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The Green Bag

explain the will, but merely to explain what passes by the will by ascertaining the only prop erty to which it could possibly have any refer ence. A much more definite result. . .has been reached than in Scotland." Workmen's Compensation. "Workmen's Compensation Acts: Their Theory and Their Constitutionality." By Eugene Wambaugh. 25 Harvard Law Review 129 (Dec.). "Nothing in the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States appears to prevent legislative bodies from shifting the primary incid ence of the financial burden of an employee's accident from the employee himself to the em ployer — that is to say, from one to the other of

the two persons who jointly enter upon the industrial undertaking and who thus participate in creating the situation out of which will come the casualty and the resultant loss to society. "The conclusion, then, is that, whether work men's compensation acts are desirable or not, their essential features, both by reason and by the weight of decision, are constitutional. Appar ently in large industrial enterprises the fellowservant rule, assumption of risk, and contribu tory negligence are under sentence of death. That is a matter for the statesman and the legis lator. To the mere lawyer it is clear enough that these old defenses are not rendered invul nerable and immortal by the Constitution of the United States." See Constitutionality of Statutes.

Latest Important Cases Employers' Liability. Constitu tionality of Federal Statute — FellowServant Rule — Interstate Commerce. U.S. The constitutionality of the federal employers' liability law of 1908 was up held by the Supreme Court of the United States Jan. 15. The Court also decided that state courts may enforce that act when local laws are appropriate. The question came before the Court in a number of cases heard together in February, 1911. The principal case was that of Ora L. Babcock v. Northern Pacific Ry. Co. The decision was unanimous and a complete victory for the Government on every point. Mr. Justice Vandevanter declared that Congress had the right to regulate the relation of inter state railroads to their employees. Con gress had not gone beyond its power by abrogating the common-law rule that an employer was not liable for the in juries resulting to employees by the negligence of fellow servants. "No one has a vested property right in the com mon law," said the Court, which found that the present law did not regulate

intra-state commerce and therefore was not objectionable on that ground. No objection was found in the fact that the act did away with the doctrine of assumption of risk by employees and restricted the doctrine of contributory negligence. The first law, enacted in 1906, was declared unconstitutional in 1908 be cause it embraced within its terms a regulation of intra-state commerce as well as interstate. Inheritance Taxes. Gifts inter Vivos — Fourteenth Amendment — Due Process and Equal Protection of the Laws. U.S. The United States Supreme Court in Kenney v. Comptroller of the State of New York (Oct. term, no. 81) decided Jan. 9, held the New York inheritance law not violative of the Fourteenth Amendment in so far as it imposes a tax upon property transferred inter vivos. The decedent, whose administrator brought the action, had executed a deed four years before her death conveying certain stocks and bonds to a New Jersey trustee, for the benefit of her three chil