NOTES OF RECENT CASES OF IMPORTANCE FROM THE NATIONAL REPORTER SYSTEM (Copies of the pampblet Reporters containing full reports of any of these decisions may be secured from the West Pub lishing Company, St. Paul, Minnesota, at 35 cents each. In ordering, the title of the desired case should be given as well as the citation of volume and page of the Reporter in which it is printed.)
ALIEN HEIRS. OP ACTION)
(ADMINISTRATION — SURVIVAL
INDIANA APPELLATE COURT. The case of Cleveland, C. C. & St. L. R. Co. v. Osgood, 70 Northeastern Reporter, 839, was dis approved by the Iowa Supreme Court in the case of Romano v. Capital City Brick & Pipe Co., 101 Northwestern Reporter, 437, which was an action to recover damages for the wrongful death of one whose next of kin was an alien, as will appear from these notes in the April number. Since then the Indiana Court has granted a rehearing in the Osgood case, and now holds (see 73 Northeastern Reporter, 285) that an administrator appointed in the state may sue to recover for the death of a resident, although the ultimate distribution of the proceeds will go to a non-resident alien, provided the laws of the country in which such alien resides authorizes a similar recovery in favor of alien next of kin. BILL TO PERPETUATE TESTIMONY. (DE POSITION IN DIFFERENT SUIT) KANSAS CITY COURT OF APPEALS. The case of Morris v. Parry, 85 Southwestern Reporter, 620, is a first instance which has come to our notice of an attempt to enlarge the scope and application of a bill to perpetuate testimony. In that case it is sought to perpetuate the testi mony not of a witness whom it was feared would die, but of a witness who was dead. The facts are briefly as follows: A husband and wife conveyed land for a town site. The deed and record thereof were destroyed during the Civil War. The wife died and the husband remarried. The second wife refused to loin in a deed executed by the husband in lieu of the lost deed, and stated that she would claim dower if she survived her husband. The owner of a part of the land sued the husband and wife to establish the lost deed and perpetuate such testi mony as he might introduce and procured and filed a deposition proving the execution of the lost deed.' The husband and wife disclaimed as to the plaintiff's land, thereby compelling the dis missal of the suit. After the death of the husband and the deponent, who was the only witness by whom execution of the lost deed could be proven, the wife sued the owner of another part of the land for dower. Under these circumstances it is held that the defendant in the dower suit could
not maintain a bill to establish and perpetuate as testimony to establish the lost deed in the action for dower, the testimony of the dead witness as contained in the deposition on file. Of this proceeding the court says: "Stripped of verbal embellishments and reduced to naked fact, it is an attempt to force the admission of incompe tent testimony at the trial of the dower suit." CONSTITUTIONAL LAW. (RIGHT TO DIS CHARGE EMPLOYEE) KANSAS SUPREME COURT. An addition to the list of cases which hold that statutes making it unlawful to discharge an em ployee because he belongs to a labor union or for other similar reasons are unconstitutional, is the case of Coffeyville Vitrified Brick & Tile Co. v. Perry, 76 Pacific Reporter, 848. The decision follows much the same lines as prior decisions on the same point, holding in effect that the liberty to contract is a property right guaranteed by the Constitution and that it is interfered with by such' legislation as that under consideration. Cases in which almost identical statutes have been held invalid are cited, among others the leading case of State v. Julow, 129 Mo. 163, 31 S. W. 781, and the later cases of Gillespie v. People, 188 Ill. 176, 58 N. E. 1007 and Zillmer v. Krcutzbcrg, 114 Wis. 530, 90 N. W. 1098. DEFECTIVE RAILROAD TICKET. (ERROR IN STAMPING — EXPULSION OF PASSENGER) KANSAS SUPREME COURT. A railroad ticket was issued bearing upon its. back the date of issue, and also punched in the margin with the last day on which the ticket would be good. By mistake, of which both the ticket seller and purchaser had notice, the ticket was punched so as to indicate that it would not be good after July 5th, while as a matter of fact it was issued on July gth, and was good for thirty days. The person to whom the ticket was sold was ejected from the train, and sued for damages. In disposing of the case, the court holds (Gevons v. Union Pacific R. Co., 78 Pacific Reporter, 817), that under the circumstances recited above it cannot be said as a matter of law that the ticket was for this reason void, and that its holder may not recover damages for being expelled from the train when he presented the ticket for passage. The court cites a number of cases dealing with the
