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tions," "implied warranties," "conclusive presumptions,” etc. (4) if this remedy is allowed there is no limit to the actions that might be brought; every chance remark might mean a law-suit. Still, the same objection may be urged against actions for deceit, and yet an action is not brought for every lie. The limit that should be applied in both cases is not logic, nor yet legal symmetry, but expediency.

Professor Smith claims that an action should lie when these requisites are found: "(1) Defendant volunteered a statement to the plaintiff; (2) The statement was rot true in fact; (3) Defendant, though believing the statement, had no reasonable ground for such belief; (4) Defendant made the statement with the intention that plaintiff should act upon it; (5) The subject-matter of the statement was such that one who acted in reliance upon it would be likely to incur substantial pecuniary loss in case the statement proved incorrect; (6) Plaintiff acted in reliance upon the statement, and such action and reliance on his part was reasonable; (7) Plaintiff was damaged by so acting."

The professor suggests that a decision in Massachusetts (Hanson v. Globe Newspaper Co., 159 Mass. 293), if generally upheld, may cause actions for negligent language instead of libel suits when circumstances similar to those in that case exist, which are as follow: The defendant published a statement that a criminal charge had been made against a person who was described by name and occupation. Such description applied to plaintiff and to no other person. The defendant proved that he did not intend to describe the plaintiff, but used the name by mistake for that of some other person. Held, action for defamation did not lie. Some remedy surely should be allowed, and an action for negligent language would be pre-eminently proper.

As to our opinion of this article, we think that the theory of action suggested by Professor Smith for this kind of injury, for which some of our courts grant redress on the ground of deceit, some on ground of warranty or estoppel, and some give no remedy at all, seems eminently logical and sensible. Cases may be reached which before could not be touched, legal fictions invented for certain cases will be abolished, and this phase of the law will become more symmetrical and logical.

The article is not as terse and clean-cut as one wishes, but the subject is in such chaos that iron-clad law rules cannot be applied.

M. I. ST. J.

SUICIDE CLAUSE IN LIFE INSURANCE CONTRACTS.-George Lawyer, Jay, '87.-Central Law Journal, February 8, 1901.

Suicide of an insured will avoid a policy unless stated otherwise in the contract, except, principally, in Pennsylvania, and a suicide clause will be avoided if the suicide is insane, intoxicated, or death is due to mistake or accident. Edwards v. Trav. Life Ins. Co., 20 Fed. Rep. 661, etc. N. W. Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Hazlett, '05, Ind. 212. Evidence of religious belief is not admissible to show that one would be likely to kill himself. Gibson v. Am. Mut. Life Ins. Co., 37 N. Y. 584. In England, self-destruction of an insane person is within the suicide clause; but in the Tnited States, if the suicide be so mentally disordered as not to understand that the act would cause his death, or that if he be so much under the influence of insane impulse that he could not resist doing the act, it is without the suicide clause. Verzandt v. M. B. Life Ins. Co., 55 N. Y. 169; Cooper v. Mars. Mut. Life Ins. Co., 102 Mass. 227.

The burden of proving suicide is on the party alleging it, as the presumption is that a man will not take his own life. Supreme Council of Royal Arcanum v. Brashears, 43, Atlantic Rep. (Md.) 866; Fidelity & Casualty Co. v. Weise, 80 Ill. App. 499. The United States Supreme Court (Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Ferry, 15 Wall. 580) states "if the assured, in the possession of his ordinary reasoning faculties, from anger, pride, jealousy, or a desire to escape from the ills of life, intentionally takes his own life, the clause attaches, and there can be no recovery. If death is caused by the voluntary act of the assured, he knowing and intending that his death shall be the result of his act, but when his reasoning faculties are so far impaired that he is not able to understand the moral character, the general nature, consequences and effect of the act he is about to commit, or when he is impelled thereto by an insane impulse, which he has not the power to resist, such death is not within the contemplation of the parties to the contract, and the insurer is liable; " Georgia, Michigan, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Vermont; contra, Louisiana, Minnesota and Maine. All follow the Supreme Court, U. S. and State cases cited.

Insanity must be established by conclusive proof by the party expecting benefit therefrom, and proof that the insured was insane at times, but perfectly rational at other times, is also insufficient. Weed v. Mut. Ben. Life Ins. Co., 70 N. Y. 561; Knickerbacher Life Ins. Co. v. Peters, 42 Md. 414.

An express provision that shall be applicable whether the insured shall commit suicide while either sane or insane has been held valid. . . But it will not defeat recovery on a policy in case the insured

innocently takes a dose of medicine or may otherwise kill himself by accident while in a fit of insanity. Edwards v. Trav. Life Ins. Co., 20 Fed. Rep. 661; Penfold v. Univ. Life Ins. Co., 85 N. Y. 317.

F. B. S.

LAW SCHOOL EXTENSION of the UniverSITY PRINCIPLE.-Prof. William K. Townsend, Waite, of the Yale Law School.-Yale Law Journal, March, 1901.

Yale is the only university having a three-year law course in which academics are not regularly admitted in their fourth year to the first year of the law school. Professor Townsend's contention is that they should be. He describes in detail the five-hour course in law which the Senior academics can now take and which seventy-five of the present class is taking. He contends that this is a tardy step in the right direction— in harmony with the views of President Hadley, concludes that it would be greatly to the advantage of such academic students as intend to take up law if they be allowed to take it up on the completion of three years of academic work for this is an important step toward coördination and combination of university departments. B. F. S.

