48
THE GREEN BAG
44 Md. 551. Where he sends in a separate deed • of assignment and requests a transfer, as is cus tomary in England, and this deed is forged, he is liable to the corporation upon an implied undertaking to indemnify it against the conse quences of complying with his request: Sheffield Corporation v. Barclay (1905) A. C. 392, 74 L. J. Rep. K. B. 747 (overruling (1903) 2 K. B. 580). Lord Davey stated the' governing principle to be "that where a person invested with a statutory or common law duty of a ministerial character is called upon to exercise that duty on the request, direction, or demand of another (it does not seem to me to matter which word you use) and with out any default on his own part, in a manner which is apparently legal but is, in fact, illegal, and a breach of the duty, and thereby incurs liability to third parties, there is implied by law a contract by the person making the request to keep indemnified the person having the duty against any liability which may result from such exercise of the supposed duty. And it makes no difference that the person making the request is not aware of the invalidity in his title to make the request." There is an interesting discussion of the question by Mr. J. L. Thorndike, in 17 Harvard Law Re view, 373 (his general contention is now sustained by the House of Lords) and by Professor Ames in 17 Harvard Law Review, 543. Valuable cases upon the general subject are, In re Bahia R. Co., L. R. 3 Q. B. 584; Pratt v. Taunton Copper Co., 123 Mass, no, 25 Am. Rep. 37; Pratt v. Boston, etc. R. Co., 126 Mass. 443; Machinists' Nat. Bank, v. Field, 126 Mass. 345; Brown v. Howard Ins. Co., 42 Md. 384, 20 Am. Rep. 90; Mayor, etc. v. Ketchum, 57 Md. 25; Metropolitan Bank v. Mayor, 63 Md. 6; Philadelphia Nat. Bank v. Smith, 195 Pa. 38; Scarlett v. Ward, 52 N. J. Eq. 197; Thomas v. Citizens' Nat. Bank, in U. S. 156; Allen v. South Boston R. Co., 150 Mass. 200; Trimble v. Bank, 71 Mo. App. 467; East Birmingham Land Co. v. Dennis, 85 Ala. 565, 7 Am. St. Rep. 73, a L. R. A. 836; O'Herron v. Gray, 168 Mass. 573, 60 Am. St. Rep. 411, 40 L. R. A. 498; Knox v. Eden Musee Co., 148 N. Y. 441, 51 Am. St. Rep. 700, 31 L. R. A. 779. Floyd R. Mechem. CRIMINAL LAW. (Bribery.) N. Y. Ct. Gen. Sess. — People v. Jackson, 95 N. Y. S. 286, shows that merely moral obliquity even in an officer is not always punishable. It is there said that the asking of money by a public officer to influ ence his action, which is not official and which he has no authority -at all to perform, is not bri bery. Defendant Jackson held the office of cor oner in the Borough- of Manhattan in New York
and it was charged that he had asked and agreed to accept a bribe with the understanding that his official action would thereby be influenced in the matter of the death of a person in New Jersey. There was no evidence that the dead body had ever been in the Borough of Man hattan. This, the court says, does not constitute bribery or the offense of asking a bribe in viola tion of Penal Code, § 72. A coroner being an officer of inferior and limited jurisdiction, every fact necessary to give him jurisdiction must be alleged and proved, and where a coroner acts on a cause of death without the presence of the body within his jurisdiction, any act he does is null and void ab initio. Therefore, the agreement of the coroner to accept a bribe in the present case did not relate to his official action or to a matter which could come within his official cog nizance, and did not render him guilty of an offense. This case is almost identical with the recent celebrated case of People v. Butler, 77 S. W. 560, the only difference being that in the Butler case defendant was offered a bribe to in fluence his action as a municipal officer with reference to a contract which, under the city charter, the board of which he was a member, had no authority to award or execute. The Missouri case cites and analyzes a large number of authorities, and the two cases together would seem to render fairly well settled the principle that a public official cannot be bribed to do an act which he has no authority in law to perform. CRIMINAL LAW. (Conspiracy — Causation.) Ky. — A question which has been paralleled but once or twice before in the administration of our criminal law is disposed of by the Kentucky Court of Appeals in Commonwealth v. Moore, 88 Southwestern Reporter, 1085. Defendant was indicted for murder, alleged in the indict ment to have been committed in the following manner: Defendant and another conspired to rob a house and while in the execution of this felonious design, the occupant of the house, en deavoring to protect his property, fired at defend ant, missed him, and accidentally shot and killed an innocent third person who had no con"nection with the affair whatever. The two con spirators were indicted for the murder of the innocent bystander. The court refers to the well-known principle that if several persons con federate to accomplish an unlawful design, each one is responsible for every crime committed by any of his confederates in pursuance of the orig inal conspiracy and which might naturally or reasonably be anticipated to result from it, but holds that this rule cannot be extended to in clude the present case because the homicide -was
