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and may be maintained without a defendant in court, and results in a universally conclusive decree, it is quasi in rem;

III. That in ex parte divorce proceedings, publication notice is sufficient for the same reason that it is so in an action against property;

IV. That when only the complainant is in court, the decree fixing his status as that of a single person, incidentally changes that of the other marital partner, ex necessitate rei;

V. That the governmental jurisdiction of a State over the status of its own citizens is not such as to defeat this incidental effect of divorces granted against them by ex parte proceedings in foreign jurisdictions.

VII.

I conclude by answering objections. As it will be most likely to arise in the minds of some readers, I will answer the question:

First. How is the divorce decree attended by general estoppel, if it is not in rem, but only as if so?

Misunderstanding has arisen from remarks by the annotators of Smith's Leading Cases, on the Duchess of Kingston's and other cases, involving the law of estoppel, and by textwriters and courts; and I think there is a vague impression upon many legal minds that only in proceedings in rem the decree concludes the world, and that when other decrees have that effect, we must hold that they, too, are in rem.

The rule of universal conclusiveness is broader than those writers assume it to be. It covers all decrees fixing status, whether that of things or of persons. Suits quasi in rem, to fix personal status, come under the rule. This I need not argue, for it will be recognized as true upon statement. Both the bench and the bar of the country have constantly acted upon it, generally speaking. This, however, answers the objection.

Secondly. Attachment suits ex parte have been called quasi in rem: why are they not universally conclusive, if a divorce is so even when only the complainant is in court?

It matters little what name one gives to an attachment suit, if error is not consequent. Courts have sometimes said that

it is quasi in rem, while they have rightly given it its true significance in the decree, and no error has resulted. But, to meet this objection, it becomes necessary to show the true character of the attachment suit. When the debtor's property is in court, but he is not, though he has been invited thither, the case proceeds against it, and there can be no judgment, independent of the res, against him-not even for costs. Nominally, however, the suit is against him and the judgment against him. The suit is as if against him ;-not is if against a thing.

sonam.

Really, then, the ex parte attachment suit is quasi in perIt is the reverse of the divorce suit. It is really in rem, but limited in the effect of the decree, because only the debtor is notified by publication. Others may be interested in the property attached, and they may attack the judgment collaterally, because, as they were interested, yet not notified, their interests are not cut off or affected by the decree in rem in such limited proceedings. The status of the property, as a thing indebted, is fixed only with reference to the notified debtor. On the other hand, the status of the person, in a divorce proceeding, is fixed, not with reference only to the complainant's marital partner (the only person interested to oppose, and therefore the only one notified)—but to all persons.

Overlooking the limited character of the attachment suit against property, and seeing that the judgment is not conclusive against the world, the court said in Magee v. Beirne, : 39 Pa. St. 62, that the suit is not in rem; and yet it went to the opposite extreme of declaring suits to fix personal status to be in rem, because the judgments possess the quality of conclusiveness on all the world.

Thirdly. It is said that States are parties to divorce suits involving the status of their citizens; and it may be objected, that they cannot be concluded by divorce decrees against their citizens in the absence of notification. In The People v. Dawell, supra, the interest of the State, and its third-party relation to the divorce litigation of its citizens is more strongly put than in any case which I now recall. It is not contended, however, that the State should be cited or notified to appear as an actual party litigant. Of course, a State, as a corporation,

might intervene in a divorce suit; but so it might in any other. In a sense, it has governmental interest in all litigated questions involving either persons or property within its jurisdiction. But the courts themselves are supposed to take care of such general, governmental interests. They are created by the State, and oath-bound to observe its constitution and laws. There is no difference between that general interest in divorce suits, and in other kinds of actions. The State is estopped from denying that her citizens were divorced in a competent foreign jurisdiction, just as all other persons, artificial or natural, are thus estopped, though the notice was confined to the complainant's marital partner. Though, without notice or knowledge, the State could not intervene in a cause pending against one of her citizens for divorce, in a foreign jurisdiction (just as other persons could not); and though the foreign tribunal is not presumed to represent her interests, yet the rule of international law, which holds all persons bound by the decree fixing status, is applicable to her, and would be almost nugatory, were it not. Besides, comity requires that the decrees of such tribunal should be respected by all States asking and needing such respect paid to their own decrees; and while this law of comity is applied to all cases not in conflict with the juridical morals of the State, it includes the recognition of that prominent feature of decrees fixing personal or property status-universal conclusiveness.

