Latest Important Cases down by Justice John W. Gofi in the Cloak makers' Strike case in the Supreme Court of New York, which seems to go further than the
established line of decisions which support the open shop policy. This strike was referred to as a common law civil conspiracy. and peaceful picketing or any other act furthering such conspiracy was declared illegal. The Court said :— "What the employers may not do, the workmen may not do. If a combination of one to refuse employment, except on condition of joining a union, be against public policy, a combination of the others to cause refusal of employment, except on condition of joining a union, is alike against public policy." . . . "A common law. civil conspiracy having been shown by overt unlawful acts, done in pursuance of an unlawful object, it remains only to consider the breadth of the temporary injunction to be issued. The court cannot compel workmen to return to work; it should
restrain all picketing and patrolling. which.v though lawful where not accompanied by violence and intimidation, are unlawful where in aid of an unlawful object. It should, as a matter of course, restrain violence, threats to workmen, and intending workmen, and, against their will, following them persisting in talking to them or visiting at their houses, and it should restrain the use of opprobrious epithets and language calculated to provoke a breach of the peace directed to members of
plaintiff's association and its workmen, but no order will issue to restrain acts which are not shown by the moving papers to have been threatened, such as the issuance of circulars or holding of public meetings; nor will the court, in the exercise of its discretion at this time, restrain the free expression of opinion. No injunction will issue against the individual defendants.”—-(Reported in Chicago Legal News, Sept. 24, and in New York Law journal.) Public Lands. Reclamation Act Constitu tional—Fedoral Government may Acquire Water Power Sites. U. S. The constitutionality of the reclamation act was upheld by the United States Circuit Court of Appeals at San Francisco July 5, the court sustaining the decision of the Idaho district court in favor of the government in the case of Burley v. United States. The decision establishes the right of the Secretary of the Interior to acquire by con demnation or otherwise, lands and waters in
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the furtherance of reclamation projects. It also extends the right of the government to take over any needed private water sites in carrying out the provisions of the act. Taxation. “Equalisation" of Assessments— Administration of Tax Laws—-Due Process of Law. Ky. In Armstrong v. Ray and Hero v. Ray, decided by the Chancery branch of the Jeffer son Circuit Court of Kentucky July 20, the plaintifis sought to enjoin the county officials from increasing their taxes 12 per cent under the provisions of a statute of 1906 creating a "State Board of Equalization and Assess ment." The actions were based upon sev eral distinct allegations, all of which were overruled. On one of the more important
points the ruling of the Court (Shackelford Miller, J.) was as follows:—
“Does the limitation of the hearing to five witnesses deprive the individual taxpayer of due process of law? The act of the board in revising the assessments operates equally upon every property holder of the county, and every witness appears and testifies equally for all of them. The interest of every tax payer is thereby represented, and the require ment that the witnesses be limited in number and selected by the county judge, instead of permitting every taxpayer to appear in per son, is neither arbitrary, oppressive nor un just. On the contrary, it gives the property owner that opportunity to appear and be heard which the circumstances of the case rea sonably require; and this, we have seen, con stitutes due process of law. Kelly v. City of Pittsburg, 104 U. S. 87; McMillan v. Ander son, 95 U. S. 42; C., N. O. & T. P. Ry. Co. v. Commonwealth, 81 Ky. 492, 511, affirmed in 115 U. S. 331."
Waste. Mortgagee May Recover Damages from Lessee for Use of Mortgaged Premises for Small- Pox Hospital. Mass. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachu setts on September 8 handed down a decision in the case of Delavan C. Delano v. Nathan B. Smith et 01., members of the board of health of Everett, Mass, to the efiect that a mortgagee of real estate may recover damages from the board which has leased the mortgaged premises from the mortgagor and used them for a. small-pox hospital, such use being without the consent of the mortgagee, who was unaware of the use to which the premises were being put. The court holds such use to warrant the finding that waste has been committed.
