122
THE GREEN BAG
question therefore was simply whether there was a quasi-contractual obligation to pay the value. The facts found were that the defendant in 1873 was supplied with ice by the plaintiff, but, on account of some dissatisfaction, terminated his contract with it; that the defendant then made a contract with the Citizens' Ice Com pany to furnish ice; that sometime before April, 1874, the Citizens' Ice Company sold its busi ness to the plaintiff with the privilege of supply ing its customers, that the plaintiff did not not ify defendant of this change of business but supplied the ice called for by the assigned con tract from April 1, 1874, to April i, 1875; that during all that time " the defendant had a right to assume that the ice in question was delivered by the Citizens' Ice Company; " and that " the defendant received no notice from the plaintiff until after the ice had been deliv ered." Upon these facts the court held that the plaintiff could not recover anything in the action brought, adding, " We are not called upon to determine what other remedy the plaintiff has." The decision has been taken to mean that since the defendant had been dissatisfied with the plaintiff under the earlier arrangement he might have refused to deal with it as assignee, had he learned of the facts in time. Mr. Costigan's discussion is very minute. He sums up: "1. If the court's notion that the express contract was not assignable could by any possi bility be correct, the decision in Boston Ice Company v. Potter would be erroneous be cause the plaintiff, reasonably believing itself entitled to act as assignee, was not an officious intermeddler, and, having no remedy on the express contract, was entitled to recover in quasi-contract. "2. If, however, the court was wrong in thinking the contract not assignable to plain tiff, and that it was wrong we have already seen, the decision in the Boston Ice Company case was perfectly sound because the plaintiff, having already an adequate remedy on the express contract in its assignor's name, had no excuse for asking that a quasi-contractual obli gation be imposed upon the defendant. "It is submitted that in Boston Ice Company v. Potter the contract was assignable to plain tiff; that it actually was assigned to plaintiff;
that plaintiff had an adequate remedy on the express contract in its assignor's name; that plaintiff's remedy on the express contract pre cluded any quasi-contractual obligation; and that because at that time in Massachusetts the assignee of a contract could not sue in his own name on the express contract the case was rightly decided." STATUTES1 (United States). "June 22, 1874, President Grant put his signature to a great quarto volume which we know as the United States Revised Statutes. This has since been amended, and many additions have been made to the general laws of the United States which have not been incorporated in the Revised Statutes. These are scattered through the Statutes at large, mingled with many tem porary provisions. To convert this chaos into order " Congress has created a commission to revise and codify " all the laws of the United States of a permanent and general character." This commission has recommended a Penal Code and a Judiciary Act, both of which are now before Congress. Everett P. Wheeler in "The Revision of the Laws of the United States" (January Michigan Law Review, V. v, p. 176) calls attention to the importance of these bills and of some amendments that have been suggested. In admiralty and equity causes the Revision provides for a bill of exceptions to the Appel late Court, instead of the present practice which transmits the full record. A committee of the Admiralty Bar of New York seeks an amendment retaining the present practice. "Experience shows that the ability of the appellate tribunal in admiralty and equity ap peals to dispose of the whole cause upon the merits is of great public advantage. It obvi ates the necessity of a new trial, it disposes of the case finally upon the merits, and removes from the 1 consideration of the Appellate Court a hundred technical points which in common law cases lead to discussion of whether or not there has been reversible error in the court be low, and eliminate in many cases the consider ation upon the merits, to which every litigant should be entitled." A more far-reaching amendment in the same line suggested by members of the Bar is the English system brought specially to the public attention by Judge Amidon in his address on
