NOTES OF RECENT CASES
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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 fall reports of any of theie decisions may be secured from the West Publishing
Company, St. Paul, Minnesota, at 35 rents 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.)
ATTORNEYS. (Admission.) R. I. Under the rule of practice in Rhode Island requiring that an applicant for admission to the bar who has not re ceived a classical education or studied at a law school, must have studied law three years in an office of an attorney or counsellor at law, the Supreme court of Rhode Island in In re Bosworth, 68 Atl. Rep. 316, held that an applicant who filed notice in the clerk ot court's office that he had registered as a law student in the office of an attorney of the court, and who for three years thereafter re ceived instructions from such attorney and studied law under his direction, was not entitled to take an examination for admission to the Bar, where it appeared that during these three years, he was not in attendance at the office during the day time, but was employed during the working hours of the day as a clerk in a department store. The court states that the rule demands that the study of law during ordinary business hours in a law office must be the student's chief occupation in order to give him the right to take the exami nation for admission to the Bar, and that while other employment may be taken out of office hours or in vacation, other continuous employ ment during the business hours of the day, is not compatible With such a course of study as is contemplated by the rule, and that the qualifi cation prescribed is a necessary prerequisite to the right to an examination. CARRIERS. (Forfeiture of Ticket.) Ind. The Supreme Court of Indiana, in Baltimore & O. S. W. R. Co. v. Evans, 82 N. E. Rep. 773, in a lengthy opinion gets by technical errors in the presentation of the appeal, and discusses the merits of a cause involving the ejection of a passenger. It appeared that plaintiff, to secure a reduced fare, made a special contract by which the ticket was limited to use by himself and members of his family, and contained a stipula tion that a transfer of it for one or more trips in volved its forfeiture. In violation of this agree ment, he had permitted persons to use the ticket, who were not entitled to do so. The conductor, who ejected him, refused to accept the ticket be cause it had expired. The interesting portion of
of the decision turns on the discussion of the question of the forfeiture of the ticket, by which it was claimed plaintiff had lost the right to transportation. After discussing the merits of the several contentions, the court concludes that by the voluntary transfer of his ticket, in viola tion of the positive stipulation or condition embraced in the contract, plaintiff had ipso facto terminated or forfeited his right to longer use the ticket for transportation over the defendant's road. Consequently at the time of his expulsion he had no right to require the company to carry him over the road, unless it had legally waived the wrongful transfer by him of his ticket. On the question of waiver, it was said that there was nothing in the record going to show that the company in honoring the ticket after the trans fer had any knowledge or notice whatever that he in any manner had incurred a forfeiture thereof. On the contention that the conductor in refusing the ticket did so on the ground that it had ex pired, the court said that if his right to be trans ported on the ticket at the time of his expulsion had been terminated or forfeited on account. of his violation of the contract, it was of no material importance that the act of the conductor was technically placed on the wrong ground, for back of the act of the conductor was the fact that plaintiff's right to be longer carried on the ticket had been forfeited, and that the ticket, therefore, was invalid. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW. (Employers' Lia bility Act.) U. S. Sup. Ct. — Few, if any, more important decisions have been rendered by the highest judicial tribunal in this country than that in the case of Howard v. Illinois Central R. Co. 28 Sup. Ct. Rep. 141, holding the Employers' Liability Act invalid and resulting in the recom mendation by the President in a special message that a similar statute with such changes as might be necessary to meet the constitutional require ments be immediately enacted. The act pur ported to make common carriers engaged in in terstate commerce as well as those operating in the District of Columbia and the territories liable for injuries resulting from negligence of fellow
