Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 21.pdf/440

 Latest Important Cases* Agency. Duty of Agent to Inform Prin cipal before Purchasing Inferior Goods. N.J. In an action brought by Edmund Lissburger, a New York merchant, against David M. Kellogg and others, wool brokers at Buenos Ayres, the New Jersey Supreme Court handed down an opinion June 9 written by Justice Swayze, which sustained a large verdict for damages recovered by the plain tiff. Lissburger ordered from the defend ants 300 bales of wool of certain grades, but the agents, being unable to secure the grades ordered, shipped an inferior quality. The Court held that an agent buying goods abroad, if he cannot procure the goods desired, is required to inform his principal, and if he buys and ships inferior goods in filling the order he is liable for damages. Automobiles. Unregistered Machine a Trespasser on the Highway— Reasonable Care Rule not Applicable. Mass. Unregistered automobiles are outlawed, and have no other rights in the highway than that of being exempt from wanton or willful injury, according to a decision of the Supreme Judi cial Court of Massachusetts sent down June 22 in the suit of E. L. Dudley, a wholesale liquor dealer of Bridgeport, Conn., against the Northampton Street Railway Company, with whose trolley car he collided. The fifteen days allowed for the use of the highways by non-residents without having their machines registered had expired. The Court ruled:— "The plaintiff, as a mere trespasser upon the highway, was there not only against the right of the owner of the soil and so liable to an action by him, but also against the rights of all persons who were lawfully using the highway. He was violating a law made for their protection; accordingly, he was a trespasser as to them. It follows that the defendant, which was lawfully using the high way with its cars, owed to the plaintiff no other or further duty than that which it ♦Copies of the pamphlet Reporters containing full reports of any of these decisions which are cited in the National Reporter System may be secured from the West Publishing Company, St. Paul, Minnesota, at 25 cents each. In ordering, the title of the desired case should be given as weli as the citation of volume and page of the Reporter in which it is printed.

would owe to any trespasser upon its prop erty, that is not the duty of ordinary care, as those words are commonly used, but merely the duty to abstain from injuring him by wantonness or gross negligence." Barratry. Statute Forbidding Lawyers to Solicit Business Not Outside Police Power— Right to Liberty and Happiness. Wash. In Washington, an attorney is prohibited from soliciting employment either directly or indirectly. A breach of these restrictions is termed barratry for which the offender may be disbarred. Appellant in State v. Rossman, 101 Pac. Rep. 357, had been charged with slander, perjury, fraud upon those employed to solicit business and barratry. He con tended that the right to practise law was a natural right guaranteed by the Constitution and the barratry statute deprived him of his right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness in that he was forbidden to use his faculties as he chose in his vocation. The Washington Supreme Court thought the disbarment proper, remarking that the practice of law is not a constitutional right, but one granted by the state, which may surround it with reasonable restrictions. Bill of Rights. Contract Rights Not Invaded by Ordinance Requiring a Removal of Street Tracks which is to be Enforced by Suit—Juris diction of Federal Courts. U. S. Mr. Justice Holmes's opinion in the case of Des Moines v. Des Moines City Ry. Co., de cided May 17 by the United States Supreme Court (L. ed. adv. sheets, Oct. term 1908, p. 553), was in part as follows:— "This is a bill brought in the Circuit Court by an Iowa corporation against a city of Iowa. The ground of jurisdiction is that a resolu tion of the city council of that city is a law impairing the obligation of contracts within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States, and, if carried out, will take the prop erty of the corporation without due process of law contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment. The Circuit Court granted an injunction against the enforcement of the resolution, and the defendant appealed to this Court. . . . "We are of opinion that this is not a law impairing the rights alleged by the appellee, and therefore that the jurisdiction of the