434
THE GREEN BAG
court to adopt the following doctrine as gov erning this case and others like it : "' A corporate officer paying out funds of the corporation without consideration moving to it, and without authority of its members or directors, for a purpose foreign to its business (if not also against public policy) and known or feared by him to be wrong, although pay ments for that specific purpose have not been specifically covered by any provision of the Penal Code, nevertheless commits the crime of larceny.' "Is it not clear that the adoption of such a doctrine by a unanimous court would have produced a better effect than the decision which was rendered in this case? Would it not have exercised a wholesome influence in restraining directors, who belong to the modern school of high finance, and in protect ing stockholders and the public, without harm ing any honest and faithful officer or director? Such a doctrine, it is submitted, would better accord with the language and purpose of the New York Penal Code than that announced by the majority of the judges. DAMAGES (Effect of Insurance). " Acci dent Insurance as Affecting the Measure of Damages," by J. Campbell Lorimer, in the April Juridical Review (V. xix, p. 58), calls attention to the anomaly and injustice of the rule by which " according to the existing law of England ' money received from an insurance company upon the death of the relative must be taken into consideration in estimating the amount of the compensation awarded under Lord Campbell's Act ' (Mayne on Damages, 9th ed., pp. 552-3)." Lord Campbell himself in 1857 directed the jury to consider the compensation as if there were no insurance and deduct any amount due under an accident policy. As to general life policies he said there should be deducted the premium that the deceased would have paid if the fatal accident had not happened. "But, in the case of an accident ]X>licy, it appears that the whole amount recovered under it is to be deducted from the ascertained damages, and the balance only paid over. The result obviously is that, in the case of an ordinary accident policy, the deceased, in effecting the insurance and keeping it up, it may be for years, really does so for the good
of the railway or other wrongdoer, through whose negligence his death is occasioned, for the latter alone reaps the benefit, without even the obligation of recouping the premiums. This is a strange result, and the anomaly becomes even more striking when t is con sidered that, if the sufferer had only been injured, and a claim had been made by. him self, no such deduction would be claimable," by a decision of the Court of Exchequer. The situation is the more unsatisfactory in that the law of Scotland gives no countenance to the deduction of money recovered under an accident policy, in the case of either death or injury; and, further, one important com pany, wiser in its generation than its neigh bors, so long ago as 1864 secured in its private Act of Parliament a clause protecting claimants under its policies from the effect of Lord Camp bell's Act, as above explained. Two insur ance companies are this year promoting bills each containing a similar clause, and it is understood that the Parliamentary authori ties are not disposed to raise any difficulty, though the subject is one more suited for pub lic than for private legislation. " There is nothing special in the circumstances of these three companies, and one is glad to hear, therefore, that it is proposed to introduce a short public bill of one clause which would put all insurance companies on the same foot ing. This is obviously desirable, for other wise the favored few would be able to claim superiority for their policies over those of their rivals, in securing the benefit to the family of the insured who paid for it, and not to the wrongdoer, who paid nothing and has no right to it." DOMICIL. The English cases on the puz zling subject of " Domicil " are carefully analyzed and discussed by G. Addison Smith, in the May Law Magazine and Review (V. xxxii, p. 268). EDUCATION. The address of Henry Wade Rogers, President of the Association of Ameri can Law Schools, delivered at its annual meet ing last summer is printed in the June Yak Law Journal (V. xvi, p. 545). EQUITY (Practice). "The Tool Case of Colorado — Right of Appellate Tribunal to Assume Charge of Elections by Writ of In
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