Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 23.pdf/122

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The Green Bag

mere posting of such notice will not relieve it from liability. . . .

or advantage derived by him from the business whose good will he has voluntarily sold."

"it is beside the case that, in this instance, the

Meaning Race Distinctions. of “Colored." plaintiff was occupying the platform when there were vacant seats inside the car. He was riding in one of the customary places afiorded by the company for hauling passengers, and he was entitled to rely upon the company's operating its cars in the usual and customary manner in which they are run with respect to the safety of all passengers. . . . The plaintiff, when he entered the car, was undoubtedly required to occupy the safest place afforded him-in this instance, a seat. Instead, he took his position on the platform, and in so doing he assumed the

additional risk attendant upon this position when the cars were being operated in the usual and customary manner. He was entitled to have the jury say whether they were so operated. If they were not, and the unusual condition was due to the negligence of defendant's employees, and such negligence was the proximate cause of the accident, he had a right to recover." Partnership. Voluntary Sale of Interest in Good Will—S0licitalion of Business of Customers of Former Firm. N. Y. In Van Bremen v. Asche, decided Nov. 22, the New York Court of Appeals held that when there has been a voluntary sale by two members of a copartnership to its third member of all their right, title and interest in the firm assets and good will, and the two retiring members then set up a similar business of their own, they are not

at liberty thereafter to solicit buiness of the customers of the former firm. When they have disposed of their interest in the good will, an injunction may issue to restrain them from inter fering with that which was a part of it. 44 N. Y. Law I010. 965 (Dec. 6). The Court (Willard Bartlett, I.) said: “If the sale of the good will upon the ordinary dissolu tion and liquidation of a partnership imported the same obligation as that which arises upon a voluntary sale not to solicit trade from custom ers of the old firm, merchants who had been in trade as partners of undesirable associates would constantly find themselves by the mere fact of the dissolution of the firm they desired to leave disqualified from seeking future business from those who might be their most desirable cus tomers. Such a restriction should be imposed and is imposed only when the transfer of the good will is a free afiirmative act, and is made under such circumstances that it would be bad faith on the part of the vendor to avail himself as against the vendee of any special knowledge

Separation of D. Race: C.

The plaintiff in the case of Wall v. Oyster gave no ocular evidence of being a negress. Notwith standing her father's contention that she was white, not colored. she was compelled to attend

one of the separate public schools for colored children in the District of Columbia. The child has flaxen hair and blue eyes. Mr. Justice Wright of the District Supreme Court several months ago refused to order the Board of Education to admit her to the white schools. In his decision he said: "Persons of whatever complexion who bear the negro blood in whatever degree and who abide in the racial status of the negro are ‘colored’ in the common estimation of the people. The child at bar has acquired no racial status personal to itself; its status of necessity is that of its father." The Court of Appeals of the District afiirmed this decision Dec. 5. 38 Washington Law R2 porler 794 (Dec. 16). Chief Justice Shepard said in his opinion: In the case of State v. Treadaway, 52 50. Rep. 500 (1910), "The views of the majority were thus expressed by Mr. justice Prevosty: ‘There is a word in the English language which does express the meaning of a person of mixed negro and other blood, which has been coined for the very purpose of expressing that meaning, and

because the word negro was known not to ex press it, and the need of a word to express it made itself imperatively felt. That word is the word “co|ored." The word "colored" when used to designate the race of a person is unmis takable, at least in the United States.

It means

a person of negro blood pure or mixed; and the term applies no matter what may be the propor tions of the admixture, so long as the negro blood is traceable.’ “While this view accords with our own obser vation of the popular meaning of the word ‘colored’ we would not rest our conclusion upon such an uncertain foundation. “The most reliable sources of information in this regard are the dictionaries which are uni versally accepted as the best exponents of the popular meaning of the words of the language. It is sufiicient to say, without quoting from them,

that these show that the word 'colored' as applied to persons or races is commonly under stood to mean persons wholly or in part of negro blood, or having any appreciable admixture thereof."