454
THE GREEN BAG
defective punching of railroad and street car tickets, distinguishing the case at bar from that of Rolfs v. Railway Co., 71 Pac. 526, where it was held that a ticket containing a full and unam biguous printed contract upon its back is con clusive evidence to the train conductor as to the rights of the passenger, and that no action for damages will lie for refusal to honor the ticket after its expiration, irrespective of any statements which may have been made by the company's agent at the time of sale, upon the ground that in the present case no contract whatever was ex pressed by the printed form which appeared on the ticket, because an undertaking made on July 9th to carry a passenger prior to July 5th cannot be called a contract. In Laird v. Traction Co., 31 Atl. 51, a street railroad's transfer slip recited that it was good for ten minutes after being punched. When offered for passage it bore two punch marks, and it was held that the conductor must recognize the later one. In Trice v. Chesa peake & Ohio R. Co., 21 S. E. 1032, a mileage ticket was sold on March 4th, 1903, but by mistake was dated 1902. It was recited that it was good for a year, and also that it expired on March 4, 1904. Upon being presented in April, 1903, it was refused, and the holder was ejected. It was held that the confusion as to the date resulted from the agent's error and without fault in the passenger, and did not make the ticket invalid.
DISCHARGE OF PRISONER ON HIS RE COGNIZANCE. (REVOCATION — RETRIAL — JURISDICTION OP COURT) N. Y. SUPREME COURT, App. Div., 4TH DEPT. The prisoner in People v. Harber, 91 New York Supplement, 571, had been arraigned before the Court of Special Sessions for picking pockets, and after pleading not guilty, was discharged on his own recognizance. Subsequently the law was changed so as to provide for the trial of children charged with crime, by a special division of the Court of Special Sessions, and three years after being discharged the defendant was again brought to trial before this court, and was convicted. The Appellate Division sustained this conviction by a divided court, holding that the discharge was nothing more than admission to bail without surety, and that it was not shown that there had been any investigation as to the guilt or innocence of the defendant at the previous trial, nor any adjudication that he should not be tried for the crime charged. Judge Laughlin vigorously dis sents to this doctrine, and urges that the court did not have jurisdiction over the defendant, stating that the jurisdiction of an inferior court must not
be presumed, and pointing out that the statutes nowhere confer jurisdiction upon the Court of Special Sessions, upon organizing for the arraign ment of the prisoner, and after taking a plea, to discharge him upon his own recognizance, without any attempt to continue the case either by ad journment of the court or otherwise. Judge Laughlin cites a number of analogous cases, and also refers to People v. McPherson, 74 Hun, 336, 26 N. Y. Supp. 236, where it was held that where the trial of a case has once commenced, as by the arraignment of the defendant and taking of his plea in the Court of Special Sessions, it must pro ceed to the end before the same court. It should be remembered in 'this connection that the court which sentenced the prisoner had not been organ ized when he was first arraigned.
DIVERSE CITIZENSHIP. (SUFFICIENCY OF ALLEGATIONS — JURISDICTION OF FEDERAL COURT)
U. S. SUPREME COURT. The Board of Trustees of the Ohio State Uni versity was created under certain laws of that state, with certain corporate powers, but the Supreme Court of Ohio held that it was not in tended to make the board a corporation in the full sense of the term. In a suit by non-residents of the state against the board, the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit certified certain questions as to citizenship to the Supreme Court of the United States. The latter court in Thomas v Board of Trustees, 25 Supreme Court Reporter, 24, answers that an allegation that the board is a citizen of and domiciled in the state and exists under certain laws of the state, with power to sue and be sued, will be held not sufficiently to aver that such board was an Ohio corporation, within the jurisdictional rule of the Federal courts im puting to the members of a corporation citizen ship in the state creating it. The citizenship of the individual members of the board does not sufficiently appear, it is further held, from aver ments that show that the board, while not an Ohio corporation, was created by and exists as an organized body under the laws of that state, although under the Ohio constitution no person can be elected or appointed to any office in the state unless he is a citizen of the state. The Supreme Court further holds that the Circuit Court of Appeals should not take judicial notice of the Ohio law"which requires members of boards to be citizens, and by legal intendments finds that the persons constituting the board were in fact citizens, but that leave to amend the bill so as to show this fact might be granted.
