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THE GREEN BAG

NOTES OF THE MOST IMPORTANT RECENT CASES COMPILED BY THE EDITORS OF THE NATIONAL REPORTER SYSTEM AND ANNOTATED BY SPECIALISTS IN THE SEVERAL SUBJECTS (Copies of the pamphlet Reporters containing fall reports of any of these decisions may be secured from the West Publishing Company, St. Paul, Minnesota, at as cent! each. In ordering, the title of the desired case should be given as well as the citation of volume and page of the Reporter in which it is printed.) CONSTITUTIONAL LAW. (Equal Protection of Laws.) Ark. — The Arkansas law requiring railroad companies to keep separate waiting rooms in depots for the accommodation of pas sengers, open day and night, except in certain cases, and requiring that such waiting rooms shall at all proper times be comfortably heated, and at all times supplied with drinking water and kept in a sanitary manner, and providing for a penalty for any neglect to comply with the law, is, in State v. St. Louis & S. F. R. Co., 103 S. W. Rep. 623, held not to violate the provisions of the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution. In this connection it may be mentioned that the Texas Court of Civil Appeals, in State v. Texas & N. O. R. Co., 103 S. W. Rep. 653, holds, on author ity of M., K. & T. Ry. Co. v. State, 100 S. W. Rep. 766, 17 Tex. Ct. Rep. 936, that a statute imposing a penalty for the failure of railroad companies to maintain water-closets at stations, is unconstitu tional as a deprivation of property without due process of law, and also as an ex post jacto law.

effect of such sales and contracts is to prevent competition between purchasers of the product, both at wholesale and retail. In the absence of allegations of facts showing these contracts to be necessary for the protection of the manufacturer's business, a court of equity will not aid in their enforcement by granting an injunction to prevent one not a party to the contract from buying the medicine from parties to the contract and resell ing at any price he saw fit. The court also holds that the fact that the medicine is manufactured after a secret or private formula does not make the manufacturer immune from the laws forbid ding monopolies and unreasonable restraints in trade. Some of the cases which are expressly disapproved by the court and in which such con tracts have been upheld, are Dr. Miles Medical Co. v. Goldthwaite, 133 Fed. 794; Dr. Miles Medi cal Co. v. Jaynes Drug Co., 149 Fed. 838; Dr. Miles Medical Co. v. Piatt, 142 Fed. 606 and Wells & Richardson v. Abraham, 146 Fed. 190.

CONTRACTS. (Illegality — Monopolies.) U.S. C. C. A., Sixth Circuit. — The United States Cir cuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has rendered a very important opinion on the question of contracts in restraint of trade, in which it declines to follow the lead of the federal courts in the east, in which contracts to sell patent medicines at a stipulated price to be controlled by the manu facturer have been upheld. In John D. Park & Sons Co. v. Hartman, 153 Fed. Rep. 24, Judge Lurton, speaking for the court, holds that the sole manufacturer of a medicine made in accordance with a secret formula but unpatented, who sells the same to wholesale dealers only, at a uniform price, under a system of contracts by which the wholesale dealers bind themselves to sell at a certain price and only to certain designated retail dealers, who in turn, in consideration of being so designated, bind themselves to sell to consumers only, and at a certain price, violates the federal anti-trust act of July 2, 1900, as the purpose and

CONTRACTS. (Interpretation — Automobiles.) Sup. Ct. N. Y., Trial Term. — The charter of a toll bridge company was construed in Mallory t/. Saratoga Lake Bridge Co., 104 N. Y. S. 1025. By its charter the bridge company was authorized to maintain a toll bridge across a lake and to collect tolls for the passage of certain vehicles and animals. Automobiles were not enumerated among such vehicles and consequently the court, construing the charter strictly, holds that the company cannot collect tolls for the passage of automobiles over the bridge. The court says: " The fact that auto mobiles were not known at the time of the passage of the act can make no difference, for the reason that defendants, by accepting the franchise in con sideration for the right to collect the tolls stipu lated for, assumed the duty and responsibility of building and maintaining a bridge that would meet the reasonable requirements of all travelers on the public highways, including vehicles and animals then in common use by travelers, and also such as might thereafter come into common use.