Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 20.pdf/74

 EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT (V. vii, p. 589). A discussion of New York cases interpreting the state statute limiting restraints on alienation. PUBLIC POLICY. "Assailing the Judi ciary," by H. Gerald Chapin, American Lawyer (V. xv, p. 523). PUBLIC POLICY. "State Regulation of Public Utilities," by William S. Jackson, Law Register (V. xxvii, p. 832). RAILROADS. "A Fundamental Defect in the Art to Regulate Interstate Commerce," by Charles A. Prouty, American Lawyer (V. xv. p. 515). SURETYSHIP. "A Hand Book of the Law of Suretyship and Guaranty," by Frank Hall Childs, West Publishing Company, St. Paul, 1907. Price, $3.75 net. This is a valuable addition to the well-known Horn book Series thoroughly indexed, carefully annotated and intelligently condensed. The last quality deserves especial commendation in a time of unnecessary and expensive distention of standard text books. This work does not purport to give an exhaustive citation of cases but affords a clear statement of prin ciples for the preparation of students and the guidance of practitioners on a highly technical and difficult subject. TAXATION. In the November Quarterly Journal of Economics (V. xxii, p. 128); is a summary of the " Massachusetts Inheritance Tax of 1907," by Professor F. W. Taussig. TORTS. (Spanish System.) " The Position of the Law of Torts in the Spanish System," by Clyde A. De Witt, Michigan Law Review (V. vi, p. 136). Our government's policy of interfering as little as possible with the local laws and institutions of Porto Rico and the Philippines has made it necessary for lawyers practicing in those jurisdictions to familiarize themselves with both our and the Spanish systems. In cases which have recently arisen involving the question as to the extent to which the civil courts of Spain compel the

43

redress of private wrongs the most divergent opinions have been expressed, varying from the extreme of holding that, properly speak ing, there is no Spanish tort law, to the opposite extreme of maintaining that the civil courts of Spain have as complete jurisdiction in matters of private wrong as have the civil courts of our own country and England. The author gives some examples of the different views. His own conclusions (for which he gives reasons) are: "(i) The Spanish system recognizes pri vate wrongs arising independently of contract. "(2) It divides these wrongs into two classes, viz.: "(A) Those in which the author is criminally responsible, and (B) those in which he is not. "(A) Of those in which the author incurs criminal responsibility. "(i) The injured party may and usually does rely on the prosecutor to recover his damages for him, it being the prosecutor's duty to do so in the absence of express waiver or renunciation by the party injured. "(2) The injured party, in the absence of a pending criminal action, may institute a civil action himself in the civil court, and this action can be prosecuted to judgment and execution can be issued thereon without any conviction of the offender. "(3) If a penal action is begun after the civil action has thus been instituted, the civil action is suspended until the criminal action is terminated by final sentence. "(4) The injured person may himself insti tute the penal action, and in such cases he may and is presumed to bring the civil action with it, but he may renounce it or expressly reserve the right to bring it afterwards, if the penal action results in conviction. "(B) Of those in which the author is not criminally responsible, the civil courts take exclusive jurisdiction and in the award of damages include elements of as indefinite and intangible a nature as are included by our own courts."