Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 16.pdf/916

 Notes of Recent Cases. misdemeanors and sentenced in the alterna tive to a period of labor in the chain gang. Under a contract between the county com missioners and a corporation, convicts were hired to the corporation at a stated sum per month, and this corporation was made re spondent to the writ. In view of these facts the court of its own motion raises the ques tion of the capacity of a corporation as re spondent to such a writ and states that it not only finds no precedent in the books for directing the writ to a corporation, but that from the very nature of the case it is clear that it cannot be so directed, and in this connection cites Hall Machine Co. v. Barnes, 115 ("¡a. 0.45. 42 Southeastern Re porter 276. A corporation, says the court, is an artificial being,—an entity, and it is not conceivable how it can restrain the liberty of anybody. It, of course, can authorize the detention and would doubtless be liable in a civil action for so doing, but how could a judgment ordering a corporation to dis charge a person wrongfully held in custody be enforced? The corporation could not be attached for contempt and it is not probable that an officer or servant of the corporation could be attached for refusing to obey a writ directed to the corporation. It is. how ever, held that inasmuch as the writ in ques tion was directed to the corporation and its officers and agents, and was served upon one of such agents who responded, the ir regularity in the address of the writ was im material although such a method of ad dressing it was irregular and improper. INSURANCE. (MURDER OF INSURED BY BENE FICIARY.) TENNESSEE SUPREME COURT.

A holding which in its practical effect would appeal as strongly to the layman as to the lawyer, although the former might hardly grasp the legal principles which gave rise to it, is that contained in I'ox r. Lanicr, a Tennessee case reported in 79 Southwes tern Reporter 1042. Some of the facts in this case would have been quite as fitting as a foundation for a full page story in a Sun day edition of a yellow newspaper as for the basis of a law suit, and briefly were as fol

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lows: A husband procured an insurance policy on his life, payable to his wife if she should survive him, otherwise to his per sonal representatives or assigns. As the result of various domestic difficulties which culminated in the filing of a bill for divorce by the wife the husband lay in wait for and shot her, inflicting a mortal wound, and im mediately thereafter committed suicide. The proceeds of the policy were paid to the administrator of the husband, and the ad ministrator of the wife brought suit for the same. The defendant claimed that under the common law rule that a husband who survives his wife becomes the owner of her choses in action the proceeds of the policy became a part of the husband's estate. This contention, however, is negatived by resort to the principle that no one shall be per mitted to profit by his own fraud, take ad vantage of his own wrong, found any claim upon his own iniquity or to acquire prop erty by his own crime. This principle must be applied to whatever new conditions may arise, demanding its application. It is, says the court, universally conceded that the fundamental principles of the common law are unchangeable, yet the courts recognize the necessity of flexibility in the application of old rules to new cases so as to enable them to adapt these rules to the ever vary ing conditions and emergencies of human society. On this ground it is argued that the common law rule entitling the husband to the choses in action of his deceased wife is to be governed in its application by the other rule preventing a person from profit ing by his own crime, and it is held that the present case is one calling for a limitation on the former rule which will prevent it from applying where it has been called into being by the crime of her husband. Sup porting the ruling the English case of Cleaver T'. Mutual Reserve Fund Life As sociation L. R. i Q. B. Div. 147, is cited, involving very similar facts arising upon the death of James Maybrick. husband of Mrs. Florence E. Maybrick, whose subsequent prosecution and imprisonment have been a matter of general public interest in this country for manv years.