faith and credit to the Tennessee adjudication of sanity. It was disputed whether the plaintiff had become a citizen of Tennessee, but the Supreme Court did not pass on this and therefore was relieved from deciding whether a determination of capacity by a court of the person's domicile must be respected in other jurisdictions. The decree dismissing the bill is based on the ground that, since Louisiana provided that an interdiction could be revoked only by the same solemnities which were observed in pronouncing it, the plaintiff must go to the court in which he had been pronounced insane. "Whatever may be the conclusiveness of the Tennessee decree it cannot operate upon the interdiction directly. At most it can only furnish ground for a conclusive right to have the interdiction removed Assuming

that the plaintiff has every other right that he says, he cannot pursue his rights across country, but must proceed along the road that Louisiana law provides." Mr. Justice Holmes remarks that this ground of decision "may be called a matter of form rather than substance." But "upon that," he says, "we are not curious to inquire. It is enough that the reason seems to us sufficient."

In Hartford Life Ins. Co. v. Barber110 a Missouri court was reversed because it failed to apply a Connecticut judgment on the power of a Connecticut insurance company to increase its assessments on members. This judgment had been rendered in a "class suit," by which all members of the company were held to be bound. In the course of dismissing an alleged distinction. between the controversy in Missouri and that previously adjudicated in Connecticut, Mr. Justice Holmes declared that "the powers given by the Connecticut charter are entitled to the same credit elsewhere as the judgment of the Connecticut court." In support of this statement he cited Royal Arcanum v. Green," thus strengthening the implication to be drawn from the opinion in that case to the effect that the duty of a state to accept the law of a sister state as to the powers of corporations of that state

119 (1917) 245 U. S. 146. See 87 Central Law Journal 2, and 27 Yale Law Journal 406, 547.

is not limited to suits in which some privity can be established between the litigants before the court and those in earlier proceedings in the court of the sister state. The Supreme Court seems to be feeling its way towards a doctrine that the fullfaith-and-credit clause compels the acceptance by sister states of the law of the home state of a corporation with respect to the powers of that corporation, quite independently of the familiar principle that a litigant is bound by judgment to which he was a party or privy. But the suggestions in the opinions run ahead of the actual decisions, and their force and scope are therefore uncertain.

In connection with this development, note should be taken of New York Life Ins. Co. v. Dodge112 which reversed a Missouri judgment on a Missouri insurance policy, on the ground that the Missouri court incorrectly applied a Missouri rather than a New York statute to determine whether the policy was forfeited by failure to pay a loan secured by it. The Missouri court held that, since the policy was a Missouri contract, the question whether it had subsequently been forfeited depended on Missouri law. The Supreme Court, however, held that the determining issue was the validity of the agreement made in connection with the loan, that this loan was a New York contract, and that to apply the Missouri law would cause the Missouri statute to operate extraterritorially and would deprive the insurance company of property without due process of law by treating as invalid a contract valid where made and to be performed. The right of Missouri citizens to make extra-state contracts of this kind was declared a part of the liberty of contract guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, so that no assumed power of Missouri over foreign insurance corporations admitted to Missouri could be used to defeat the right of Missouri citizens to make contracts elsewhere.

Mr. Justice Brandeis wrote a dissenting opinion, in which Justices Day, Pitney and Clarke concurred. He insisted that the loan on the policy was really made and to be paid in Missouri,

112 (1918) 246 U. S. 357.

but declared that, even if it were agreed that it was a New York contract, the Constitution does not require that the New York loan agreement must defeat rights under the Missouri law in the Missouri policy of insurance. Missouri may provide that Missouri contracts may not be invalidated by later agreements which Missouri does not recognize. It may not control the validity of the loan made elsewhere, but it may control the effect on Missouri contracts of the nonpayment of the loan, at least to the extent of furnishing the rule of decision for Missouri courts. The state's power over the foreign corporation may be exercised to forbid it to defeat rights arising from Missouri policies, and the corporation cannot be heard to object that the Missouri law abridges the privileges of Missouri citizens to make contracts in other states.

