (Pa.) 564. A special assessment for special benefits on property in a levee district is held to be within a constitutional provision that all property must be taxed according to its value, and therefore a tax on the land alone and partly by acreage instead of value is invalid. (Tenn.) 725. Poll tax. The right to sell nontaxable property to enforce payment of a poll tax under the Mississippi Constitution, declaring that such tax is a lien only upon taxable property, is denied, and the provision for poll taxes is said to be intended more as a clog upon the fran. chise than as a means of revenue. (Miss.) 472. Municipalities. Land within the limits of a town, although never divided into building lots, is held subject to municipal taxation when near railroad depots and shops, with convenient access to highways and only a short distance from the business portion of the town, so that it enjoys police protection and the other benefits of the town. (Ky.) 193. A local option law providing that cities may, if they choose, adopt certain charter provisions, is held unconstitutional, under provisions prohibiting special laws as to cities and requiring laws as to them to be uniform throughout the state. (Minn.) 777. A city contract for a water supply during the term of twenty-one years, made in the exercise of discretionary power given by the legislature, is held valid in Kansas. (C. C. App. 8th C.) 518. The power of the court to cancel a contract for a municipal water supply because of the inadequacy of the stipulated source of supply is denied, but reformation of such a contract is held to be within the power of the court under the Pennsylvania statute. (Pa.) 92. The prohibition of county aid to any individual, association, company, or corporation is held inapplicable to aid given to the state or the United States for a public improvement. (Wash.) 817. A donation of county funds made to secure the location of a state institution for the feeble minded within the county is upheld against the claim that it was not for a public purpose and that it violated the rule of uniformity as to taxation. (Wis.) 131. Officers. The next election of the people prescribed by the California Constitution for the expiration of commissions granted by the governor to fill a vacancy is held to mean the next election provided for filling the particular office vacant, and not necessarily the next succeeding general election. (Cal.) 41. A statute to provide a bipartisan police board by giving each member of a common council the right to vote for but two of four members, and limiting the choice to persons belonging to the party having the highest or the next highest representation in the council, is held void. A majority of the judges agree that a minority of the council which is thus given power to choose half the commissioners is not a city authority, within a constitutional provision allowing the legislature to designate the authority which can appoint local officers. (N. Y.) 408. The liability of a supervisor for public money lost by the failure of a bank in which he had deposited it is sustained on grounds of public policy, although he acted in good faith and without negligence. (N. Y.) 678. Civil service rules. A statute preferring veterans to all other persons except women in appointments in the civil service is sustained, although it gives them some advantage over other persons. (Mass.) 58. Voters and elections. Nominations made by a political club were refused recognition as those of a county convention when the participants did not regard themselves as a convention and had not been chosen as delegates or any of the usual steps been taken for a convention. (Mont.) 315. In another similar case in the same state the The right of a municipal corporation to erect waterworks of its own is held subject to an implied exception where it has contracted with a private corporation for a water supply, and attempt of twenty-one persons to form a new in such case if it wishes to own a water-party and then at the same time successively works plant it is held necessary for it to proceed as the statute authorizes it to do to acquire that of the private company. (Pa.) 567. Counties. An act to incorporate a county is held void under a constitutional provision requring a uniform system of county governments. (Nev.) 602. Power to make county bonds payable in gold coin of the present standard, weight, and fineness, is held not to be included in the power conferred by statute to issue bonds! hold a county convention and a state convention without any previous steps taken for a convention was held unavailing. (Mont.) 313. Nominations of presidential electors, made by the chairman of the state committee of a political party with 100 associates by certificate, are held valid under the Wyoming statute when made in lieu of candidates previously named in the same manner who had declined, and when an objection is raised only by the committee of a different political party. (Wyo.) 845. CONTRACTUAL AND COMMERCIAL RELATIONS.) The attempt of a nonresident candidate for Vice President to prevent the use of his name on a state ticket for presidential electors nominated at a certain state convention in Kansas is held ineffectual, although the statute provides that a person named as a candidate may cause 'his name to be withdrawn from nomination." In this case there was no attempt to decline the national nomination, or even to withdraw as a candidate within the state. (Kan.) 146. state, it is held that state laws prohibiting the running of railway trains on Sunday, if enacted in good faith in the exercise of the police power and without discrimination against interstate or foreign commerce, do not violate the Federal Constitution. (Va.) 105. Public highways and grounds. A grant to a subway company of the right to lay a subway for electric wires under streets is held to be invalid because made for private business, where no obligation is shown as to who should be permitted to use it. (Mo.) 369. A statute prescribing a property qualification for voters at city elections is sustained, in the absence of any constitutional provision to The right of a city to permit a permanent the contrary, although the Constitution pro- freight house to be built by a railroad comvides no other qualification for any male citi-pany on a public levee is denied because pubzen of full age than that of residence. (Md.) lic grounds are held in trust for the public. (Minn.) 184. 