1. When, under a contract to sell real estate, the vendor delivers to the
vendee a deed of conveyance for the purpose of examination, its reci-
tals, if the memorandum of sale is not fatally defective under the
statute of frauds, are competent for the purpose of showing the pre-
cise locality of the parcel referred to in the memorandum. Ryan v.
United States, 68.
2. Evidence that a medical man, who had been in the habit of contribu-
ting articles to scientific journals was unable to do so by reason of in-
juries caused by a defect in a public street is admissible in an action
to recover damages from the municipality, without showing that he
received compensation for the articles. District of Columbia v. Wood-
bury, 450.
3. The admission of incompetent evidence at the trial below is no
cause for reversal if it could not possibly have prejudiced the other
party. Ib.
4. General objections at the trial below, to the admission of testimony,
without indicating with distinctness the precise grounds on which they
are intended to rest, are without weight before the appellate court. Ib.
5. The stenographic report of an oral opinion of the court below, as
reported by the reporter of that court, cannot be referred to to control
the record certified to this court. Ib.
6. The minute book of a court of chancery is competent and conclusive
evidence of its doings, in the absence of an extended record.
Thaw v.
Ritchie, 519.
See EXTRADITION, 3;
INSURANCE, 8, 9, 10.
EXECUTIVE.
See SECRETARY OF WAR.
1. A writ of habeas corpus in a case of extradition cannot perform the office
of a writ of error. In re Oteiza v. Cortes, 330.
2. If the commissioner has jurisdiction of the subject matter and of the
person of the accused, and the offence charged is within the terms of
a treaty of extradition, and the commissioner, in arriving at a decision
to hold the accused, has before him competent legal evidence on which
to exercise his judgment as to whether the facts are sufficient to
establish the criminality of the accused for the purposes of extradi-
tion, such decision of the commissioner cannot be reviewed by a Cir-
cuit Court or by this court, on habeas corpus, either originally or by
appeal. Ib.
3. In § 5 of the act of August 3, 1882, c. 378, (22 Stat. 216,) the words
"for similar purposes" méan, "as evidence of criminality," and depo-
sitions, or other papers, or copies thereof, authenticated and certified
in the manner prescribed in § 5, are not admissible in evidence, on the
hearing before the commissioner, on the part of the accused. Ib.
FEME COVERT.
See LOCAL LAW, 9.
1. Under the Michigan statute of frauds it is not essential that the descrip-
tion in a memorandum for the sale of real estate should have such
particulars and tokens of identification as to render a resort to extrin-
sic evidence needless when the writing comes to be applied to the
subject matter; but it must be sufficient to comprehend the property
which is the subject of the contract, so that, with the aid of extrinsic
evidence, without being contradicted or added to, it can be connected
with and applied to the tract intended, to the exclusion of other par-
cels. Ryan v. United States, 68.
2. A complete contract, binding under the statute of frauds, may be
gathered from letters, writings and telegrams between the parties re-
lating to its subject matter, and so connected with each other that they
may fairly be said to constitute one paper relating to the contract. Ib.
GUARDIAN AND WARD.
See DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, 3, 4, 5, 6.
1. On a body execution issued against a debtor on a judgment in the Cir-
cuit Court of the United States for the District of Massachusetts, his
arrest was authorized on the ground that he had property not exempt
which he did not intend to apply to pay the judgment claim. Notice
having been given to the creditor that the debtor desired to take the
oath for the relief of poor debtors, his examination was begun before
a United States commissioner. Pending this, charges of fraud were
filed against him, in having fraudulently disposed of property, with a
design to secure the same to his own use and to defraud his creditors.
His examination as a poor debtor was suspended, and a hearing was
had on the charges of fraud. After the testimony thereon was closed,
the commissioner refused to resume the poor debtor examination, and
then sustained the charges of fraud and sentenced the debtor to be
imprisoned for six months. His examination as a poor debtor was
not read to him and corrected, and he did not sign or swear to it, and
the commissioner refused to administer to him the oath for the re-
lief of poor debtors. He was then taken into custody under the ex-
ecution and lodged in jail. On a hearing on a writ of habeas corpus
the Circuit Court discharged such writ and remanded him to the cus-
tody of the marshal. On an appeal to this court; Held, that the order
must be affirmed. Stevens v. Fuller, 468.
2. As the commissioner had jurisdiction of the subject matter and of the
person of the debtor, any errors or irregularities in the proceedings
could not be reviewed by the Circuit Court on habeas corpus, or by
this court, on the appeal. Ib.
3. A District Court of the United States has no authority in law to issue a
writ of habeas corpus to restore an infant to the custody of its father,
when unlawfully detained by its grand-parents. In re Burrus, 586.
See CASES AFFIRMED, 1;
EXTRADITION, 1.
HUSBAND AND WIFE.
See LOCAL LAW, 9.
See CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, A, 11, 12;
INSOLVENT DEBTOR.
See LOCAL LAW, 10, 11.
1. A condition in a policy of fire insurance, that any difference arising
between the parties as to the amount of loss or damage of the prop-
erty insured shall be submitted, at the written request of either party,
to the appraisal of competent and impartial persons, whose award
shall be conclusive as to the amount of loss or damage only, and shall
not determine the question of the liability of the insurance company;
that the company shall have the right to take the whole or any part of
the property at its appraised value; and that, until such appraisal and
award, no loss shall be payable or action maintainable; is valid. And
if the company requests in writing that the loss or damage be sub-
mitted to appraisers in accordance with the condition, and the assured
refuses to do so unless the company will consent in advance to define
the legal powers and duties of the appraisers, and against the protest
of the company asserts and exercises the right to sell the property
before the completion of an award, he can maintain no action upon
the policy. Hamilton v. Liverpool, London and Globe Ins. Co., 242.
