Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 18.pdf/734

 EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT sional feeling and throw off the yoke of com mercialism, with the passing of the doctrine that politics too is a mere game to be played for its own sake, we may look forward con fidently to deliverance from the sporting theory of justice; we may look forward to a near future when our courts will be swift and certain agents of justice, whose decisions will be acquiesced in and respected by all." PRACTICE (Contracts). "Splitting up Causes of Action on Contract," by Raymond I. Thurber, Bench and Bar (V. vii, p. 13). PARTNERSHIP. " Partners may by con tract displace some of the legal consequences of death, but not all of them. They can agree that the representatives of the dying partner shall not for a certain time be entitled to insist upon a liquidating sale and an account ing. They can agree that immediately upon the grant of letters the executor may associate himself as a partner with the survivors, or they can agree that the survivors shall con tinue to trade as if death had not occurred and that a share of the profits shall be paid to the executor of the dead partner. Similar provisions may be made in the will of a part ner instead of in the articles. In the latter case, the testator is powerless to commit the survivors to any course of conduct not accept able to them, but the survivors may make a contract with the executor upon the lines laid down in the will." In " The Liabilities of a Partner's Execu tor," in the September-October American Law Register (V. liv, p. 565), George Wharton Pepper discusses the legal consequences of the taking of any of the above steps. PROPERTY. " Protected Life Estates: A Suggestion," by W. J. Leofric Ambrose, Law Quarterly Review (V. xxii, p. 401). PROPERTY (Future Interests). Prof. Al bert M. Kales has Part II of his article on "Future Interests in Land," in the October Law Quarterly Review (V. xxii, p. 383). Part I has previously been noticed at length; Part II considers vested and contingent re mainders, along three different lines of distinc tion: (a) the modern or non-feudal, (6) the feudal or common-law distinction, (c) a line of distinction peculiar to some states, espe cially Illinois; second, the significance of these

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apart from any connection with the rule against perpetuities; finally, which line of distinction between vested and contingent interests is to be used where the application of the rule against perpetuities is concerned. Professor Kales concludes: " The objection to the usual attempted distinction between vested and contingent remainders (assuming it to avoid the error of suggesting that it is fundamentally a distinction between contin gent and non-contingent interests after a par ticular estate of freehold) is that the language used bears on its face absolutely no suggestion of a reason for the distinction described. One may even read Professor Gray's exposition, which appears to the writer to be one of the most illuminating, and yet come away with out the slightest idea of the reason for making the distinction indicated. If the inquirer has any preconceived idea that he is approaching a distinction between contingent and noncontingent interests, he is at the outset warned that this is not so by the hint that ' the word "vested" had originally [that is from the feudal point of view] no reference to the ab sence of contingency." Then he is brought face to face with the following definition of a vested remainder: ' A remainder is vested in A, when, throughout its continuance, A or A and his heirs have the right to the immediate possession, whenever and however the preced ing estates determine.' This formula, it is believed, so far as appears from its face, gives no hint of the rationale of the distinction. The reader may look in vain for an explanation of the reason upon which it is based. It is no excuse to say that the definition is the result of feudal conceptions, for even feudal rules have a reason which can be understood to some extent to-day. It is believed that a greater clearness of ideas can be obtained by a comparatively slight shifting of the point of view. It should be indicated with some emphasis that* the distinction developed under the feudal or common law of land, and that the vested remainder is the future interest limited by act of the settler to a stranger after a particular estate of freehold, which the feudal land law always recognized as valid, while the contingent remainder is precisely the future interest after a particular estate of free hold limited by act of the settler to a stranger.