Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 8.djvu/305

This page needs to be proofread.
289
HARVARD LAW REVIEW.
289

RECENT CASES. 289 West Virginia, Iowa, and the Federal courts, although Judge Cooley has dissented strongly from this view, holding that from public policy the inviolability of telegraphic correspondence should be as complete as that by mail, and that the fundamental principles of the common law as well as our own constitutional provisions should msure immunity from such disclosure. Constitutional Limitations (6th ed.), 371, note I., 18 Am. Law Reg. N. s. 65. The decisions of the American courts on this matter are reviewed by Hon. Henry Hitchcock in his address before the American Bar Associ- ation in 1879, in which he admits the power of the courts to call for such evidence, and suggests the need of stringent legislative provisions to guard this exceptional privi- lege from abuse. 5 So. Law Rev. N. s. 473. Property — Delivery of Deed — Effect of Record. — A executed a deed of land to his wife and recorded it, keeping it meanwhile in his possession. The wife did not know of such deed until a long time after it was recorded. The grantor, who had reserved a life estate to himself in the deed, subsequently conveyed the land to another. Held, that it was not the grantor's intention that the recording of the deed should con- stitute a delivery thereof, so as to pass title to his wife. Davis v. Davis, 60 N. W. Rep. 507 (Iowa). This is in accordance with the law in most, if not in all, States. Maynard v. May- nard, 10 Mass. 456. It is to be regretted that the presumption of delivery arising from recording a deed is not conclusive. One who records a deed ought to be estopped from denying that he intended it to operate as a delivery. Property — Eminent Domain — Conflicting Public Uses. — A city, under its general authority to lay out streets, attempted to run a street through a railroad yard, where to do so would require the removal of a turn-table, water-tank, engine-house, and coal-dock. Held, that the railroad and its structures being for the public use, the city could not, under its general right of eminent domain, establish an inconsistent use, although tl.2 railroad could have located its buildings on adjoining lands owned by it, and thus the two public uses might have co-existed. C. fV. d}' M. R. R. Co. v. City oj Anderson, 38 N. E. Rep. 167 (Ind.). A contrary decision was reached in Railroad Co. v. Lake, 71 111. 263. It does not distinctly appear in that case, however, that the removal of any buildings was necessi- tated. In accordance with the doctrine of the principal case, are Railroad Co. v. iVil- liamson, 91 N. Y. 552, and St. Paul Union Depot Co. v. St. Paul, 30 Minn. 359. See, also, Lewis on Eminent Domain, § 266. Property — Fixtures — Right of Removal — Effect of New Lease. — Where a tenant who had the right to remove fixtures erected by him on the leased premises, accepted a new lease of the premises to begin at the expiration of the existing lease, and the new lease contained no reservation of the right to remove fixtures, it was held, that the right to remove was lost if not exercised during the first term, although the possession was continuous. Wright v. Macdonell et al., 27 S. W. Rep. 1024 (Tex.). This decision is in line with the great weight of authority — see cases collected in the opinion, — the only decisions to the contrary being Kerr v. Kingsbury, 39 Mich. 150, and Second Nat. Bank v. O. E. Merrill Co., 34 N. W. Rep. 514 (Wis.). Yet there is much to be said upon practical grounds in favor of those two decisions. It seems absurd to compel a tenant who takes a new lease, and whose possession is con- tinuous, to remove all fixtures before the expiration of the first term, and put them up again when he starts on the second. The necessity of such a proceeding would not occur to any one unacquainted with the law, nor would the necessity of reserving the right of removal in the new lease occur to the ordinary layman, especially since the tenant has the right to remove during the first term without any express stipulation to that effect. But it does not seem likely that those two cases will be followed out- side their own jurisdictions in the face of the strong current of decisions the other way. Property — Subterranean Stream — Rights of Surface-Owners. — Where a subterranean stream is known to have a defined course, and is tapped by several wells, some of them sunk by the defendant city for its water-supply, whereby plaintiff's supply was cut off, it was held, that such use by the city was for an artificial purpose ; that no one owner can use for artificial purposes an unreasonable quantity of water to be determined by the circumstances of the case ; that each having an equal right to the water, no one can so exercise his right as to wholly deprive another of its use. Willis V. City of Perry, 60 N. W. Rep. 727 (Iowa). This rule has become well established, though, from the nature of the facts, cases in its support must be comparatively rare. Property — Wills — Interest on Legacy. — Held, that a legacy given to a wife in lieu of dower draws interest from date of testator's death, in the absence of anything in the will showing a contrary intention. Stevens v. Stevens^ 30 N. Y. Supp. 625.