NOTES OF RECENT CASES OF IMPORTANCE FROM THE NATIONAL REPORTER SYSTEM (Copies of the pamphlet Reporters containing full reports of any of these decisions may be secured from the West Pub lishing Company, St. Paul, Minnesota, at 25 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.)
ACCIDENT INSURANCE. (DEATH BY BLOOD POISONING — BREACH OF THE PEACE) U. S. C. C., DIST. OP SOUTH CAROLINA. The holder of an accident policy, insuring against disability or death resulting from bodily injuries sustained through external, violent, and accidental means, became involved in an altercation with another person and struck him in the mouth with his fist. This caused an abrasion of the skin on the hand of insured, wherein microbes found lodgment and caused blood-poisoning, from which insured died. Quoting the definitions of the standard lexi cographers, it is held that the death of insured resulted from accident; that is, something unfore seen, unexpected, fortuitous, and not within the contemplation of the insured, nor the probable consequence of his act. It is also held that the mere fact that accused was, at the time he received the injuries, guilty of a breach of the peace, did not prevent a re covery of the policy which contained no special claxise vitiating it on that ground. Carroll et al. v. Fidelity & Casualty Company of New York, 137 Federal Reporter, 1012. BAILMENTS. (MEASURE OF CARE — FURNITURE MOVER — MALICIOUS INJURY BY THIRD PER SON) MISSOURI SUPREME COURT. The measure of responsibility incurred by a furniture mover, who agrees to transport furni ture safely from one house to another, is deter mined in Jaminet v. American Storage & Moving Company, 84 Southwestern Reporter, 128. It was shown that defendant corporation was en gaged in the business of furniture moving, and contracted to move plaintiff's furniture for a certain price. Preliminary to the making of the contract, defendant's agent stated that defendant previously had safely moved furniture for others, was responsible, and would move plaintiff's furni ture with care and deliver it safely. Defendant exercised due care in the transportation of the furniture, but a valuable picture was injured by the malicious act of a boy, who came past while the picture was standing by the sidewalk, and struck it so as to break the canvas. It was con tended for plaintiff that in view of defendant's statement that it would move the furniture with care and deliver it safely, it was subject to the
liability of a common carrier. The court decides, however, that defendant only assumed the re sponsibility of a bailee for hire and was only liable for the negligence of its servants, and that by agreeing to be responsible for the furniture, it did not warrant safe delivery at all events, and was not chargeable with the damage resulting from the wanton act of the boy. The analogous cases of Foster v. Essex Bank, 17 Mass. 479; Ames v. Belden, 17 Barb. 513; Stewart v. Stone, 127 N.Y. 500, 28 N. E. 525, are referred to with approval, and a distinction is suggested between these and the apparently somewhat contradictory holdings in Drake v. White, 117 Mass. 10 and Harvey v. Murray, 136 Mass. 377. BANKRUPTCY. (PARTNERSHIP— STOCK EX CHANGE SEAT — OWNERSHIP) U. S. C. C. A. 20 CIRCUIT. A slight extension of the principle heretofore decided in Page v. Edmunds, 187 U.S. 596, 23 Supreme Court, 200, that property in a stock exchange seat vests in a trustee in bankruptcy, is contained in the case In re Hurlbut, Hatch & Company. 135 Federal Reporter, 504. There it is held that under certain circumstances a seat in a stock exchange, standing in the name of an in dividual partner, may be partnership property and pass to the trustee in bankruptcy. The partner ship articles provided that there should be con tributed to the capital stock for the purpose of carrying on the firm, the seat in the New York Stock Exchange owned by one of the partners. This seat was to be regarded as capital, at an agreed valuation, and the firm was to pay the partner owning it interest at this valuation. The firm thereafter paid all dues and assessments chargeable against the seat, which were charged on the firm books as firm expense. These facts are regarded sufficient to show that the seat constituted firm property. The contention that the membership was a personal privilege and not property which the owner could have transferred to the trustee, is met by a quotation from the United States Supreme Court in Sparhawk v. Yerkes, 142 U.S. i, 12 Sup. Ct. 104, where it is said, that while such property is peculiar and in its nature a personal privilege, yet such value as it may possess, not withstanding the restrictions to which it is subject, is susceptible of being realized by the credi
