section and the true southern boundary of the McKey tract;" and then directed the jury thus: "If you believe from the evidence that the centre of the street is the centre east and west line of the quarter section, then you are also instructed that it was and still is the true boundary line, and that the plaintiff not entitled to land de- scribed in the declaration on the theory that the Greeley survey was correct;" Held, that this was erroneous as it in effect directed the jury to find that the plaintiff was not entitled to recover; and, as the evi- dence was conflicting, that was a question to be determined by the jury. McKey v. Hyde Park, 84.
2. When there is no evidence to warrant a verdict for the plaintiff, so that if such a verdict were returned it would be the duty of the court to set it aside, a verdict may be directed for the defendant. Gunther v. Liver- pool and London Ins. Co., 110.
3. It is settled law in this court that when the evidence given at the trial, with all the inferences that the jury could justifiably draw from it, is insufficient to support a verdict for the plaintiff, so that such a verdict, if returned, must be set aside, the court is not bound to submit the case to the jury, but may direct a verdict for the defendant; while, on the other hand, the case should be left to the jury, unless the conclu- sion follows, as matter of law, that no recovery can be had upon any view which can be properly taken of the facts which the evidence tends to establish. Louisville & Nashville Railroad Co. v. Woodson, 614.
CRIMINAL LAW.
1. Section 5467 of the Revised Statutes creates two distinct classes of offences: the one relating to the embezzlement of letters, etc.; the other relating to stealing their contents. United States v. Lacher, 624. 2. Section 3891 and 5467 of the Revised Statutes are to be construed together the offences of secreting, embezzling or destroying mail matter which contains articles of value being punishable under the one, and like the offences as to mail matter which does not contain such articles being. punishable under the other. Ib.
See INDICTMENT.
DEDICATION.
In Illinois the inference that an owner of land has dedicated it to the pub- lic for use as a street can only be drawn from acts which show an actual intention to so dedicate it, or from acts which equitably estop the owner from denying such intention. McKey v. Hyde Park, 84.
DEED.
The Supreme Court of the District of Columbia at special term confirmed a sale of real estate by a trustee without notice having been given to interested parties. Those parties subsequently appeared, and on their motion, after notice and hearing, the sale was vacated and the trustee at whose request it was made was removed; Held, that an appeal lay from that decree to the general term of the court. Kenaday v. Ed- wards, 117.
EMBEZZLEMENT.
See CRIMINAL LAW, 1, 2; INDICTMENT.
1. Where, in a court of equity, an apparent legal burden on property is challenged, the court has jurisdiction of a cross bill to enforce, by its own procedure, such burden. Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway v. Third National Bank, 276.
2. The court which denies legal remedies, may enforce equitable remedies for the same debt; and an application for the latter is not foreign to a bill for the former. Ib.
3. A cross bill may be amended so as to work a change in the ground of the relief sought, when the proofs which make it necessary are fur- nished by the original complainant in support of allegations in his bill. Ib.
4. A lessee of a railroad, receiving money to be expended on the leased property, and misappropriating it by spending it on another property, cannot, by afterwards spending an equal amount of its own money on the leased property, deprive a creditor of the lessor of an equitable right growing out of the misappropriation. Ib.
5. When a Circuit Court of the United States in Illinois obtains jurisdic- tion in equity of a proceeding to establish title to real estate under the act of the legislature of that State of April 9, 1872, known as the "Burnt Records Act," in a case within the provisions of the act, it may, following the decisions of the courts of the State, proceed to adjudicate and determine in equity all the issues between the parties relating to the property, as well those at law as those in equity; and it is entirely within its discretion whether it will or will not send the issues at law to be determined by a jury. Gormley v. Clark, 338. 6. It is no error in a court of equity to order buildings removed from a tract of land over which a party to the record has a right of way for ingress to and egress from his own property. Ib.
7. An insolvent corporation, with large properties scattered in different States, having, for the purpose of keeping those properties together as a whole, assented to the filing of a creditors' bill by three creditors,
(the debts of two of them not having matured and no execution hav- ing been issued on that of the third,) and having assented to the appointment of a receiver under that bill, and having for nine months lain inactive while the receiver was managing the property and assum- ing liabilities in reducing it to possession, cannot at the expiration of that time, when the great majority of its creditors have become parties to the suit, and its property is about to be ratably distributed by the court among all its creditors, interpose the objection of want of juris- diction on the ground that a court of equity could not obtain jurisdic- tion when the plaintiff's creditors had plain, adequate and complete remedies at the common law, or that their debts had not been con- verted into judgments, or that no execution had issued and been re- turned nulla bona-whatever weight might have been given to those defences if interposed in the first instance. Brown v. Lake Superior Iron Co., 530.
8. The maxim that "he who seeks equity must do equity" is applicable to the defendant as well as to the complainant. Ib.
9. Good faith and early assertion of rights are as essential on the part of a defendant in equity as they are on the part of the complainant. Ib. 10. When a mortgagee of real estate asserts in equity his rights as against a tax-sale of the estate alleged by him to have been made collusively in conjunction with the mortgagor for the purpose of getting rid of the mortgage for the benefit of the mortgagor, he may either proceed against the purchaser alone, or against the purchaser and the mort- gagor and in any event it is not necessary for him to make tender of the payment of the amount of the tax for which the estate was sold. Mendenhall v. Hall, 559.
11. In Illinois, a decree against a minor is subject to attack, by an original bill, for error apparent on the record, for want of jurisdiction, or for fraud. Kingsbury v. Buckner, 650.