Fourthly. It may be said by those who read the foregoing cursorily, that I have presented a mere theory, and have disregarded stare decisis. I claim to have kept within the settled doctrine of divorce so far as it is settled by decisions, and to have been in accord with the best text-books. The substitution of one term for another does not disturb the arguments of either the decisions or the books, but tends to clear them of difficulties. Bishop qualifies by saying that the divorce suit is not, in all respects, a proceeding in rem; and I have shown that it is, in some of its features, as if so. Yet I consider the right use of terms very important to a proper understanding of this suit. It leads to the legitimate treatment of the notice without recourse to the hypothesis that the suit is against a thing. And here, while I do not disagree with

the settled rule that publication is sufficient for the main purpose of the decree, I rather give a reason for sustaining the decisions, in that respect, than controvert them. It is true that I have dissented from a few decisions as to the effect of divorce on the absent defendant, but, in doing so, I find myself in company with the great majority of those who have rendered divorce decisions, and who sustain the doctrine that the divorce of one of a married couple is the virtual divorce of both.

So far from this paper being a mere theory, it is a diffident attempt to reconcile differences, and to show that the current of decisions, notwithstanding untenable obiter dicta and the misuse of terms and the fallacies in reasoning often found, is, in the main, consonant with the symmetry of legal science. Manifestly, it was impossible, in a brief essay, to discuss or even cite the many decisions sustaining the prevalent doctrine in opposition to the controverted ones of New York.

RUFUS WAPLES.

Ann Arbor, Mich.

RECENT ENGLISH CASE.

High Court of Appeals.

LIVERPOOL HOUSEHOLD STORES ASSOCIATION v. SMITH.

Since the passing of the Judicature Acts, the Court has jurisdiction to restrain by interlocutory injunction the publication of a trade libel, but as, if it grants such an injunction, it must pronounce the publication to be libellous before it has been found so by a jury, the jurisdiction is to be exercised only in the clearest cases, where any jury would say that the matter complained of was libellous, and where, if they found otherwise, their verdict would be set aside as unreasonable.

The question as to granting injunctions to restrain publication in a newspaper, of reports and correspondence containing unfavorable statements as to the position and solvency of a joint stock company, considered.

Injunction to restrain the publication of future articles reflecting unfavorably on a company refused on the ground of the difficulty of granting an injunction which would not include matters that might turn ont not to be libellous, and, because if the injunction were granted in terms to restrain what was libellous, the question of libel or no libel would have to be tried in a very unsatisfactory way, on a motion to commit.

APPEAL from the Chancery Division.

COTTON, L. J.-This is an appeal from a decision of Mr. Justice KEKEWICH, who declined to grant an interlocutory injunction in an action brought against the proprietors of a newspaper, in respect of three alleged libels, the first being a report of a meeting of the shareholders of the plaintiff company, published in the newspaper of the defendants, and the others being two letters published in the same newspaper. The injunction sought for, is not to restrain the future publication of these alleged libels, and for this reason, that there is no probability of any republication in that paper, of the report of the meeting, and no probability that those letters will be again sent to the paper. It is not necessary to decide the question, how far, if those who regulate the affairs of a company invite the reporters of a newspaper to come to a private meeting, the company can afterwards sue the newspaper for publishing a full report of that meeting, because statements made at the meeting were libellous. I think that would require some consideration. Nor is it necessary for us to consider how far the proprietors of the newspaper would be liable for inserting letters commenting on what was said at the meeting of which they have published a report. We have not to decide these questions because there is no probability that the report of the meeting or these letters will be repeated, and whether damages can be recovered for them is a question to be decided only at the trial of the action. There is also another question to be considered at the trial, whether a company issuing a prospectus asking shareholders to join it, does not to a certain extent invite public comment on its constitution, its capital, and its prospects. The injunction now asked for is not an injunction to restrain the republication of the report or of the letters, but it is to restrain the defendants from publishing "any articles, letters from correspondents, or any other matter containing assertions, imputations, or suggestions that the plaintiff company is insolvent or incapable of carrying on its business with success, or that the shareholders did at the general meeting unanimously sign or propose a resolution to the effect that another general meeting of the company should be convened for the purpose of taking into consideration whether the company should be wound up." Now there

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