55. The vacation of a part of a street at some distance from one's property is held, reviewing the authorities, not to give him any right of action, as the injury is common to the public, where ample means of access remain. (Ind.) 769. The addition of the party name after a candidate's name written on a ballot in the same way that such designations follow the printed names of candidates is held not to destroy the legality of the ballot when it was clearly not intended as a distinguishing mark. (Cal.) 45. The power of the legislature to prevent the appearance of the name of any candidate for claim to a public park by virtue of a dedicaEquitable estoppel is sustained against a an office more than once upon an official baltion on a recorded plat where the original lot is sustained against the claim that it infringed the rights of electors. (Ohio) 498. The two thirds of the voters voting at an election whose assent is necessary to authorize municipal indebtedness is held to mean two thirds of all the votes cast for any purpose at the election. (Ky.) 256. The right to examine the records of the electoral board is held to be limited to so much of the records as relates to the appointment and removal of judges and commissioners of election and registers or the ordering of a new registration. (Va.) 144. 538. A conflict between the rules of an appel late and a lower court is considered in a case which holds that a judgment rendered against a party in the absence of his counsel in accordance with a rule of the court, but when the court knows that the counsel is engaged in the supreme court in obedience to the rule of the latter court, is held invalid. (Pa.) 593. An action for personal injuries the parties to which reside and the cause of which arose in another state is sustained under the Federal Constitution guaranteeing equal privileges and immunities to the citizens of the several states. (Wis.) 503. Interstate commerce. Overruling the prior decision in the same owner has always continued in possession without claim by the public except as it may be implied from failure to tax it for some years, after which he makes a new plat describing the land as his own, makes expenditures upon it, builds a sidewalk under order of the common council, and his second plat is expressly adopted in an act incorporating the city. (Wis.) 733. II. CONTRACTUAL AND COMMERCIAL RELATIONS. The performance of one's own contract which he has hestitated or refused to perform is held a sufficient consideration for a promise to him by a third person who will be benefited by the performance. (Mass.) 33. An agreement by the father of a bastard child to convey property to the mother in consideration of her release of her right to compel him to assist in maintaining the child is sustained against the contention that the promise (CONTRACTUAL AND COMMERCIAL RELATIONS.) is based solely on a past consideration. (Conn.) 360. A contract not to engage in the same business in the locality, made by one who sells his business, is held to be broken by his taking stock in or helping to organize or manage a corporation to carry on such business. (N. C.) 389. The generic term "money" is held to cover everything that by common consent represents property and passes as money in current business transactions; therefore the payment of a debt or judgment during the late civil war in confederate money, if accepted, is regarded as full settlement. The authority of an agent to receive it in such a case is upheld if it was then generally received in business transactions as the current money of the country. (Fla.) 283. Bills and notes. The fact that the president of a corporation who pledges its negotiable note for his own debt was the officer who signed it is not held to prevent the taker from being a bona fide holder, if the note was payable to a third person who had indorsed it. (N. Y.) 69. The indorsement of a firm name on his own note to the firm, made by one partner who discounts it for his own benefit, is held to give notice of any lack of authority to make the indorsement. (Pa.) 723. Bonds. The bond of the cashier of a national bank "for and during all the time he shall hold the said office" is held to cover defaults in years subsequent to that in which it is given, although the by-laws of the bank provided for his election annually and he was in fact appointed by resolution every year. (C. C. App. 8th C.) 477. The rule that a surety's responsibility is to be strictly interpreted is applied by a decision that sureties on a bond for a firm as agents are not responsible for misappropriation by one member after the dissolution of the firm and the retirement of the other party from the agency, even if the pledgee knew nothing of such dissolution. (N. D.) 861. Banks. The credit of checks and drafts by a bank to a correspondent after the latter has failed but before the other knows of that fact is held ineffectual to prejudice the rights of a depositor of such paper, when it was received fraudu lently by the insolvent bank. But such credit before the actual failure of the bank was held to bar the depositor's