Latest Important Cases Pennsylvania and are repugnant, not only to the law of the land, but to public policy." The Orphans' Court after an exhaustive dis cussion of Swedenborg's volume on "Con jugal Love" concurred in this view, which the Supreme Court has since repudiated. Public Policy. Contract for Medical Ser vices During Life of Patient to be Paid for at Time of Death Void. Ill. In a decision rendered at Chicago June 28, the Appellate Court held that a contract which provided for the payment of a large sum to a physician on the death of his patient, for medical treatment during her life, was contrary to public policy and therefore void, as it virtually offered a premium to the physito accelerate the death of the patient. The Court said, however, that there was nothing to indicate that the physician did not do everything possible for the patient. Public Service Corporations. Discretion ary Powers of Commission to Approve or Reject Franchise. N. Y. The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York on July 13 overruled the Public Service Commission in its refusal to approve the franchise granted by the Board of Estimate of Greater New York to the South Shore Traction Company to operate cars over the Queensboro Bridge, and ordered the Commission to grant the application of the road and pay it $50 in costs. The opin ion was written by Justice Ingraham; Justices McLaughlin, Laughlin, Clarke, and Houghton assenting. The Commission had refused to grant the franchise purely on its terms, ad mitting the necessity for the immediate operation of cars across the bridge, but declar ing that under the franchise the road was given the right for fifty years to one of the most important thoroughfares between Jamaica and Long Island City, and that future extensions were not sufficiently pro vided for. In its decision the Court held:— "Necessity or convenience for the public service was the single question the Commission was authorized to determine, and upon the determination of that question depended the permission of approval. "The Public Service Commission had no right to arbitrarily reject an application be cause of the action of the local authorities in granting or refusing their consent. "If a railroad over the proposed route was required by the public; was necessary or con venient for the public service, then it was the duty of the Commission to grant the ap plication, and as I understand from the re
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turn that they have determined that the proposed railroad was required, the denial of the application was error." Eight ot Privacy. Publication of Photo graph Without Consent—Common Law Ac tions. R. I. Publishing a person's photograph for ad vertising purposes without his permission cannot be made the basis of a lawsuit, accord ing to a decision of the Supreme Court of Rhode Island handed down June 22 by Chief Justice Dubois in the case of James N. Henry v. Cherry & Webb. The suit was brought be cause the defendants published a photo graph of Mr. Henry and a party in an auto mobile as a means of advertising automobile coats. The case was certified to the Supreme Court from the Superior Court on two grounds, namely: "Has a person at common law a right designated as a right of privacy for the invasion of which an action for damages lies? "Is the unwarranted publication of a per son's photograph for advertising purposes actionable at common law where the only injury alleged is that of mental suffering?" The Supreme Court decided both of the questions in the negative. Trusts. The Sound Discretion Required of Trustees—"Willful Defaults." Mass. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachu setts, in Warren v. Pazolt, decided June 24, expressed the opinion that a trustee under a Massachusetts trust would be justified in tearing down an old building owned by the trust and erecting a new one in its place when a prudent business man would do so to secure a fair return by way of income, having regard to the relation which such an investment, when made, would have to the amount of. the principal of the trust fund as a whole. But the erection by an ordinary trustee of a new building at a cost of $450,000 on trust land of $400,000, thereby making a single investment of $850,000 out of a trust estate of a little over $920,000, cannot be justified as the exercise of a sound discretion required of trustees. This rule, however, did not apply to the Carney Building in Boston, for the reason that Mr. Carney, by his will, pro vided that each trustee should be liable only for his "willful defaults."