12. In Illinois, the rule is that a decree against an infant is absolute in the first instance, subject to the right to attack it by original bill, but until so attacked, and set aside or reversed, on error or appeal, it is binding to the same extent as any other decree or judgment. The right to so attack it may be exercised at any time before the infant attains his majority, or at any time afterwards within the period in which he may prosecute a writ of error for the reversal of such decree. Ib. 13. A decree is subject to attack by original bill for fraud, even after judgment in the appellate court; but a party, whether an infant or adult, against whom a decree is rendered by direction of the appellate court, cannot impeach it, by bill filed in the court of first instance, merely for errors apparent on the record, that do not involve the juris- diction of either court. Ib.
14. In Illinois, a cross-bill is regarded as an adjunct or part of the original suit, the whole together constituting one case; and process against the plaintiff is not necessary upon a cross-bill, even where he is an infant. Ib.
15. The plaintiff, by his bill, claimed to own certain real estate, by inheri- tance from his father, to whom the defendants had conveyed it by deed, absolute in form, and prayed for a decree confirming and establishing his title. The defendants, by cross-bill, alleged that the deed was made and accepted for the purpose of placing the title in trust for the bene- fit of one of the defendants, and asked a decree to that effect; Held, That the subject matter of the cross-bill was germane to that of the original bill. Ib.
![[blocks in formation]](https://books.google.bg/books/content?id=oNEGAAAAYAAJ&hl=bg&output=html_text&pg=PA776&img=1&zoom=3&q=%22carrier,+within+the+time+specified,+shall+make+reparation+for+the+injury+alleged+to+have+been+done,+said+carrier+shall+be%22&cds=1&sig=ACfU3U39av68blhLNP_WmYRnHxOZ7JjFog&edge=0&edge=stretch&ci=266,376,543,109)
1. In the trial before a jury of an issue made up in a Probate Court as to the incompetency of a deceased person, from unsoundness of mind or undue influence, to make a will, declarations made by the deceased to a witness that he received the bulk of his estate by breaking the will of his grandfather, who was also the ancestor of the caveators, and that his estate consisted in a great degree of that property and its accumulations; and also declarations of one of the legateės, made about, or after the date of the execution of the alleged will, that she had knowledge at that time of the execution of the will and of its pro- visions, should be excluded from the jury. Ormsby v. Webb, 47. 2. On the trial of that issue it was proper for the jury to consider whether the undue influence alleged to have been exercised by a particular lega- tee in respect to other matters extended to or controlled the execution of the will, and give it such weight as, they might deem proper. Ib. 3. An instruction to the jury, at such trial, that if they should believe the evidence of a witness named, they must find for the will, while appar- ently objectionable, as giving undue prominence to the testimony of that witness, was held, in view of the scope of her evidence, not to have been erroneous. Ib.
1. A state statute, (enacted after the commission of a murder in the State,) which adds to the punishment of death, (that being the punish- ment when the murder was committed,) the further punishment of imprisonment by solitary confinement until the execution, is, when attempted to be enforced against the person convicted of that murder, an ex post facto law, and & sentence inflicting both punishments upon him is void; and the same is the case with a statute which confers upon the warden of the penitentiary the power to fix the day of exe- cution, and compels him to withhold the knowledge of it from the offender, when neither of those provisions formed part of the law of the State when the offence was committed. Medley, Petitioner, 160. 2. Any law passed after the commission of the offence for which a person
accused of crime is being tried which inflicts a greater punishment on the crime than the law annexed to it at the time when it was committed, or which alters the situation of the accused to his disadvantage, is an ez post facto law within the meaning of that term as used in the Con- stitution of the United States. Ib.
3. No one can be criminally punished in this country except according to a law prescribed for his government by the sovereign authority before the imputed offence was committed, or by some law passed afterwards by which the punishment is not increased. Ib.
![[ocr errors]](https://books.google.bg/books/content?id=oNEGAAAAYAAJ&hl=bg&output=html_text&pg=PA777&img=1&zoom=3&q=%22carrier,+within+the+time+specified,+shall+make+reparation+for+the+injury+alleged+to+have+been+done,+said+carrier+shall+be%22&cds=1&sig=ACfU3U2SQ2kskpMjl9bFn57_q065oz5g2Q&edge=0&edge=stretch&ci=114,392,8,7)
4. There being no error in the proceedings of the court below on the trial and the verdict by which the party was convicted, and the error com- mencing only when the sentence or judgment of the court on the verdict is entered, the court, after deliberation, determines that the Attorney General of the State shall be notified by the warden of the penitentiary, of the precise time when he will release the prisoner from his custody, at least ten days beforehand, and after doing this, and at that time, he shall discharge the prisoner. Ib.
See COMMISSIONERS OF CIRCUIT COURTS.
Various charges of fraud and collusion upon the part of a guardian ad litem examined and held not to be outlawed. Kingsbury v. Buckner, 650.
See INFANT, 1, 3; JURISDICTION, D. 3.
1. The writ of habeas corpus cannot be used as a writ of error to inquire into all the errors committed by the court below. In re Wight, 136. 2. In a proceeding for a habeas corpus to release from confinement a letter carrier charged with embezzling letters delivered to him for carriage, this court will not inquire into the motives with which the letter was put into the mail, even though the object was to detect or entrap the party into criminal practices. Ib.
1. The rule cbtains in New York, and is recognized by this court, that even a voluntary conveyance from husband to wife is good as against subsequent creditors, unless it was made with the intent to defraud such subsequent creditors; or, unless there was secrecy in the trans- action, by which knowledge of it was withheld from such creditors who dealt with the grantor, upon the faith of his owning the property transferred; or, unless the transfer was made with a view of entering into some new and hazardous business, the risk of which the grantor
« ПредишнаНапред » |