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REVIEWS.

A History of the American Bar, by Hon. Charles Warren of the Boston Bar, published by Little, Brown & Co., Boston, Mass. Price $4.00.

This is a beautifully bound volume of 586 pages, octavo size, and divided into two parts. The first part is devoted to a history of the Bar, as it existed before 1789, and the second, as it has existed since that date to the year 1860. The American Bar stanbs preeminent as a body, without superior in Brittain or in continental Europe. The old world may show more men who have devoted themselves to the study and classification of principles, but in the capacity of great trial lawyers the North American Bar stands the superior of any. And this fact should be stimulus enough for every American lawyer, worthy of the name, to be familiar with the history and status of his profession-its development and complete history. We have the history of the lawits growth and development, but not the history of the Bar. In this work Mr. Warren has given us a book accurate as well as intertaining-a volume that should be read with as much thought as a work on the fundamental principles of the law. In the first part of this book the author shows the conditions that hindered professional development before the Revolution-the nature of courts and the ideas entertained by the people concerning lawyers, detrimental to entire devotion to the law. In the second part of this excellent work the author not only shows the growth and professional dignity attained by the Bar, but also the far-reaching questions that arose in establishing the Government questions, national, state as well as cominercial, together with the sketch of the great characters that entered the professional arena and lent luster and dignity to legal careers. In the latter part of this volume is also included a history of the Codes, and the establishment of Law Schools.

This history of the American Bar should be found in every law library, private or public.

HUMOR.

A Seattle lawyer to whom a college training had been denied had a daughter attending the University of California at Berkeley. On her return from college he met her at the station.

"Rose," he said, "you seem to be unusually fat."

"Yes, pa," she responded, "I weigh 138 pounds stripped for gym."

The disciple of Blackstone looked amazed and then demanded:

"Who in Hades is Jim?"-The National Corporation Reporter.

Compliments of Great Men.

Everett was entertained at a public dinner, before leaving Boston for England to assume the duties of a minister at the English court. The celebrated Judge Story, who was present on the occasion, gave as a sen iment. "Genius is sure to be recognized where Eve-et goes." Everett gratefully responded with another sentiment. "Law, Equity and Jurisprudence; no efforts can raise them above one Story."

At one of Prostor's lectures, a lady wished for a seat, when General Garfield brought one and seated her. "Oh, you're a jewel," said she.

"Oh no," replied Garfield. "I'm a jeweler; I've just set the jewel."

The lawyer had a somewhat difficult witness, and finally asked if he was acquainted with any of the men on the jury.

"Yes, sir," replied the witness, "more than half of them."

"Are you willing to swear that you know more than half of them?" demanded the lawyer.

"Why, if it comes to that, I'm willing to swear that I know more than all of them put together."-The Law Student's Helper.

THE

OKLAHOMA

LAW JOURNAL

EDITED AND PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY

D. H. FERNANDES, GUTHRIE, Oklahoma.

VOL. 11.

January, 1913.

No. 7

ANALYSIS OF AN OPINION IN THE LIGHT
OF A LEGAL AND MORAL MAXIM.

By Hon. Perry T. McVay.

Gulf Pipe Line Co. et al v. Pawnee-Tulsa Petroleum Co. et al. Oct. 15, 1912. 127 Pac. 252 (Okla.)

Defendants obtained an oil and gas mining lease on an 80 acre tract, afterward plaintiffs purchased from the owner of the land a small part of the tract subject to defendants lease. With the knowledge of and without obJection by defendants, plaintiffs erected an oil pumping station at an outlay of $39,000.00 on the part so pur chased, for the purpose of collecting oil from the oil fields and transporting it to the Gulf. Among these improvements was an open space called a manifold pit into which all lines conveying oil to and from the pumping station enter, and which was designed to permit the escape of inflammable and explosive gases incident to the transportation of oil, so that the danger of explosions. might be avoided. The plaintiff employed about 28 persons at this pumping station. The defendants under their mining lease were about to bore a well on the line of plaintiff's land within a few feet of the pit, they offered to sell their lease at a price much in excess of its real value to plaintiffs, which plaintiffs refused to pay. Plaintiffs informed defendants of the great danger which would result to its property from the boring of this well, of the probability of an explosion of the gas from the pit, which defendants admitted to be true, but stood upon their right to drill where they pleased. There were other places on

the leased tract adjacent to the property of defendants upon which the well could be bored with safety to the property of plaintiffs and its employes, and with full protection to the rights of the defendants to take oil and gas from their mining lease.

