KDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
107
CURRENT LEGAL ARTICLES Thi» department represents a selection of the most important leading articles in all the English and American legal periodicals of the pre ceding month The space devoted to a summary does not always represent the relative importance of the article, for essays of the most per manent value are usually so condensed in style that further abbreviation is impracticable.
AGENCY (Liability of Principal in Contract)
UNDER the title of "Agency by Estoppel," Walter W. Cook in the January Columbia Law Review (Vol. v, p. 36) criticises what he states to be the "new view which seems to be gaining acceptance," that the liability of the principal in case of apparent as distinguished from real authority so-called, is an application of the doctrine of estoppel by misrepresentation. In opposition to this he contends that there is "a true contractual liability as well where the authority of the agent is only apparent as where it is real." "It is fundamental in the law of contracts that a person is bound not by his real but by his manifested intention. It results from this that contracts often arise -where there has been no mutual assent, no meeting of the minds of the parties in fact." "'One may manifest his intention not only by his own words or acts, but also through the words and acts of another." The analogy of the formation of a contract by correspondence is relied upon by the author. He says that the advocates of the theory of estoppel must assert that there is a distinction between man ifesting intention through a letter and through another human being on the ground that in the latter case the "agent exercises discre tionary power." But this discretionary power also exists in the case of real authority. "It is submitted, therefore, that the only •difference between real authority and appar ent authority is that in the case of the former there is a meeting of the minds in fact as well as in law, i.e., the principal is bound and in tends to be bound, whereas in the latter there is a meeting of the minds in law but not in fact, i.e., the principal is bound although he does not intend to be bound." AGENCY (Master and Servant. Liability for Acts of Stranger Assisting Servant)
A VALUABLE discussion of a department of th<; law of master and servant which had pre
viously not been carefully analyzed, appears in the Michigan Law Review for January, (Vol. iii, p. 198), entitled "The Liability of the Mas ter to Third Persons for the Negligence of a Stranger Assisting His Servant," by Floyd R. Mechem. ASSOCIATIONS (Transfer of shares in Partnerships and Corporations)
CHARLES WHARTON PEPPER contributes to the December number of the American Law Register (Vol. Iii, p. 737), a discussion of the law relating to "The Transfer of Interests in Associations," which is probably the most valuable contribution to the literature of the month. He states in a note that it is a pre liminary study in a chapter on the work of the law of the associations and in it he discusses transfer of interests in partnership associa tions as well as that of shares in corporations. The article is to be continued. CODIFICATION (German Code)
IT is interesting in view of our present at tempts at codification of special departments of the law through uniform state legislation, to learn from the article on " The Making of the German Civil Code," contributed by A. Pearce Higgins to the Journal of the Society of Com parative Legislation (N. S. No. 13, p. 95), that the way was paved for the movement for the drafting of the recently adopted German Code by a series of uniform codifications of special subjects enacted by the separate German States prior to the present union. The pres ent code is founded upon a draft which was a result of seventeen years of labor by a com mission appointed in 1874. Their work was criticised as too academic, and in 1890 a new commission began to revise it. This was com pleted in January, 1896. This draft was sub mitted to a committee by the Reichstag, after which, by skillful handling it was finally passed to take effect January ist, 1900. Of the