SEQUESTRATION OF WITNESSES.-Prof. John H. Wigmore, Booth, of the Northwestern University law school.-Harvard Law Rev., March, 1901.

Sequestration will prevent witnesses consulting or listening to each other's testimony. The story of Susanna in the apocryphal scriptures is one of the first recorded cases in which it was used. In England, sequestration was practiced under the Germanic law before the jury system arose. Its use will detect lying and show on which side the lying is, also prevent a witness from making a consistent story for his friend's case. Next to cross-examination it is the great safeguard against perjury and does not require the rare skill of the cross-examiner to give results. The right to have witnesses sequestered is in most courts discretionary with the Bench. It may be asked by either party, by the jury, or the Court may direct it of its own accord. In most courts a party to a suit cannot be sequestered, but the result may be obtained by obliging him to testify first.

Professor Wigmore states that if one knowingly disobeys an order of sequestration the court will refuse to allow him to testify. That such a rule is admitted to be a hardship on the party affected, but that owing to the difficulty of proving collusion between the witness and the party it is necessary. We submit, however, that this statement needs considerable qualification. The court can punish the

disobedient witness by fine or otherwise, but to deprive a party to a suit of testimony because of another's fault is unjust. Professor Wigmore cites Bird v. State, 50 Ga. 585 and 1883 R. v. Finley, 3 State Trials (N. S.) 543, in support of his position. In the Georgia case the party's counsel was in fault and the second case is not in point. A later Georgia case (Rooks v. State, 65 Ga. 330) holds that disobedience will not prevent one's being a witness. We admit that earlier cases seemed to support Professor Wigmore, but the tendency of the later cases are against him; see Holden v. U. S., 150 U. S. 91, Parker v. State, 67 Md. 329, State v. Thomas, 111 Ind. 551, State v. Gesell, 124 Mo. 531, do. v. Falk, 46 Kan. 498, Dickinson v. State, 39 O. St. 73, Hubbard v. do., 7 or 42, People v. Boskovitch, 20 Col. 436, Comm v. Brown, 90 Va. 671.

The article calls attention to a means of getting at the truth that might well be oftener used.

M. I. ST. J.

JUDICIAL POWER.-Remarks of Mr. Justice Harlan, Kent, at the John Marshall banquet, Washington, D. C., Feb. 4, 1901.-Chicago Legal News.

In emphasizing the necessity of the separation of the judicial from the other powers of government, Justice Harlan said that, although Montesquieu had called attention to the danger of joining the judicial power with either the legislative or executive, yet prior to the American Revolution, such thoughts had never found expression in the fundamental law of any country, and that it remained for George Mason, of Virginia, in June, 1776, to present to a convention, at Williamsburg, a bill of rights in which, for the first time in history, was embodied a clause separating the three powers of government.

To Chief Justice Marshall fell the duty of expounding and applying this principle which was of such vital importance to the safety of our free institutions. The great problem before the Supreme Court during his administration was to interpret our constitution so as not to cripple the powers conferred upon the Union, and yet to recognize the just powers of the states. His great judgments laid the foundation of our constitutional system and to him we are indebted for an exposition of our constitution which preserved the powers of the national government by rejecting that theory of construction which would have "prostrated the Union at the feet of the States." J. R. S.

JUDICIAL DETERMINATION.-A recent opinion of Mr. Justice Harlan, Kent, in the case of Mitchell v. The First National Bank of

Chicago, treats in an interesting manner the binding effect, upon the United States courts, of a judicial determination of a state court.

A married woman, in Connecticut, signed an instrument guaranteeing an indebtedness of a firm in Illinois of which her husband was a member, and which was delivered in Illinois. The firm having failed, the creditor proved its claim against her estate in the hands of trustee for the benefit of creditors in Connecticut. It was rejected by the Supreme Court of the state upon the ground that in Connecticut a married woman could not bind her estate by a guarantee of her husband's debt. The creditor then filed suit against her in the Circuit Court of the United States claiming that the validity of the guarantee should be determined by the law of Illinois in which state the instrument was delivered and by the law of which a married woman's guarantee was valid. The C. C. A. sustained this contention and allowed the claim. The Supreme Court reversed this judgment on the ground, that, the matter having been judicially determined between the plaintiff and the defendant's trustee by a Connecticut court, having jurisdiction, and the defendant being in privity with her trustee, such determination, unreversed, was binding upon the creditor in this suit and the decision in the state court should control.

J. R. S.

MUTUAL 'PROMISES AS A CONSIDERATION FOR EACH OTHER. Christopher C. Langdell, Choate.-Harvard Law Rev., March, 1901.

The article seems to be a defense to a statement appearing in Professor Langdell's Summary of the Law of Contracts, which has aroused the ire of certain overbold critics. The doctrine criticized is as follows: "It will sometimes happen that a promise to do a thing will be a sufficient consideration when actually doing it would not be. Thus, mutual promises will be binding though the promisor on one side be merely to do a thing which the promisor is already bound to a third person to do, and the actual doing of which would not therefore be a sufficient consideration.

This doctrine was upheld by Pollock and criticized by Anson in an earlier Harvard Law Rev., under the title "Successive Promises of the Same Performance." Professor Williston has also criticized the doctrine, and to avoid reaching such a conclusion as he seemingly admits would be reached by retaining the old test of consideration for a bilateral contract, he suggests the following: "Seeking the detriment necessary to support a counter-promise, in the thing promised, and not in the promise itself."

Professor Langdell starts out to do three things: (1) To refute Pro

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