Latest Important Cases merit. It cannot be assigned or inherited, but must be earned by hard study and good conduct. It is attested by a certificate of the Supreme Court and is protected by registra tion. No one can practise law unless he has taken an oath of office, and has become an oflicer of the court, subject to its discipline,
liable to punishment for contempt in violating his duties as such and to suspension or removal. It is not a lawful business except for members of the bar who have complied with all the conditions required by statute and the rules of the courts. As these conditions cannot be performed by a corporation, it follows that the practice of law is not a lawful busi ness for a corporation to engage in. As it cannot practise law directly, it cannot in directly by employing competent lawyers to practise for it, as that would be an evasion which the law will not tolerate. Quando
aliqwid prohiberur ex directo, prohibetur ct per obliqru'um (Co. Lit., 223)." The opinion in this case was written by Judge Vann, who affirmed the order of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the second judicial department vacating a certificate of approval previously granted by it under chapter 483 of the Laws of 1909. Public Service Corporation. Liability for Error in Transmission of Telegram—l/Vagering Contracts of Cotton Speculators may Bar on Action. N. Y. The New York Court of Appeals rendered an important decision bearing on speculation in
Postal
June 9.
Telegraph Co.
v.
Weld, decided
Stephen M. Weld and others, New
York brokers and members of the New York and New Orleans cotton exchanges, gave the Postal Telegraph Company a telegram to New Orleans brokers to sell 20,000 bales of
cotton at 12.70 cents a pound. When re ceived the message read 12.07. Damages aggregating $27,565 were claimed because of the error, and the lower court gave judg ment in favor of $10,000 against the telegraph company. The company appealed, and a new trial has now been ordered. Judge Werner said in his opinion :— “One of the plaintiff's New Orleans corre spondents testified that there was no delivery of cotton and the transaction consisted entirely of a settlement of differences. This testimony was supplemented by an account of sales from which the jury might have drawn the inference that it was not the intention of the
541
parties to the contracts to sell and deliver actual cotton, but simply to record the market fluctuations upon the basis of which settle ments were to be made between the parties. This testimony, though meagre and perhaps inconclusive, was hostile to the legal presump tion that the transactions were lawful and was sufficient to create an issue of fact upon which the defendant had the right to a charge embodying the substance of the requests above quoted. If the transactions between the plaintiffs and their clients or customers were mere wagers they are void under the statutes of this state and the general law of the land." Bea Ldjndlcm. Result of Acquittal of the charge of Fraudulent Entry on Title in Cool Lands-—Aclion for Recovery of Lands not Barred. U. S. In 1908 indictments were found against certain persons in Colorado for obtaining 30,000 acres of valuable coal lands in the state through dummy entrymen, and Federal Judge Lewis at that time sustained demurrers to the indictments, declining to be bound by civil case rulings in a criminal prosecution. Judge Lewis, however, was overruled by the Supreme Court and the prosecutions con tinued. In some of the cases the defendants were acquitted, and
in one of
these, the
Yampa Anthracite Lands case, the govern ment attempted to recover the lands through equity suits. Judge Lewis, in a decision rendered at Denver June 7, has now decided that although the lands were once involved in criminal cases in which the defendants were discharged the results of these trials do not enter into the present proceedings. Speculation.
See Public Service Corpora
tions.
wagers.
See Public Service Corporations.
Wills and Administration. Insalvent Estates —Oz'erpayment made under .l/Ir‘stake as to Fact of Solvency of Estate Removable by Action Against Creditor. N. Y. In Woodrufi v. H. B. Claflin Co, decided by the New York Court of Appeals May 17 (N. Y. Law Jour. June 2), it was held that an executor who under a mistake of fact as to the solvency of an estate pays to a creditor an amount greater than he was entitled to as subsequently disclosed by its insolvency, may maintain an action against the creditor to recover for the overpayment.