right to reclaim the paper or its proceeds. (Tenn.) 532. A credit by one bank to another of a draft made on the same day that the latter bank failed was presumed, 'in favor of the general creditors seeking a pro rata distribution of the assets of the insolvent bank and against the original depositor of the draft therein which was fraudulently received by the insolvent bank, to have been made before, and not after, the failure. (Tenn.) 536. Insurance. Gasolene constituting a part of the usual stock kept in a country store is held properly kept on insured premises notwithstanding a printed condition prohibiting it, where the written description of the insured propery specifies such stock as is usually kept in such stores. (Cal.) 857. A new question as to the right of the beneficiary of a certificate on the life of an insane person to notice of his failure to pay assess ments is decided in favor of such right after notice of the condition of the insured and a request for such notice. (Pa.) 436. A policy of insurance issued by a foreign company in another state is held to be within the scope of the New York statute giving a married woman the right to assign a policy of insurance on her husband's life, with his writ ten consent, when it is issued for her benefit. (N. Y.) 175. The intentional killing of an insured person by a third person without the former's connivance or foreknowledge is held to be an accident within the meaning of an insurance policy, and the omission of the word "death" from a clause excluding liability for intentional injuries inflicted by any other person, when it is used in other excepting clauses immediately contiguous, is held to leave the insurer liable in case of the murder of the insured. (Pa.) 301. A decision respecting perpetual insurance holds that a provision making the company liable forever to the assured, his heirs, and assigns, and that any assignment of the policy shall be brought to the office of the company to be entered and allowed, does not give the company any right to refuse to enter and alnot to consent to the transfer of old policies. low an assignment solely because it has decided (Pa.) 159. bility for rent under a lease while the building An insurer against loss by reason of liais untenantable because of fire is held not to be landlord a part of the proceeds of the landrelieved by the tenant's receiving from his lord's insurance, at least when the combined amounts will not wholly reimburse the tenant. (Pa.) 600. Lease. The washing away, by unprecedented ravages of a river, of land leased for a landing, so that only a mere fragment of the lot, unavailable for such use, was left, is held to extinguish the obligation to pay rent. (C. C. App. 6th C.) 550. The lease of the roof and outside of a party wall on a building for the purpose of advertising by means of a stereopticon is construed in a case which holds that there is no eviction by reason of the fact that the value of the wall for advertising purposes is destroyed by the fact that the roof of the adjoining building is leased to another person and a screen erected thereon for advertising purposes. (Pa.) 575. Carriers. The relation of a steamboat company to a passenger occupying a stateroom is held to be that of an innkeeper, and the carrier is held liable as an insurer for money stolen from the passenger's clothing during the night while his stateroom door was locked and his windows fastened. (N. Y.) 682. A constitutional provision that common carriers shall not contract for relief from their common-law liability is held to preclude a stipulation limiting the value of animals car (CORPORATIONS AND ASSOCIATIONS. DOMESTIC RELATIONS.) ried and requiring notice of injury before they The contract of a baggage transfer company to transport baggage from a residence to a railroad depot is held to be fully performed, so that the liability terminates, when the baggage is delivered to the agent of the railroad company at the depot. (Ala.) 137. Telegrams. Overruling an early decision in that state, a Missouri case now holds that a stipulation against liability for mistakes in unrepeated telegrams is not valid so far as it applies to cases of negligence. (Mo.) 492. A rule of a telegraph company not to deliver messages outside of a mile limit is held ineffectual to excuse the company for delay in delivering a message when the rule was not known to the sender or mentioned by the Notice by letter. Notice by registered letter, when authorized, is held complete by due registration, but not until the letter is numbered as required by postal regulations, although the postmaster may have received it properly addressed and stamped and given a receipt therefor. (Iowa) 466. III. CORPORATIONS AND ASSOCIATIONS. Authority to lease a railroad, given by the statutes of another state, is held ineffectual to sustain the lease of a railroad contrary to the policy of the state in which the road is situated. (Pa.) 577. The foreclosure of a railroad mortgage, instituted in behalf of another company which had obtained a majority of the stock of the company and also of the mortgage bonds, was defeated by showing that the corporation buying the stock had obtained control of its affairs and rejected business which would have produced income, and diverted the income received to other purposes than the payment of interest on the mortgage, thereby causing a default. (N. Y.) 76. Liability of a stockholder under statutes which make it contractual and not penal is held to be a part of the assets which go to a receiver of a corporation. (Pa.) 737. The right to credit payments of dues in a building and loan association, made by a stockholder upon a loan which is tainted with usury, is denied on the ground that this would release such a shareholder from his portion