536
THE GREEN BAG
question was involved which the legislature had no authority to take out of the hands of the duly constituted judicial tribunals. As against that contention, the court held that as a means of determining the right to office by proceeding on information was also provided and constitutional question^ might be litigated therein, there was no objection to allowing the question of eligibility of candidates for office to be passed upon in a contest before a tribunal other than one in which jurisdiction was vested by the constitution, but declined to express any opinion as to the conclusiveness of such a determination. GARNISHMENT. (Liability of Married Women.) U. S. C. C. Ark. — A question of some interest as to the liability of a married woman to garnishment by a creditor of her husband, under the statute of Arkansas, is discussed in Allen-West Commission Company i>. Grumbles, 161 Fed. Rep. 461. The original action was one against the husband of the garnishee. The garnishment proceeding was instituted under Section 379 of Kirby's Dig., which reads as follows: Upon the service of the summons upon any garnishee. or after his failure to make a disclosure satisfactory to the plaintiff, the latter may proceed in an action against him by filing a com plaint verified as in other cases, and causing a summons to be issued upon it; and thereupon such proceeding may be had as in other actionsi and judgment rendered in favor of plaintiff to subject the property of the defendants in the hands of the garnishee, or for what shall appear to be owing to the defendant by the garnishee. The judgment may be enforced by execution or other proper means." As may be readily seen, the statute makes no exception relative to married women. The court says that the decisive question of the case is whether a personal judgment can be rendered against a married woman garnisheed for her husband's debt. Numerous cases are cited, and the conclusion reached that, notwith standing the particular language of the statute, it cannot be considered as enlarging the commonlaw liability of married women, and that conse quently the proceeding should not be maintained. LICENSES. (Hotels and Restaurants.) —The Court of Appeals of Kentucky in New Gait House v. City of Louisville, in S. W. Rep. 351, holds that under an ordinance imposing license taxes on hotels and restaurants a hotel furnishing meals on the " European plan " is not subject to both licenses. Meals had formerly been served on the " American plan " and a hotel license was regularly paid. After changing to the " European plan." the city attempted to enforce payment
of an additional license fee on the ground that the furnishing meals to all comers to be paid for as ordered constituted the keeping of a restaurant. The Court of Appeals held that this should be considered as a mere incident of the hotel keeping and not a separate business and that only the regular hotel license fee should be charged. Though an inn must furnish both food and lodging, yet the innkeeper is acting within his trade in supplying a guest with either kind of entertainment without the other. So long as he professes readiness to lodge guests who eat, he is none the less an innkeeper because the guest does not call for lodging. J. H. B. LIFE ESTATES. (Estimating Value.) Tenn. — The interesting question of the manner in which the value of_a life estate may be determined and what matters are admissible as evidence to show its value arose in Tennessee in Holt v. Hamlin ct al., in S. W. Rep. 241. The action was brought by the guardian ad litem of an infant to have certain property partitioned among those having life estates and remainder interests therein. The guardian objected to the use of annuity or life tables in determining the value of the life estate, since the life tenant being young the greater part of the property would be allotted to him to the damage of the remainder men. The court held that the tables were not to be used exclusively for the purpose suggested but that they could only be referred to as evidence of the value of the estate; that the estate should be estimated according to its market value determined by considering not only the probable duration of the life tenant's existence as shown by the life tables, but the nature of the property, his age, habits and health, the fact that he may not live out the expectancy affecting the salabilitv of the estate, that taxes must be paid from year to year, that the conduct of any business is not wholly a certain matter but depends upon many contin gencies and chances, #nd that the life tenant, after partition, is relieved of any duty to the remaindermen in the care and preservation of the property. MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS. (Power to Levy License Tax on Vehicles.) Ill. Sup. Ct. — In the case of Harder's Fireproof Storage and Van Co. v. City of Chicago, decided by the Illinois Supreme Court and reported in 85 N. E. Rep. 245, the validity of an ordinance of the city of Chicago imposing a so-called "wheel tax" on vehicles used on streets is drawn in question. The statute authorizing the enactment of the ordinance is also claimed to be invalid. Plaintiff was engaged in the teaming and moving business and sought
