Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 18.pdf/668

This page needs to be proofread.

NOTES OF RECENT CASES Agency (2d ed.) § 261, and cases cited. There are some duties which cannot be delegated, and for their performance the corporation must be held accountable. The principal case is therefore supported by the same logic when it makes the public charitable corporation liable to its own ser vant for its own breach of those duties toward him which cannot be delegated. It should be noted, however, that the distinction which the court seeks to draw between this and other cases because the defendant " is a charitable institution whose powers and duties in the manage ment and expenditure of its funds is unlimited, except so far as they are governed and denned by the general charitable purposes of its incorpora tion " will not bear scrutiny. See the recent case of Parks v. Northwestern University, 218 Ill. 381. Where tort liability on the part of defendant was denied on the broad ground that a corporation organized solely for charitable purposes necessarily holds all its funds in trust for such purposes and hence is exempt from liability for the negligence of its employees. The real justification for the New Hampshire decision, as contrasted with some others, is found near the end of the opinion where the court says : "Experience shows that negligence — the fail ure to exercise ordinary care — is to be expected when men engage in industrial pursuits. It may, not inappropriately, be said to be necessarily in cidental in the accomplishment of most practical results through the agency of man. The donors of the defendant's property for hospital purposes were not ignorant of this fact, and are presumed to have given the trust property, knowing that it might be required for the liquidation of claims in tort as well as for claims in contract incurred in carrying out the purposes of the corporation. In deed its conceded authority to contract for the employment of nurses and other necessary agents would seem to include power to respond in dam ages for all breaches of such contracts, one essen tial or incidental element of which is its duty to ex ercise care as well as its duty to pay the stipulated compensation." It is not that public charitable corporations are not to be protected from tort liability unless their funds are donated under a limited deed of trust, but that the general trust purposes of such a cor poration are not hindered by holding the corpora tion liable for breach of what are known as nondelegable duties. Geo. P. Costigan, Jr. This accords with the now generally accepted theory that, while a charitable corporation is not liable under the doctrine of respondent superior for the torts of its inferior servants, it is liable for

629

the torts of the administrators and managers of the corporation. See the able discussion by Hammersley, J., in Hearns v. Waterbury Hospital, 66 Conn. 98, 33 A. 595. COMMERCE. (Interstate Regulation — Freight Rates.) U. S. Cir. Ct. H. D. Ill. — Freight rate difficulties are presented in Interstate Commerce Commission v. Rcichmann, 143 Fed. 236, where it appeared that a corporation owning cars used for the transportation of live stock on all railroads had no direct relations with shippers, but that it merely received mileage from the various rail roads, and the question before the court was whether the making of payments by the corpora tion to shippers, in order to promote the use of the corporation's cars, constituted a violation of Act Feb. 19, 1903, c. 708, 32 Stat. 847 [U. S. Comp. St. Supp. 1905, p. 599], making it unlawful for any corporation to offer, " grant, give, or solicit, accept or receive, any rebate, concession, or dis crimination, in respect of the transportation of any property in interstate or foreign commerce, by any common carrier, . . . whereby any such property shall by any device be transported at a less rate than that named in the published tariffs filed by the carrier. Considering the statute and the conditions which the statute was designed to remedy, it is held that freight rates are to bo con strued as meaning the net cost to the shipper of the transportation of his property; that the prac tice of making such payments on the part of the corporation destroyed uniformity, and was a vio lation of the statute, the contention that the only effect of the statute is to prohibit the shipper from soliciting or accepting preferences from the carrier itself, and the carrier and its agents from offering or giving any preference, being clearly without merit. The effect of the holding appears to be that any conduct on the part of any one which tends to bring about lack of uniformity in the net cost of shippers is %vithin the statute. CONSPIRACY. (Injuring Person in Business.) New York Sup. Ct. — A case which has attracted considerable attention is that of People ex rel. Burnham v. Flynn, 100 New York Supplement, 31, it being a prosecution for conspiracy for excluding the dramatic critic of a prominent publication from theaters controlled by defendants. N. Y. Pen. Code, § 1068, subdiv. 5, under which the prosecution was brought, makes it a misdemeanor for persons to conspire to prevent another from exercising a lawful trade or calling or doing any other lawful act by force, etc. It appeared that defendants had entered into an agreement rot to admit the critic to the various theaters under their control, that they had given instructions to their