Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 18.pdf/134

 NOTES OF RECENT CASES as the court phrased it, by visible flame and heat. In the present case the Supreme Court of Kansas holds that it was not error under similar circumstances to refuse to give an instruction that wool cannot set fire to itself, nor to define fire as necessarily accompanied with visible heat or light, or to charge that no degree of heat short of ignition, producingan actual burning, is covered by the policy. In both cases it was contended for the insured that as the chemical process which destroyed the wool was that of combustion it was a fire within the meaning of the policy, even though there was no flame, and the Kansas court upholds an instruction that a definition of the word " fire " was unnecessary, and that it would make no difference if there was fire, whether it was in the form of flame or merely smoldering. INSURANCE. (Constitutional Law — AntiTrust Law.) Ark. — An interesting holding as to the effect of an anti-trust statute of Arkansas is contained in Hartford Fire Ins. Co. v. State, 89 Southwestern Reporter, 42. A statute of the state of Arkansas (Act January 13, 1905) provides that any corporations who are or shall thereafter create, enter into or become members of, or be parties to, any pool trust agreement, etc., whether made in Arkansas or elsewhere, with any other corporation, partnership or individual, to regulate, either in Arkansas, or elsewhere, the price or pre mium to be paid for insuring property, etc., or who shall enter into or become members of any pool, combination, association, or confederation to fix in Arkansas, or elsewhere, the price or pre mium to be paid for insuring property shall be guilty of conspiracy and be subject to the penalties provided by the act. This statute, it is held, prohibits the doing of business in Arkansas by a foreign insurance corporation belonging to a trust or pool to fix insurance rates for places outside the State of Arkansas. It is also held that the legis lature had power to enact the statute inasmuch as it was entitled to fix the terms and conditions on which such companies should be permitted to do business within the State. NATIONAL BANKS. (Stockholders' Right to Inspect Books — Mandamus.) U. S. S. C. — Guthrie v. Harkness. 26 Sup. Ct. Rep. 4, is authority for the proposition that any legal right which a stockholder of a national bank may have to obtain an inspection of its books, may be enforced in the State courts by mandamus, in view of the provi sion of the Act of August 13, 1888, that for actions against national banks at law or in equity, they shall be deemed citizens of the State in which they are located, and that in such cases the Fed

eral, Circuit, and District courts shall have juris diction only as in cases between individual citi zens of the same State. A more novel contention in this case is that which is answered by the hold ing that the common law right of a stockholder, for proper purposes and under reasonable regula tions as to place and time, to inspect the books of the corporation of which he is a member, is not restricted as to national banks by U. S. Rev. St., § 5211, requiring such banks to make reports to the Comptroller of the Currency, or by section 5240, providing for the appointment of examiners to investigate the condition of such banks, or sec tion 5241, providing that no such bank shall be subject to any visitorial powers other than such as are authorized by the statute, or are vested in courts of justice. It was rather strenuously con tended that an examination of the books was an exercise of visitorial power, but this denied in accordance with the strict definition of the power of visitation, which seems to be applicable only to ecclesiastical and eleemosynary corporations. Even if it was conceded that power to inspect books was a visitorial power it would, says the court, belong to that class vested in courts of justice which are expressly excepted from the inhibition of the statute. NUISANCE. (Noise.) Eng. — The right of relief from annoyance caused by noise in a crowded neighborhood, was the question for decision in Rushmer v. Polsue and Alfieri (limited) Dec. 14, 1905, 22 T. L. R. It appeared that the plain tiff was a person who lived in a locality chiefly occupied by printing and other like trades, where noisy machinery was used, and that he had lived there for some twenty years without being dis turbed unduly at night by noises arising from machinery, although in the daytime he had been subject to noises arising from printing-works in his immediate neighborhood, and that for a hoxise in the middle of such a locality he had been fairly undisturbed by noise. Some short time before this action was commenced the defendants, who were printers, went into occupation of the house adjoining his and there set up some noisy machin ery which, being worked at night, caused a serious disturbance to' the plaintiff and his family, such as previously had not been experienced by them. The plaintiff thereupon claimed an injunction to restrain the defendants from so working their engines and other machinery as to cause a nui sance or annoyance' to the plaintiff by reason of the noise. It was contended by the defendants that a person living in a district specially devoted to a particular trade could not complain of any nuisance from noise caused by the carrying on of any branch of that trade without carelessness