Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 8.djvu/187

NOTES. I7«  heir as disinherited by his crime, as several of the judges appear to think. Oa the contrary, the legal title passes to the criminal and is there- after taken from him. Ereptio propter indignitatem is a case not of revo- cation, but of restitution. See ^Vindsclleid, Pandekten III. § 669 & n. i ; lex 7, § 4, D. de bonis damnatorun (48, 20) ; D. 34, 9, dehis quae ut in- dignis auferuntur ; Maynz, Cours, v. 3, § 482. PARrv Walls ; Quasi Contractual Rights of Adjoining Owners. — 1 I the leceni case of Walker et al. v. Stetson, 38 N. E. R. 18, the Sujjreme Court of Mas>achusetts has made an interes ing and important dj^isio 1 on the subject of party walls. The plaintiff had both added to the height of an ancient party wall between his estate and that of the de- fendant, an 1 hid, also, thickened and strengthened the j-)art which was on his own 1 aid, in order to sustain a large building he was erecting. Some- time after this the defendant had also begun building operations, and, while thui engaged, had projected his beams into the wall, but not be- yond his own si'le of the division line. There was no controversy on the part of t'le d -fendant as to his linb lity under a party wall agreement to pay fv).- using the height added, but he contended that the court would hz going t )0 far in holding that the other additions became part of the wall, and th.it the defendant was, therefore, liable for a portion of the cos though he had used the party wall no further than his rights allowed. The plaintiff, on the other hand, maintained that, as the old wall, if carried up as it was, would not have conformed to the building law in force in the city of Boston, and as the defendant would, therefore, have been compelled to thicken it, it was only just and equitable that he should piy s )me proportion of an outlay from which he had derived undoubted benefit. The court refused, nevertheless, to allow such compensation, or to en- join the defendant from making any use of the wall, thus thickened and strengthened, to support the building which he had erected. Tnis decision, although undoubtedly a conservative one, appears on the whole a thoi»jughly sound one. It is, certainly, very hard to see any ground of legal liability, on which the defendant could have been com- pelled to contribute, since, throughout, he did nothing but what he had a perfect right to do, — namely, to use his own. Indeed the only chance under the circumstances that the plaintifT had, was to have the inspector of buildings stop the work as contrary to city regulations, and thus, by indirect means, to bring the defendant to terms, — a course which was pursued with success in a private controversy last winter in Boston. But, although this case, apparently, does not recommend itself to architects and builders (see American Architect, cited in 27 Chicago Legal News, p. 12) as fair or politic, it seems difficult to perceive how it could well have been otherwise decided after the erection was once completed. Riparian Rights. — Questions concerning the rights of riparian owners in cases of alluvion and rehction, although not unimportant in this part of the country, occur more frequently and create more discussion in tiie west. While our Masachu-etts' judges are laying down working rules as to the equitable division of mud fiats, judges in Missouri and Nebraska