Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 20.pdf/152

 NOTES OF RECENT CASES Sir Francis Jeune refused to entertain the suit, on the ground that if she was a lawful wife the ma'trimonial domicil was French, and, therefore, the English Court had no jurisdiction, and he also declined to make any declaration as to the validity of the French decree, though he said, somewhat rashly, that it was frima facie good. The lady afterwards contracted a second marriage in this country, which, the second " husband " sought to have annulled in these proceedings. The result is an exhaustive and unanimous judgment of the Court of Appeal that the prior marriage, being valid according to the English law, was not ren dered invalid by the fact that the husband had not complied with certain formalities which the law of his own country required. This is an important case deservedly criticising and limiting Sottomayor v. De Barros, 3 P.D.i. It seems that Sir Gorell Barnes would, if it came within his power to do so, overrule that case; which certainly proceeded on a misapprehension of the previous decisions as to capacity and has caused much uncertainty in the English doctrine of capacity. The court also quotes with apparent approval the scathing criticism of Judge Gray in Com. i: Lane, 113 Mass. 458, upon Brook r. Brook, 9 H. L. C. 193. The decision in Ogden. . Ogden restores the force of Simonin r. Mallac 2 Sw. & T. 67, and the earlier English cases and brings the English doctrine into accord with the be.st Ameri can authorities. The decision is also important on the question of jurisdiction to declare a marriage null. In refusing effect to the French decree the court laid down the sound principle that nullity because of the invalidity of the marriage with respect to capacity can be pronounced only by the court of the sovereign whose law is alleged to have created the marriage. J. H. B. Jr. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW. (State and Fed eral Jurisdiction.) N.C. — The decisions of Judge Pritchard in Ex parte Wood, 155 Fed. Rep. 190, and Southern Ry. Co. v. McNeill, 155 Fed. Rep. 756, recently noted, are criticised by the North Carolina Supreme Court in State v. Southern Ry. Co., 59 S. E. Rep. 570. Both cases are founded on the North Carolina rate law, and involve dis cussion of the powers of federal .courts. The enforcement of the law was restrained by Judge Pritchard, but state officers proceeded with prosecutions for its violation in the state courts, and defendants set up the injunction as a defense. There is an extended discussion of the reported decisions relative to conflict between the federal and state jurisdiction, particular attention being paid to the decisions of the United States and North Carolina Supreme Courts. The rate law prohibited railroad companies from charging a

103

passenger rate in excess of two and one quarter cents a mile, and imposed a penalty on a railroad company for a violation thereof, and also declared that any agent of the company violating the law should be guilty of a misdemeanor. The North Carolina court strenuously upholds the sovereignty of the state, and decides that the proceeding in the federal court restraining action by the attorney general looking to the enforcement of the law was in reality an action against the state and forbidden by the Constitution of the United States. They also strongly contend for freedom from interfer ence with the enforcement of the criminal laws of the state, holding that under the general principle of the law of injunctions, which governs courts of equity, the latter courts are without jurisdiction to interfere by injunction with state courts in the due course of administering and enforcing the criminal laws of the state. It was also held that the operation of a statute will not be suspended on an allegation that complainant's property is about to be confiscated, or that its constitutional rights are about to be impaired, except on a full disclosure of all of the facts in complainant's possession and on the clearest showing that the threatened injury will at least probably result. It is further held (Chief Justice Clark dissenting) that the doctrine of accessory before the fact, and that all accessories in misdemeanors are principals, does not apply so as to render a railroad company under this act subject to indictment in the same manner as is its agent, and for this reason the judgment against the railroad company is arrested CONSTITUTIONAL LAW. (Weekly Payment Law.) Vt. Sup. Ct. — The Vermont legislature, in 1906, passed a law requiring corporations engaged in certain enumerated classes of business to pay their employees in money each week. Its validity was attacked in the case of Lawrence v. Rutland R. Co., 67 Atl. Rep. 1091, on the grounds that it violated both the state and federal constitutions by depriving defendant of liberty and property without due process of law, by denying it equal protection of law, and as controverting certain portions of the Bill of Rights in the state constitu tion. Numerous decisions of the United States Supreme Court are referred to as bearing more or less on the questions involved; more attention, perhaps, being given to the case of St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Ry. Co. v. Paul, 173 U. S. 404, 19 Sup. Ct. 419, 43 L. Ed. 746, than to any other, as it involved the validity of a statute of Arkansas, which, though differing widely from that of Vermont, was objected to on similar con stitutional grounds. The Vermont court holds the law of that state valid as against all objections made.