Latest Important Cases Trust Co., 114 N. Y. Supp. 612. The suit was for personal injuries sustained by one of the tenants. The Court, commenting on the fact that in these days of multitudinous reports no decision on the point seemed to have been found, concluded that if the com mittee rented the property under its charge in such a way that it retained control over the common passageways used by the vari ous tenants, there was no conceivable reason why it should not be charged with all the duties of a landlord. The reason why it could not be held liable in its representative capacity was that the estate of the incompe tent should not be subjected to a liability for the torts of one who was not his agent in the legal sense. Insurance. Accounting in Equity—Trust Relations—Construction of Statute. U. S. In the construction of the charter of an insurance company, the decisions of the high est court of the state under whose general law the charter was obtained are binding upon the federal courts. This rule was laid down by the U. S. Supreme Court in Equitable Life Assurance Society v. Brown, decided March 1. A policyholder had filed a bill in the Circuit Court for the southern district of New York asking for an accounting and winding-up of the company. The demurrer of the defendant company was sustained, but the Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decree and gave judgment in favor of the policyholder. The insurance company then brought the case before the Supreme Court of the United States on a writ of certiorari. The Court, in reversing the decree of the Circuit Court of Appeals, held that a court of equity is bound to take all facts into con sideration in determining whether an account ing should be granted, that an uncontested declaration that the stockholders in a mutual company own the entire surplus does not authorize a suit in equity to wind up the company, that wrongdoing by officers and directors gives no jurisdiction for an account ing in equity in the absence of a trust relation shown, and that there is no trust relation in New York between the company and the policyholders resulting from the policy. Insurance. Statute Limiting Business—Con stitutionality. N. Y. That section of the new insurance law of the State of New York which limits the $150,000,000 the amount of business which
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an insurance company may write in one year was declared constitutional by Justice O 'Gor man in the New York State Supreme Court April 1. The decision was given in the case of Charles H. Bush v. New York Life Insurance Company, the agent having brought suit to recover from that company his commission upon a life insurance policy of $25,000 which the company rejected last December. The reason given for the rejection was that the company had already accepted enough busi ness to make up the $150,000,000 limit. Intoxicating Liquors. Statute Taxing Trade in Temperance Beverages—Constitutionality— Title of Legislative Act. Ga. A law passed by the General Assembly of Georgia for the improvement of the peni tentiary system was upheld as constitutional in Carroll v. Wright, 63 S. E. Rep. 260. To provide revenue the law provided for a tax upon certain persons. The Court held that the legislature, which had the right to exer cise discretion, did not transcend its power in making a distinct class, for the purpose of taxation, of those persons engaged in sell ing non-intoxicating beverages in imitation of and as a substitute for beer and other spirituous or malt liquors. The Court, referring to the provision of the constitution that no law shall refer to more than one subjectmatter, or contain matter different from what is expressed in the title, said that the title and the act must correspond substan tially, and there was substantial correspond ence between the title and the act in ques tion, "beer, ale, wine, whisky or other malt liquors" named in the title being substan tially equivalent to alcoholic liquors in gen eral, of substitutes for which the act treated. Labor Unions. Strikes and Lock-outs— Capital and Labor. U. S. The ever recurring question of restraining boycotts, strikes, and other combinations by employees has been again reviewed in Iron Moulders' Union v. Allis-Chalmers Co., 166 Fed. Rep. 45, and the Circuit Court of Appeals adds another able opinion to those in which the rights of employers and employees have been often judicially determined. The final decree under review enjoins four Wisconsin local unions of the iron-moulders' national organization and a number of individual officers and members from doing numerous specific acts interfering with or hindering the business of the complainant. The principaj