2. When, by inadvertence, accident or mistake, a policy of insurance does
not correctly set forth the contract personally made between the par-
ties, equity may reform it so as to express the real agreement. Thomp
son v. Phenix Ins. Co., 287.
3. A policy of fire insurance, running to a particular person as receiver in
a named suit, provided that it should become void "if any change
takes place in title or possession, (except in case of succession by
reason of the death of the assured,) whether by legal process, or
judicial decree, or voluntary transfer or conveyance;" Held, (1) That
this clause does not necessarily import that a change of receivers dur-
ing the life of the policy would work a change either in title or pos-
session; (2) That the title is not in the receiver, but in those for whose
benefit he holds the property; (3) That in a legal sense the property
was not in his possession, but in the possession of the court, through
him as its officer.
4. The principle reaffirmed that when a policy is so drawn as to require in-
terpretation, and to be fairly susceptible of two different constructions,
that one will be adopted which is most favorable to the insured. Ib.
5. Although the policy in this case provided that no action upon it should
be maintained after the expiration of twelve months from the date of
the fire, yet the benefit of this clause might be waived by the insurer,
and will be regarded as waived if the course of conduct of the insurer
was such as to induce the insured to delay bringing suit within the
time limited and if the insured delayed in consequence of hopes of
adjustment, held out by the insuring company, the latter will not be
permitted to plead the delay in bar of the suit. Ib.
6. Where a policy of marine insurance excepts losses and perils occasioned
by want of ordinary care and skill in navigation, or by want of sea-
worthiness, and a statute of the country to which the insured vessel
belongs requires all vessels to go at a moderate speed in a fog, and the
insured vessel, having a defective compass, is stranded while going at
full speed in a fog, and a loss ensues, the burden of proof is on the
insured to show that neither the speed at which the vessel was running
nor the defect in the compass could have caused, or contributed to
cause, the stranding. Richelieu and Ontario Navigation Co. v. Boston
Marine Ins. Co., 408.
7. The exception in a marine policy of losses occasioned by unseaworthi-
ness is, in effect, a warranty that a loss shall not be so occasioned, and
it is therefore immaterial whether a defect in the compass of the
vessel which amounts to unseaworthiness was or was not known before
the loss.
8. When in a policy of marine insurance it is provided that acts of the
insurers or their agents in recovering, saving and preserving the
property insured, in case of disaster, shall not be considered as an
acceptance of an abandonment, such acts in sending a wrecking party
on notice of a stranding of a vessel, in taking possession of it and in
repairing it, if done in ignorance of facts which vitiated the policy,
do not amount to acceptance of abandonment; but it is a question
for the jury to determine whether such acts, taken in connection with
all the facts, and with the provisions in the policy, amounted to such
an acceptance. Ib.
9. Although a protest by a master of a vessel after loss is ordinarily not
admissible in evidence during his lifetime, yet in this case it was
rightfully admitted, because it was made part of the proof of the
10. A stranded insured vessel, having been recovered and repaired, was
libelled and sold for the repairs, neither the owners nor the insurers
being willing to pay for them. In an action between the owners and
the insurer to recover the insurance; Held, that the record in that suit
was not admissible against the insurer to establish acceptance of an
abandonment. Ib.
A. OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES.
1. When the matter set up in a cross-bill is directly responsive to the
averments in the bill, and is directly connected with the transactions
which are set up in the bill as the gravamen of the plaintiff's case, the
amount claimed in the cross-bill may be taken into consideration in
determining the jurisdiction of this court on appeal from a decree on
the bill. Lovell v. Cragin, 130.
2. Under the will of a testatrix who resided in New York, Cornell Uni-
versity, a corporation of that State, was made her residuary legatee.
It was provided in its charter that it might hold real and personal
property to an amount not exceeding $3,000,000 in the aggregate.
The Court of Appeals of New York having held that it had no power
to take or hold any more real and personal property than $3,000,000 in
the aggregate, at the time of the death of the testatrix, and that, under
the jurisprudence of New York, her heirs at law and next of kin had a
right to avail themselves of that fact, if it existed, in the controversy
about the disposition of the residuary estate, this court held that such
decision of the Court of Appeals did not involve any federal question
and was binding upon this court. Cornell University v. Fiske, 152.
3. A federal question was involved in this case, arising under the act of
Congress of July 2, 1862, 12 Stat. 503, c. 130, granting lands to the
State of New York to provide a college for the benefit of agriculture
and the mechanic arts. lb.
4. Upon appeal from a decree in equity of the Circuit Court of the
United States accompanied by a certificate of division in opinion be-
tween two judges before whom the hearing was had, in a case in which
the amount in dispute is insufficient to give this court jurisdiction, its
jurisdiction is confined to answering the questions of law certified.
Union Bank v. Kansas City Bank, 223.
5. Upon the question of the construction and effect of a statute of a State,
regulating assignments for the benefit of creditors, the decisions of the
highest court of the State are of controlling authority in the courts of
the United States. Ib.
6. An appeal from a decree of the Circuit Court of the United States, dis-
missing a bill filed by creditors to set aside a mortgage by their debtor,
is within the jurisdiction of this court as to those creditors only whose
debts severally exceed $5000. Smith Middlings Purifier Co. v. Mc-
Groarty, 237.
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