From a decree sustaining a motion to dismiss a temporary injunction, the plaintiffs bring error.

Reversed and remanded.

Ames, Commissioner, bases his decision on the principle that the holder of a mining lease must protect the surface of the ground on which mine is located (citing cases in support of this principle.)

"These cases rest upon the principle that an owner of property must use it in such a reasonable way as not to endanger others in the exercise of equal rights." The Commissioner cites:

C. R. I. & P. Ry. Co. v. Groves, 20 Okla. 101.

Where in the opinion by Williams, C. J., several cases are cited illustrative of the application of the maxim, "Sic utere tuo ut alicnum non lacdas." For other cases in which the maxim is applied see 36 Cyc. 436 note 4. The maxim finds statutory expression in several states in the form, "One must so use his own rights as not to infringe upon the rights of others."

Sucn maximis of law as these, Sic utere tuo ut alienu... non laedas; Qui jure suo utitur neminem laedit, and the like, arise from this impossibility of exactly defining and circumscribing the right of ownership of property, and are really almost identical propositions." 2 Aust. Jurisp. 1061.

"There are limits to what a man may do with his own; and if he does that which may be harmful to his neighbor, it is his business to keep within those limits. Neither the Latin nor the vernacular maxim will help us inuch, however, to know where the line is drawn.

The problems raised by the apparent opposition of the two principles must be dealt with each on its own footing. We say apparent; for the law has not two objects, but one, that is, to secure men in the enjoyment of their

rights and of their duc freedom of action. In its most general form, therefore, the question is, where does the sphere of a man's proper action end, and aggression on the sphere of his neighbor's action begin?"

Webb's Pollock on Torts 152 at 154.

In Bonomi v. Backhouse El. B. & El. 622 at 643 Coleridge, J., Speaking of the maxim says, "it is mere verbiage. A party may damage the property of another where the law permits; and he may not where the law prohibits; so that the maxim can never be applied till the law is ascertained; and, when it is, the maxim is superluous." This case was reversed in Exchequer Chamber El. Bl. & El. 646, and the latter case affirmed in House of Lords (H. L. C. 503; 11 E. R. 825, and involved a considerable of the obligation to protect the surface of mining operations.

In Brand v. Hammersmith & City Ry. Co. L. R. 2 Q. B. Cases at p. 247, Earle, C. J., says the maxim "is no help to decision, as it cannot be applied till the decision is made." In Auburn & Cato Plank Road Co. v. Douglass, 3 N. Y. 444 at 445 Selden, J., says "The maxim,-is iterated and reiterated in our books, and yet there is scarcely an aphorism known to the law, the true application of which is more vague and undefined. Interpreted literally, it would enjoin a man against any use of his own property which, in its consequences, might injuriously affect the interests of others; but no such legal principle ever existed. On the contrary every proprietor has absolutc control over his own property, and may do with it whatever he pleases, unless he thereby infringes some fixed legal right of another. Loss or damage to one person arising from the use made by another of his own property, is damnum absque injuria, Sic utere tuo, etc., may be a very good moral precept, it is utterly useless as a legal maxim; it determines no right; it defines no obligation."

In Payne v. Railroad Co.. 13 Lea (Tenn.) 507 at 527 Ingersoll, Sup. J. speaking of the maxim as commonly translated says "it is doubtless an orthodox moral precept : and in law, too, it finds frequent application to the use of

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