by them. After such an investigation, the commission was authorized to "enter a decree of its findings and note thereon the names of the employers who fail or refuse to accept such minimum wage and to agree to abide by it.” A summary of the findings and the action of the employers was to be made public. A minimum wage was established for women employed in laundries, and respondents, who conducted laundries, were summoned to give evidence before the commission as to wages paid by them. They refused, and a petition was brought to compel them to testify. They resisted on the grounds that the portion of the statute which required them to give this evidence violated the fourteenth amendment by impairing freedom of contract; also that it compelled self-crimination. Held, that the statute was valid. Holcombe v. Creamer (1918, Mass.) 120 N. E. 354.

In holding the statute constitutional, the court points out that it does not establish a compulsory minimum wage, but leaves all concerned free to contract as they desire. The policy and aim of the statute is to enforce a minimum wage, not by direct legislative and judicial action but by the pressure of public opinion. The compulsory disclosure of rates furnishes the means by which the public can be accurately informed as to those employers who are not paying a fair wage. It is obvious how such publicity may bring about the result which the statute seeks to obtain. The statute therefore presents a simple and constitutional method of obtaining in large measure the benefits of a compulsory minimum wage law without raising the difficult questions of constitutionality which an attempt to introduce compulsion would involve.

STATUTE OF FRAUDS-CONTRACT NOT TO BE PERFORMED WITHIN A YEAR.-On Monday the plaintiff was employed by the defendant for a week's trial, and on the following Saturday morning an oral agreement was made for a year's service, the defendant saying: “You will have the whole year a job with me; you go ahead." The court construed this to mean that work under the new contract was to begin on the following Monday morning and not eo instanti on Saturday. Held, that the contract was not within the statute of frauds and was enforceable. Friedman v. Amster (1918, Sup. Ct. App. T.) 60 N. Y. L. J. 1229.

This is contrary to several previous decisions on the point in New York, but it has never been passed upon by the Court of Appeals. It is in harmony with decisions of the Supreme Court of Alabama and the Court of Appeal in England. Dickson v. Frisbee (1876) 52 Ala. 165; Smith v. Gold Coast Co. [1903] 1 K. B. 285. A careful review of all previous decisions on the point is made by Mr. Justice Bijur. The consistent tendency of all courts to take out of the statute as many cases as possible is no doubt beneficial, on the assumption that under prevailing conditions our courts can arrive at the truth in the absence of documentary evidence. The statute remains useful, however, being held in terrorem and causing most agreements of importance to be reduced to writing.

BOOK REVIEWS

Loan and Hire. By T. Baty, D.C.L. Tokio, Maruzen Co.; London, Sweet & Maxwell. 1918. pp. viii, 178.

This little volume contains an interesting re-statement of a considerable portion of the law of bailments. It represents, as well, a sort of cross-section through the law, cutting across such subjects as contracts, torts, property, and negotiable instruments. Herein may be seen the chief defect of the book; for in such brief compass it is impossible to treat adequately the principles necessarily involved. The work is chiefly in the field of contract, and the entire first chapter is devoted to a statement of the principles governing the formation of contracts in general. In the main, this statement is exceptionally clear and accurate, and it is full of acute observations. The author discusses well the rules relating to notice of acceptance of an offer; in the matter of delivery of a written document subject to a parol condition he sees a point overlooked by many learned writers; he agrees with Holland that the operative facts are the expressions of consent and not the mental consent itself. At the same time, in discussing impossibility, he apparently fails to perceive that the existing legal relations are frequently outright constructions of law not based upon any consent or any expression thereof.

That the subject carries the author into the field of torts is indicated by the fact that he discusses such cases as Allen v. Flood [1898] A. C. 1, and Blades v. Higgs (1861) 10 C. B. N. S. 713; yet he gives us no introductory discussion of the principles of tort.

In Loan and Hire the author has chosen a popular subject, one that is very difficult of technical definition or analysis. A loan of goods is very different from a loan of money, but both must be treated. Furthermore, the author's legal analysis and the statement of legal principle are so clear and suggestive that it is believed he would welcome the assistance he could obtain from the system of Professor W. N. Hohfeld as explained in Fundamental Legal Conceptions (1913) 23 YALE LAW JOURNAL, 16, and (1917) 26 ibid. 710.

A. L. C.

Manual of Federal Procedure, 2d edition. By Charles C. Montgomery. San Francisco, Bancroft-Whitney Company. 1918. pp. 1222.

From the time that Desty's Federal Procedure was first offered to an appreciative profession, the subjects of jurisdiction of, and pleading and practice in, the Federal courts have been attractive to text writers and digesters. Since 1887, successive changes in the judicial system and the radical changes worked by the new equity rules have thrown one-time valuable books into the discard and opened the most important part of the field to re-exploitation.

The latest contribution to the highly specialized subject of Federal Procedure is the second edition of Professor Charles C. Montgomery's Manual. We speak of this book with feelings of great satisfaction. The first thing that strikes us is the author's sense of proportion in his outline of the subject, and the symmetrical lines on which he has developed it. No less commendable is the author's happy combination of quoted statutes and rules with annotations and commentary in juxtaposition.

The author has gathered into one volume of convenient size all the statutes and court rules bearing on the subject of procedure, at law, in equity, and in

criminal cases, and the special procedure for removal and appeal and error. The book is the most satisfactory work on the subject that we know of, for both practitioner and student.

J. W.

Connecticut Workmen's Compensation Commission Digest, Vol. II, June 1, 1916, to May 31, 1918. Published by the State of Connecticut. Hartford. 1918. Part I, pp. 702, Part II, pp. 192.

