322
NEW
LAW
BOOKS.
CONFLICT OF LAWS, OR PRIVATE INTERNATIONAL LAW. By Raleigh C. Minor, Professor of Law in the University of Virginia. Boston : Little, Brown & Company. 1901. 8vo. Law canvas, $3.00; Sheep, $3.50. (Hi+575 pp.) Perhaps in no department of the law was an adequate book for the practising lawyer of greater present importance than in the Conflict of Laws. With us in the United States are over fifty separate jurisdictions. So far as our business dealings and our social relations are concerned these are " law districts " simply, bounded by imaginary lines. We do not give these artificial lines any thought whenever or wherever we trade. Indeed every business of importance ex tends over many of our States; with us is no trace of territorial economy, and in all our social life we pass and repass these lines without noticing them. This is all very different from the situation between the various nations of Europe. With them the passing of the frontier is infrequent and solemn by comparison. So it is that the Conflict of Laws, an academic question in Europe, is become a most practical one in America. The European lawyer seldom has to do with cases involving the Conflict of Laws; the American lawyer must deal with such cases at all times. The Conflict of Laws as a common law subject was discovered and named by an American jurist. But Story had no successors in America; and in the meantime the decisions had accumu lated and the subject had developed. The profession needed a modern text-book, and this want is now supplied by Professor Minor. For unquestionably this treatise on the Conflict of Laws is an admirable work for the practitioner. The citation of the authorities is not made to ex haustion, but is made with discrimination. The statement of the cases is brief and accurate. The judgment displayed in indicating the better authority is of the soundest. The profession will have great present use for the book. Whatever discussion is to be made of Pro fessor Minor's treatise must be addressed to the general principles; for it is hardly too strong to say that no criticism can be made of the detail. In this subject where there is conflict of authority upon many of the points, controversy as to the
majority of rules, and disagreement as to most of the general principles, — one cannot but be lieve that it is too early for any final formulation. And yet Professor Minor reduces the subject to one single word — Situs. Find the situs of the particular act, circumstance, or subject under inquiry, and you will know the law which 'should properly regulate its validity and effect. The whole subject might, according to his view, more properly be called the Law of Situs. He follows this line out with entire logic in his main heads : I. Introductory; II. Situs of Person; III. Situs of Status; IV. Situs of Personal Property; V. Situs of Contracts; VI. Situs of Torts and Crimes; VII. Situs of Remedies;.VHI. Pleading. The nomenclature is novel, — at times it is some what confusing to see old friends in their new garb. To find administrators under the head Situs of Status and the sub-head Situs of Fidu ciaries is an example. Until one feels through out that Professor Minor has attempted to impose a unification upon his subject which is not formal alone but substantial as well. But is the Conflict of Laws capable of such simple statement? Undoubtedly the word Situs may stand for one great base of the Con flict of Laws — the Foreign Acquired Right. When a certain act is done within a certain jurisdiction where exists a certain law, the re sult is the creation of a certain right and of a certain obligation. This is all a question to be determined by the municipal law of the state where the act is done; in another state it is simply a question of fact,— a complicated ques tion of fact made up of many elements. It is not a question in a domestic forum of the appli cation of a foreign law, but of the recognition of a foreign fact. Doubtless the Conflict of Laws has much to say upon this question of the crea tion of the foreign right; and doubtless in last analysis it may be said to be all a question of situs. At this point the discussion seems to be lacking in something. For instance, it is not squarely said that the civil law and the common law proceed upon two opposite ideas; the civil law considering jurisdiction as personal, the common law regarding jurisdiction as terri torial; that hence personal jurisdiction with us is anomalous and not to be reduced to a system by saying that the situs of the person may be at the domicile.
