Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 18.pdf/56

 EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT before the end of the month was formally rec ognized by seventeen governments. What constitutes an independent sovereign state is the actual, governing, dominating authority in the defined territory. The length of time which sovereignty has obtained, the extent of territory, a constitution or the form of government, are not necessary factors. It is the prerogative of the President, to put the seal of approval to the sovereignty of a new born nation, and is a matter of discretion, and in the present instance, the facts within the compass of every person cried out for the recognition of Panama. DIPLOMACY. " The European Concert and the Monroe Doctrine," by James B. Angell, Law Student's Helper (V. xiii, p. 371 ). EDUCATION. An interesting address en titled " Preparation for the Bar," on the work accomplished by the American Law School and on the need for better education of judges and lawyers to prevent the present frequent errors of practice and consequent miscar riages of justice and to raise the moral standards of the bar delivered by Lawrence Maxwell, before the last annual meeting of the American Bar Association is printed in the December American Law Review (V. xxxix, p. 822). ESTOPPEL (Banking). "A New Phase of Equitable Estoppel " is discussed by Silas Alward in the December Harvard Law Re view (V. xix, p. 113). The first distinctive enunciation of the modern doctrine of equit able estoppel was given by Lord Chief Justice Denham in these words: " Where one by his words or conduct wilfully causes another to believe the existence of a certain state of things and induces him to act on that belief, so as to alter his own previous position, the former is concluded from averring against the latter a different state of things as existing at the same time." While the doctrine is a salutary one and founded in the main on equitable principles, it becomes odious when" not justly or reason ably applied. Estoppel being a rule of evi dence, a cause of action can not be founded upon it. Qxiite recently an important judg ment was delivered in the Supreme Court of Canada, Ewing v. Dominion Bank, 35 Can. Supreme Court, 133, involving a principle of

equitable estoppel. The judgment can not be said to be satisfactory for two reasons; first, the court was a divided one, second, the amount of judgment assessed for the bank was so manifestly inequitable as to suggest the odium which Lord Coke designated as attach ing to estoppels generally. The plaintiff was a bank at Toronto and the defendants a firm of merchants in Montreal. A certain Wallace forged the name of the defendant Ewing to a promissory note for $2,000 at four months, payable to himself, at the plaintiff's bank. The note was discounted by said bank and the proceeds withdrawn in the course of three days. On the day on which the note was discounted notice was sent by the bank to the defendant that their note would fall due on a certain date, requesting that defendants provide for the same at maturity. The de fendants communicated with the forger, who stated the circumstances, requesting that they do nothing about it and promising payment. But just before the note became due, find ing he was unable to meet his promise the defendants notified the bank that the note was a forgery, and refused to pay. It will be observed that the notice was not sent by the bank to the defendants to elicit a response as to the genuineness of the signature, and that the fact that they did not receive an answer to the notice in no way influenced the bank as to the disposition of the balance of the funds in their hands. Judgment was rendered for the plaintiff for the full amount of the note with interest, not on the ground of ratification of the forged note by the defendants but by reason of the defendant's conduct in denying the making of the note, and the court held it to be the legal duty of a person whose name has been forged to notify the holder of the forged in strument of the fact promptly after becom ing aware of it, and that if such a person be comes liable upon it by reason of neglect of such duty the holder's position is altered for the worse. In a dissenting opinion, it was stated that the bank should have given some reason to the defendant to suppose that it would be prejudiced by his silence. The case seems a particularly hard one for the defendants. They were brought not by their own seeking