Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 19.pdf/480

 NOTES OF RECENT CASES Gye, 2 El. & Bl. 216; Walker v. Cronin, 107 Mass. 555; London Guarantee Co. v. Horn, 206 Ill. 493, 69 N. E. 526, 99 Am. St. Rep. 185; Perkins v. Pendleton, 90 Me. 166, 38 Atl. 96, 60 Am. St. Rep. 252; Berry v. Donovan, 188 Mass. 353, 74 N. E. 603, 108 Am. St. Rep. 499, 5 L. R. A. (N. P.) 899. But though the court appears to be inclined to follow these authorities, it does not find it necessary to do so in view of the fact that Minnesota has a statute declaring it unlawful for two or more employers of labor to combine or confer together for the purpose of preventing any persons from procuring employment. Such statute the court holds to be a valid enactment. TORTS. (Procuring Breach of Contract.) Mass. — Where one agrees in a contract to act as the exclusive agent of another in a certain terri tory, he may obtain an injunction to prevent a third person from also acting as agent in his territory according to Beekman v. Marsters, 80 N. E. 817. Plaintiff in this case had obtained from a hotel corporation conducting a hotel on the Jamestown Exposition grounds a contract whereby he was made their exclusive agent for the New England States to solicit patronage for the hotel. Defendant had induced the hotel corporation to break this contract with plaintiff in order to allow him to act also as their agent in the New England States. The court held that equity would enjoin defendant in acting as such agent. The court notes that the rules applicable to enticing away a servant, apply to the case. If a defendant by an offer of higher wages entices a laborer who is not under contract to enter his (the defendant's) employ in place of the plaintiff's, the plaintiff is not injured in his legal rights. But it is quite different if a laborer is under con tract and the defendant knowing that, inten tionally entices the laborer to leave plaintiff's employ by an offer of higher wages. As to the necessity of showing malice, the court says that this was not a case where there was an abuse of what, if done in good faith, would have been a justification, but a case where the defendant, with knowledge of the contract between the plaintiff and the hotel corporation, intentionally and without justification, induced the hotel

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corporation to break it. That is proof of malice. TORTS. (Right of Unborn Child.) Mo. Sup. — Kirk v. Middlebrook, 100 S. W. Rep. 450, is worthy of note for a point discussed therein, though not decided. This was a suit against a physician's estate to compel the performance of a contract to educate a child and provide for him in the physician's will, in consideration of a release by the child's mother of a claim for damages for injuries inflicted by the physician on the child during birth. The court first holds that if the child has a cause of action for the injuries, the action is not barred by the release executed by the mother. Then is taken up the question whether damages flowing from negligent injuries to a quick child about to be born — that is, ready and about to be severed from the mother under the mysterious and inexorable laws of nature — belong to the mother to be contracted away as she elects, or belong in the law to the child as a sentient being. In the discussion of this proposition it is said: " Few cases are in the books, where that question has been up. Under Lord Campbell's Damage Act it was held that a posthumous child could sue to recover damages sustained by the death of its father. The George and Richard, 3 Ad. & Eccl. [L. R.] 466. The Supreme Court of Texas came to a similar con clusion under the statutes of that state. Nelson v. Railroad, 78 Tex. loc. cit. 624 et seq., 14 S. W. 1021, 11 L. R. A. 391, 22 Am. St. Rep. 81, where an illuminating discussion may be found. See, also, T. & P. R. R. Co. v. Robertson et al., 82 Tex. 657, 17 S. W. 1041, 27 Am. St. Rep. 929; 1 Blackstone Com,. 129, 130; Aubuchon v. Bender 44 Mo. loc. cit. 568, arguendo. But it has been held that the common law gives no right of action to an infant for injuries received by it while en venire sa mere. Allaire v. St. Luke's Hospital, 184 Ill. 359, 56 N. E. 638, 48 L. R. A. 225, 75 Am. St. Rep. 176; Dietrich v. Northampton, 138 Mass. 14, 52 Am. Rep. 242; Walker v. Railroad 28 L. R. (Ireland) 69." As counsel on both sides had assumed that the right of action was in the mother, no decision is announced cn this most novel and " anxious " question.