X. ADMINISTRATIVE POWER AND PROCEDURE

New York & Queens Gas Co. v. McCalls declared that the only federal questions open in complaints against the orders of state utility commissions are whether "there was such a want of hearing or such arbitrary or capricious action on the part of the commission as to violate the due process clause of the Constitution." In the case at bar the procedure by which the commission reached its determination was clearly ample. The company had appeared, introduced evidence, cross-examined witnesses and argued the case. The case had been reëxamined on certiorari by one state court and reviewed on appeal by another, both of which had sustained the order compelling the extension of gas mains to a new and rapidly growing suburb. There was contradictory evidence as to the cost of the extension and the probable immediate returns; but the Supreme Court declined to analyze and balance the evidence, and declared that it had no power to review the wisdom of the administrative determination. It found no difficulty in sustaining the order, in view of the fact that there was no claim that such loss as might ensue would

11 (1917) 245 U. S. 315. See 2 Cornell Law Quarterly 126, 31 Harvard Law

render the business as a whole unprofitable, Mr. Justice Clarke declaring: "Corporations which devote their property to a public use may not pick and choose, serving only the portions of the territory covered by their franchises which it is presently profitable for them to serve and restricting the development of the remaining portions by leaving their inhabitants in discomfort without the service which they alone can render. To correct this disposition to serve where it is profitable and to neglect where it is not, is one of the important purposes for which these administrative commissions, with large powers, were called into existence, with an organization and with duties which peculiarly fit them for dealing with problems such as this case presents."

Louisville & N. R. Co. v. United States114 indicates that a strong case must be presented before the court will consider seriously a complaint against a refusal of the interstate commerce commission to exempt an interstate carrier from the prohibition against charging more for a shorter than for a longer haul. The evidence before the commission was conflicting, but since there was ample to sustain the finding, it was held conclusive. Mr. Justice Brandeis said that all of the assignments of error "are unsound" and that "none deserves detailed discussion." It was affirmed specifically that the order did not deny due process because it "was broader than the hearing held in connection therewith," or because "the Commission failed to act on 'other phases' of the application."

In Rosen v. United States, 115 a regulation of the post office department designating private mail boxes as "authorized depositories of mail matter" was said to have the "force and effect of law," so that larceny from such private boxes was punishable under the statute punishing larceny from "authorized depositories."'116

114 (1918) 245 U. S. 463.

115 (1918) 245 U. S. 467. See 86 Central Law Journal 95, 257, 16 Michigan Law Review 387, 63 Ohio Law Bulletin 141, and 27 Yale Law Journal 572.

116 For cases sustaining administrative action in relation to Indian lands, see Anicker v. Gunsberg, 246 U. S. 110; Northern Pac. Ry. Co. v. Wismer, 246 U. S. 283; and United States v. Ferguson, 247 U. S. 175, all decided in 1918.

For a case in which tests used for ascertaining the quality of tea were held to be outside the power delegated to the secretary of the treasury, see Waite v. Macy, (1918) 246 U. S. 606.

XI. BANKRUPTCY

The decision in Stellwagen v. Clum" that certain provisions of the Ohio insolvency laws were not suspended by the federal Bankruptcy Act was based on familiar constitutional principles that such state laws are suspended only in so far as they actually conflict with the federal enactment, and that a federal law is not lacking in the requisite uniformity because it gives to the trustee the rights which general creditors may have under state laws, even though this produces different results in different states. The Ohio law was held not to be a bankruptcy law, since it did not provide for the discharge of the debtor but merely regulated the distribution of his assets. In applying the principles to the case at bar, the court allowed the trustee the benefit of a state law making a transfer void as against creditors, although the transfer would have been impeccable under the federal law except for its adoption of the state law.

117 (1918) 245 U. S. 605. See 16 Michigan Law Review 540.