of the losses. (Tenn.) 201. The judgment of a sister state as to the assets, debts, and amount of assessments neces sary in winding up a mutual insurance company is held to be conclusive on a stockholder in another state as to such assessments. (Mich.) 694, 701. But an assessment on premium notes, made See also infra, IX. IV. DOMESTIC RELATIONS. A child by adoption is held to be "lawful issue" of the adopted parent within the meaning of a will making a gift to the latter with remainder to lawful issue, where the statute makes the adopted child a child for all purposes except to take property expressly limited to heirs of the body. (R. I.) 500. Exceptions to the rule that a marriage valid in one place must be valid every where are considered in a case which holds that the general rule applies when mere matters of form or ceremony are in question. (Md.) 773. The effect of intoxication to defeat a marriage is considered in a case which holds that the degree of intoxication must be such as to render the person non compos mentis and devoid of reason. (Fla.) 87. Habitual intemperance which will authorize divorce is held not to be shown by the fact of intoxication about once in three weeks to such an extent that the person did not go as usual to (PERSONAL CAPACITY. TORTS; NEGLIGENCE; INJURIES.) work on the next morning, and that this had continued for about two years, if it had not caused any loss of his position nor produced want or suffering in his family. (Conn.) 449. A divorce obtained in a suit brought by the guardian of an insane man is held absolutely void, although the wife is held estopped by her acquiescence therein and subsequent contract of marriage, from claiming the rights of a widow in the husband's estate. (Iowa) 161. The right of a husband to claim alimony from his wife's separate estate on divorce is denied in the absence of a statutory provision therefor, and a provision allowing the wife to sue in her own name "as well as the husband" in a bill for divorce. alimony, and maintenance, is considered to be merely in respect to her right of action and not an enlargement of his right. (Neb.) 110. The insanity of a husband is held insufficient to make a contract by his wife for his support in a hospital valid when it is not executed in the statutory mode. (Ala.) 223. A renewal by a married woman of an accommodation indorsement made before marriage is held valid under a statute which excepts an accommodation indorsement from the contracts which she is allowed to make. (Pa.) 597. The sale of laudanum to a married woman after repeated protests of her husband and knowing that it is destroying her mind and body is held to give a cause of action, although there is no direct precedent for it, to the husband. (N. C.) 803. A husband's right of action for loss of his wife's society is held to be defeated where the injury results in her death and recovery therefor has been had for the benefit of her estate. (Ky.) 788. V. PERSONAL CAPACITY. The right of an incompetent person who executed a deed of trust for the preservation of his property to revoke it is denied except on condition that the court approves the revocation. (Pa.) 707. The fact that an accommodation indorser of Fraud. a note became mentally incompetent to do business before signing a renewal note, which was taken in good faith and the old note thereupon discharged, is held insufficient to release his estate from liability thereon. (Tenn.) 274. See also infra, VII., Gift. VI. TORTS; NEGLIGENCE; INJURIES. Flooding land. The grant of a right to flood a part of a farm by the erection of a dam is held to preclude the maintenance of an action for injuries caused by the dam to the remaining portion of the land. (S. C.) 222. A recovery of damages for flooding lands by a dam is held to be obtainable under the eminent domain law and not by suit for nuisance, where the dam is built under a statute giving power to raise water of a river for the benefit of a public canal, and providing that the board shall have a right to acquire a right of way in the manner provided by law. (S. C.) 215. Electric wires. places where persons may lawfully go for work, business, or pleasure, although very great care may be sufficient at other places. (Ky.)812. Unsafe premises. Although the owner of a building is not an insurer against accident from its condition, he is bound to keep it in such condition that it will not injure any person rightfully in, around, or passing it, so far as he can do so by the exercise of ordinary care. (Minn.) 557. The liability of a landlord to his tenant for the unsafe condition of the premises, which the former, but not to the latter, is sustained, was known to or ought to have been known to although the tenant examined the premises and did not discover the defects. (Tenn.) 822. Likewise a boarder with a tenant is held entitled to recover damages from the landlord under the same conditions. (Tenn.) 615. But the lessor of a building is held, in Louisiana, to be exempt from any liability to the fall of a gallery. (La.) 609. a guest of the lessee for injuries sustained by Explosions. For the explosion of a sewer caused by the formation of gases from oil that had been turned into the sewer during a conflagration, and which could not escape because the outlet was obstructed, and was there left for four days, a city was held liable. (Mo.) 118. Failure to give warning of an intended blast in an excavation where such work has been going on for several weeks is held not to create a liability for injury to a blacksmith several hundred feet distant by the starting of a horse which he was shoeing when the blast went off. The utmost care, and not merely very great care, to have perfect insulation of electric wires which are dangerous is held necessary at | (Mich.) 182. |