Municipal Corporations Can Compromise
Disputed Claims

A municipal or other public corporation has the power to settle and compromise disputed claims in its favor or against it before or after suit has been begun thereon. This power is implied from the capacity to sue or to be sued. (Board of Commissioners of Orleans Levy District vs. Blythe, 113 Southern Reporter, 150, decided by the Louisiana Supreme Court.)

On the Closing of a Street, Title to the Land in the Bed of the Street Vests

in Abutting Owners

The Kentucky Court of Appeals follows the prevailing holding by courts by deciding, in the case of People's Savings Bank & Trust Company vs. Board of Trustees of South Side Baptist Church, 294 South Western Reporter, 804, that where a street is closed by legal action, title to the soil automatically vests in the owners of the abutting property.

Four Burglars Did Not Constitute a "Mob" for Whose Misdeeds a City Would be Liable

Four men broke into a house in Kansas City, Kans., ransacked it, and beat a member of the household. She sued the city for damages, under the Kansas statute making cities liable for damages caused by mobs.

Reversing a decision of the trial court, the Supreme Court of the state holds in the case of Koska vs. Kansas City, 255 Pacific Reporter, 57, that the case did not come within the statute. The higher court declares that the statute was not intended to cover such crimes as this.

Ohio Counties Can Upon Consent Construct
Bridges on Roads Through Cities

A board of county commissioners is authorized by the provisions of sections 2421, 6949, and 7557, Ohio General Code, to construct a bridge or viaduct as a part of a road improvement into, within, or through a municipality in such county upon the consent of the council thereof, and where no part of the expense of the improvement is assumed by the municipality the requirement of consent is fully met by the affirmative vote of a majority of the duly elected members of the council for the passage of an ordinance granting the consent. (Ohio Supreme Court, State vs. Blakemore, 157 Northeastern Reporter, 330.)

Municipality Operating Water Plant is
Subject to an Ordinary Employer's
Liability

"A city or town operating its plant to furnish water for the inhabitants thereof assumes the same responsibilities to its employees operating such plant who may be injured therein as private persons and private corporations running similar plants," declares the official syllabus of the opinion of the Oklahoma Supreme Court in the case of Town of Hallett vs. Stephens, 256 Pacific Reporter, 921.

The Court also holds that where an employee of such a plant is injured through negligence attributable to the municipality, his right to recover damages is not defeated by the fact that he was employed in violation of nepotism laws of the state. In this case the father of the injured employee was a member of the town board.

An Estimate Approved by a City Engineer is Valid Although Not Prepared by Him

The legality of a sewer construction contract awarded by a city of the fourth class in Missouri was unsuccessfully attacked by a taxpayer on the ground that the engineers who prepared the estimates on which the contract was awarded were not officials of the city. The Kansas City Court of Appeals said (Grant City vs. Salmon, 288 South Western Reporter, 88:)

"The evidence shows that, while the city engineer, in fact, did not make the estimates, he signed them and thereby made them officially his own."

A City is Not Liable to an Abutter for Closing a Street for Repairs, Nor for the Contractor's Negligence

Temporary closing of a street while it is being repaired or the grade changed, being a necessary incident to keeping the street in reasonable condition for travel, the city is not liable for the inconvenience thereby caused abutting property owners. The contractor engaged in such work may be individually liable to an abutter for damages resulting from negligent performance, but the city is not responsible. (Kentucky Court of Appeals in the case of Board of Councilmen of City of Frankfort vs. Brammell, 294 Southwestern Reporter, 1076.)

Laying Water-Mains Constituted a Local Improvement Sustaining Special Assessments

Water-mains were held to confer such particular benefit upon business and industrial districts as to support a special assessment of the benefited property, in the case of Village of Downers Grove vs. Bailey, 156 North Eastern Reporter, 362. The court observed:

"Whether or not an improvement is local or general depends upon the nature of the improvement and whether the substantial benefits to be derived are local or general in their nature. If its purpose and effect are to improve a locality, it is a local improvement, although there is incidental benefit to the public, but, if the primary purpose and effect are to benefit the public, it is not a local improvement although it may incidentally benefit property in a particular locality. . . . The fact that an improvement will be of advantage to the city does not change its character as a local improvement, if primarily of material advantage to the adjacent property, and, where the improvement enhances the value of adjacent property as distinguished from benefits diffused by it throughout the municipality, it is a local improvement."

