The Supreme Court of Maine. wheels and preventing its mill from running and operating. As will be seen, the contest was between textile mills on the one hand, a comparatively new industry, and lumber manufacturers, an old business, on the other hand. Many objections were raised to the maintenance of the plaintiff's bill, but they were all met and disposed of in the opinion, which reviews the authorities at length and gave the plaintiff the relief sought for. As an authority upon the questions raised and discussed, it received general commendation and recognition. Wormell v. Me. Cent. R. R. Co., 79 Maine, 397, discusses the question of contributory negligence of a servant, and holds that he cannot recover damages of the master where want of due care on his part contributed to the injury, even if in the performance of duties outside his regular employment. It was the case of a workman in car-shops who was in the yard, shackling cars by direction of the foreman. The opinion holds that it was a case where it required no special skill or training to foresee that injury would result, the causes being open to observation; also that it is a question for the court to deter mine whether there is sufficient evidence of due care on the part of the plaintiff to sus tain a verdict in his favor; and that evidence so slight as not to have legal weight is in sufficient. Warren v. Kelley, 80 Maine, 512, involved the consideration of both admiralty and constitutional law. It was a case where it was sought to uphold the rights of parties who had furnished repairs of a domestic vessel to enforce their lien therefor in the State court under a State statute. The opinion discusses and treats at length the embarrassing and conflicting decisions upon the question of admiralty jurisdiction in such cases, and holds that it is exclusively in the Federal court, thus pronouncing our statute to be unconstitutional. And this part of the statute has been accordingly re pealed. The case was ably argued by coun-
567
sel for both parties, the plaintiff, who ob tained a verdict, by Mr. Wiswell, and the defendant by Mr. Putnam, both of whom have since gone upon the bench, one a member of this court and the other of the Circuit Court of Appeals. The case con cludes with a statement of the rule of dam ages in actions of trespass and its modifying exceptions, for which it is often cited by counsel. Phinney v. Phinney, 81 Maine, 450, is another constitutional question, relating to the obligation of contracts as affected by subsequent legislation, and the court, in the opinion drawn by Judge Foster, held the act of the Legislature was unconstitutional. The case arose upon a bill in equity, under an Act of 1887, by a creditor who sought to realize a judgment out of his debtor's equity of redemption in a mortgage given in 1875 for the support of the mortgagee. The object of the bill was to enable the creditor, pending proceedings for foreclos ure, to step in, postpone the time for the expiration of the right of redemption, and enable him by fulfilling such requirements as the court might impose, to hold the property by virtue of his attachment. The statute provided that " pending such pro ceedings, the right of redemption shall not expire by any attempted foreclosure of such mortgage." But the opinion meets this statute provision, so far as it applied to mortgages in existence at the date of the act, in the following clear language : " While a State may, to a certain extent, and within proper bounds, regulate the remedy, yet if by subsequent enactment it so changes the nature and extent of existing remedies as to materially impair the rights and interests of a party in a contract, this is as much a vio lation of the compact as if it absolutely de stroyed his rights and interests.". . . " The constitutional prohibition secures from at tack not merely the contract itself, but all the essential incidents which render it valu able and enable its owner to enforce it."
