314
THE GREEN BAG
NOTES OF
THE
MOST
IMPORTANT
RECENT
CASES
COMPILED BY THE EDITORS OF THE NATIONAL REPORTER
SYSTEM
AND
ANNOTATED
BY
SPECIALISTS IN THE SEVERAL SUBJECTS (Copies of the pamphlet Reporters containing full reports of any of these decisions may be secured from the West Publishing Company, St. Paul, Minnesota, at 35 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.) ALIENS. (Property.) Wash. — The provision of the Washington constitution relating to rights of aliens to acquire and hold property was re cently construed in Abrams v. State, 88 Pac. Rep. 327. Section 33 of article 2 of the Consti tution prohibits the ownership of lands by aliens except where acquired by inheritance, under mortgage or in good faith in the ordinary course of justice in the collection of debts; and provides, with certain exceptions, that all conveyances of lands made to aliens, directly or in trust, shall be void. In 1890 plaintiff conveyed by deed certain property in the city of Seattle to a resi dent alien, a citizen of the German Empire, who entered into immediate possession, made valuable improvements, and continued in the exercise of acts of ownership until her death, intestate, nearly thirteen years later. An administrator of her estate was appointed and took possession of the premises. Deceased never became a citizen of the United States, and her only heirs are aliens. Plaintiff brought an action against the adminis trator and heirs for the recovery of the property alleging that as the grantee was an alien his con veyance to her was absolutely void and that the title still remained in him. The state and the county in which the land is located intervened, each claiming that the property escheated to the school fund. Plaintiff had received the consid eration for his conveyance and had stood by while valuable improvements were being made without claiming any right to the property, and the court said that notwithstanding no estoppel could be predicated upon a void deed, yet he was estopped by his acts from now setting up any claim to the property. In passing upon the claim of the state, it was said that under the common law, as modified by St. 11 and 12, Wm. Ill, c. 6, in the year 1700, English subjects were given the right to inherit from aliens estates held by them at the date of their death, even though they had been defeasible up to that time, and that when the Washington constitution con
ferred upon aliens the right to inherit it gave them as full and complete a right as that of citi zens. The final conclusions arrived at were that the deed from plaintiff devested him of all title to the property; that up to the time of the death of the grantee the state might, by proceedings in the nature of office found, have declared an escheat, but that having failed to do so prior to her death this right was lost and the property descended to her alien heirs. Judge Dunbar dis sented on the ground that the title, of the alien grantee being defeasible the heirs could only take a defeasible title, and that the property in their hands was subject to escheat the same as it would have been prior to the death of their ancestor. BILLS AND NOTES. (Anomalous Indorse ment.) Ill. — In Kistner v. Peters, 79 N. E. Rep. 311, the Supreme Court of Illinois passes upon the construction to be put on an anomalous indorse ment of a promissory note. The payee had placed on the back of the note, above her name, the following indorsement: "I hereby acknowl edge myself a principal maker of this note, with E. N. R., and my liability as such principal jointly with him." But' the court held her lia bility to be that of an indorser, and not a maker. In the course of its discussion of the case the court said that it was undoubtedly true that it • made no difference as to the position in which the names appeared on the note, but the liability incurred was to be determined by the intent of the parties; that a note payable to one's self is void until assigned, and it could not be believed that the payee meant to nullify the instrument by her indorsement. CARRIERS. (Passengers.) N. Y. S. C. — Gerardy v. Louisville & N. R. Co., 102 N. Y. S. 548, is a case in which the question arose as to the lia bility of a carrier for damages occurring from the failure to run trains on time. The plaintiff, a musician, having an engagement to play in an other city, boarded a train which at the time was