City Can Regulate But Not Prevent Operation of a Long-established Interstate Ferry

McNeely operated a ferry for twenty years across the Mississippi between Natchez, Miss., and Vidalia, La. He owned the lots abutting upon the river at the Vidalia landing, which extended on both sides of a street extending to the landing. The town of Vidalia terminated his license, granting an exclusive one to the city of Natchez and its assigns. That city assigned its rights to a company which instituted a new ferry, and the town of Vidalia assigned the entire landing to that company. Litigation followed, and on June 6, 1927, the United States Supreme Court handed down its decision in the case. (Mayor and Aldermen of the Town of Vidalia vs. McNeely.) This is the substance of that tribunal's conclusions reached in affirming a decree entered in McNeely's favor by a lower court:

Transportation of persons or property from one state to another constitutes interstate commerce subject to Congressional regulation. In the absence of such regulations, the states are left free to act with respect to ferriage from their shores, by fixing reasonable rates and providing measures to secure safety and convenience in the conduct of the business.

But the town exceeded its powers in this case when it undertook to exclude McNeely from the privilege of continuing his long-established business, and the lower court rightfully assigned landing places for both ferries-one on each side of the street above mentioned.

That McNeely owned the lots on both sides of the street at the river's edge gave him no superior rights, because under the Louisiana statutes the rights of such riparian owners are held subject to public use in connection with navigation.

does not follow that alien race and allegiance may not bear in some instances such a relation to a legitimate object of legislation as to be made the basis of a permitted classification.

The

"The admitted allegations of the answer set up the harmful and vicious tendencies of public billiard and pool rooms, of which this Court took judicial notice in Murphy v. California, 225 U. S. 623, 32 S. Ct. 697, 56 L. Ed. 1229, 41 L.R.A. (N.S.) 153. The regulation or even prohibition of the business is not forbidden. present regulation presupposes that aliens in Cincinnati are not as well qualified as citizens to engage in this business. It is not necessary that we be satisfied that this premise is well founded in experience. We cannot say that the City Council gave unreasonable weight to the view admitted by the pleadings that the associations, experiences and interests of members of the class disqualified the class as a whole from conducting a business of dangerous tendencies.

"It is enough for present purposes that the ordinance, in the light of facts admitted or generally assumed, does not preclude the possibility of a rational basis for the legislative judgment and that we have no such knowledge of local conditions as would enable us to say that it is clearly wrong."

Consideration of a Statute Creating a Crime
Applying to Motor Homicides Less
Culpable Than Manslaughter

A Michigan law, enacted in 1921, makes one guilty of "negligent homicide" who carelessly, but not wantonly or wilfully, causes death while operating a vehicle at immoderate speed. The act provides that a finding of fact as to whether a given speed was negligent shall not depend upon the rate of speed fixed by law for operating vehicles.

This statute was closely considered by the Michigan Supreme Court in the case of People vs. Campbell, 212 North Western Reporter, 97. In that case five of the eight judges of that Court agreed that Campbell was entitled to a new trial, after a conviction under this statute.

The Court holds slight negligence on the part of the driver of a motor vehicle will not sustain a conviction under this statute; but that failure to use reasonable precaution for the safety of others in a highway does constitute a violation of the statute, assuming that the carelessness be less than gross negligence. If the negligence be gross, then, of course, a more serious crime-manslaughter-is committed.

The Court granted a new trial to Campbell, who accidentally killed two pedestrians in a highway after dark, on the ground that the trial judge's instructions to the jury did not properly state the law, in that they precluded the jury from considering whether or not carelessness on the part of the pedestrians contributed to the accident.

Massachusetts Initiates Important Law Governing Motor-Vehicle Accidents Caused by Non-Resident Drivers

A Massachusetts statute in substance provides that a non-resident of the state by driving upon its highways impliedly assents that he may be sued there on account of an accident occurring on a Massachusetts highway, and that summons may be served on the state registrar of motor vehicles in Massachusetts as his agent.

The validity of this law was attacked before the United States Supreme Court in the case of Hess vs. Pawloski, decided May 16, 1927, on the ground that is violated the constitutional guaranty of due process of law. But the Court holds that the statute is valid, especially since it does not apply to suits on matters arising outside of the state, and since it provides for service of a copy of the summons on the non-resident and provides for giving him reasonable opportunity to appear and defend.

The obvious object of the law is to afford residents of Massachusetts a chance to sue negligent drivers in the courts of that state, rather than to necessitate pursuit of them into the states where they live.

By the holding that a non-resident impliedly assents that process may be served on the Massachusetts registrar as his agent, it is not to be inferred that it is essential that a non-resident be aware of the existence of the statute while driv ing in the state.