This volume of compensation reports shows that the Connecticut Workmen's Compensation Commissioners are continuing to display the same conscientious, intelligent and able application of this wise act of constructive legislation to cases of industrial accidents that they have shown since they first commenced their work. The State Comptroller in the Preface points out that the decisions are selections only from among those made by the Commissioners and that each Commissioner has prepared his own decisions for publication, thus making uniformity of style impossible. The book is termed a "Digest" on the cover, a "Compendium of Awards" on the title page, and a "Compendium of Decisions" in the Preface, but its true nature as a volume of compensation reports is indicated by its proper title of "2 Connecticut Compensation Decisions." As such, a reporter is necessary to make a judicious selection of cases, which avoids duplication but nevertheless states the law fully. As it is, the usefulness of the book is much impaired by lack of careful editing. To cite but one example, only one case referred to under the appropriate index heading deals with a commissioner's power to amend or correct his own finding after appeal, and this is a ruling by a commissioner that he has no jurisdiction to act. If this is law, it is a serious defect in the statute, since the practice of the commissioners in filing their findings when the decision is made, rather than after submitted requests for findings from the parties-a practice which has much to commend it has the disadvantage that a fact necessary or important on appeal is often inadvertently omitted by the commissioner. At least one commissioner has, however, ruled repeatedly that he may supply such facts and the Supreme Court has seen no impropriety in his action. Careful editing would exclude all but the decisive ruling on a point, or, in default of such ruling, would supply all the decisions upon the point.

The reprinting of the Supreme Court decisions officially reported seems hardly necessary. In any event cross references by pages to the other reports of the same case would be helpful. It may be questioned whether on cases appealed to the Supreme Court the decision of the Compensation Commissioner and of the Superior Court should be printed, particularly where these decisions are reversed. The decision of the highest court is the only binding authority and the other decisions only occupy needed space, when they are not actually confusing.

The Index is not very complete and hence not very helpful. Thus there are thirty-three references without any discriminating sign under the one topic"arising out of employment." The fact that this second volume is itself in two parts each separately paged leads to confusion in citation. Moreover, many typographical errors have escaped the proof reader.

The reception accorded the first volume of this series shows that these reports are a necessary part of our compensation law. Because of this, as well as because of the intrinsic value of the decisions themselves, they deserve careful preparation under the direction of State authority before they are offered to the public in book form.

YALE

LAW JOURNAL

Vol. XXVIII

MARCH, 1919

No. 5

THE POWERS OF CONGRESS UNDER THE FULL FAITH AND CREDIT CLAUSE

WALTER WHEELER COOK

Professor of Law, Yale University

We have lived under the present Constitution of the United States for over a century and a quarter. At the end of that long period of time we are still disputing as to what legal effects must or will be given in our states to the "public acts, records and judicial proceedings" of other states. It is still to some extent uncertain when a judgment duly rendered in one state will be recognized as constituting a cause of action1 in another state; it is still more uncertain whether many causes of action recognized by the law of one state will also be recognized as such by the law of other states. In short, the

'Like so many words and phrases in our legal vocabulary, "cause of action" is ambiguous. At times it is used to denote the group of operative facts to which the law attaches legal consequences which enable the person with reference to whom the facts are true to obtain legal relief through a judicial tribunal. As so used the phrase also connotes the legal relations which the law attaches to such a group of facts. At other times, however, the phrase is so used that it denotes the legal relations which result from the facts and connotes that the facts are true of the one who is asserted to have the "cause of action." Codes of civil procedure use the phrase in the former sense when they require a plaintiff to "state the facts constituting his cause of action" in plain and concise language. A common synonym of the phrase as used in the latter sense is "right of action," in which case the word "right" is obviously used in a generic sense and not in the specific sense as the correlative of "duty." Throughout the present discussion an effort has been made by the writer to use the phrase to denote the operative facts rather than the legal relations resulting from them.

"uniform interstate enforcement of vested rights," so forcefully advocated by Mr. Justice Beach of the Connecticut Supreme Court in a recent article in this magazine, is still remote from realization. That the existing condition is desirable, it is believed no one will maintain. Lawyers find it difficult to advise their clients. Litigants all too often find they can not enforce their claims because the wrongdoer is immune from suit in the jurisdiction where he has property subject to execution. To examine into the reasons for this legal anarchy which to a large degree still governs the relations of our states to each other in this respect, and to suggest a means of remedying the situation without a federal constitutional amendment, is the object of the present discussion.

The portion of the Constitution of the United States which bears most immediately upon the problem is the "full faith and credit clause." It reads as follows:

"Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof."1

Acting in pursuance of the powers thus vested in it, Congress in 1790 provided the mode in which these "public acts, records and judicial proceedings" were to be authenticated, and prescribed their effect in words which have remained substantially unaltered. The present statute reads:

"And the said records and judicial proceedings, so authenticated, shall have such faith and credit given to them in every court within the United States as they have by law or usage in the courts of the State from which they are taken."

Although the constitutional provision and the Act of Congress seem reasonably plain of meaning at first sight, the slightest examination of the decisions of the courts under them leaves one perplexed and bewildered. What constitutes giving "full faith and credit" in one state to a judgment of another state? To this day no clear answer can be given. As late as 1908 we find the United States Supreme Court divided into the familiar five to four grouping in the leading case of Fauntleroy v. Lum.3 A recent case in Illinois seems to the present writer identical in substance with Fauntleroy v. Lum, yet the Illinois Supreme Court unanimously reached the opposite conclusion.3

la Art. 4, Sec. 1.

'U. S. Rev. St. sec. 905; U. S. Comp. Stat., 1916, p. 2431.

Ba Kenny v. Supreme Lodge, etc., Loyal Order of Moose (1918, Ill.) 120 N. E. 631.