The Law of Suretyship and Guaranty [review-book]

F. R. T.
1901 Harvard Law Review  
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more » ... ntent at http://about.jstor.org/participate--jstor/individuals/early-journal--content. JSTOR is a digital library of academic journals, books, and primary source objects. JSTOR helps people discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content through a powerful research and teaching platform, and preserves this content for future generations. JSTOR is part of ITHAKA, a not--for--profit organization that also includes Ithaka S+R and Portico. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. 628 HARVARD LAW RE TIEW. known to the law has a situs somewhere, and the law of that situs will regulate and control the legal effect of that element." Accordingly, the successive parts of the work are devoted to the discussion of the situs of the person, of status, of personal property, of contracts, of torts and crirnes, and of remedies, with an important iintroductorypart setting forth the exceptions to the application of "the proper law." In spite of the stress laid on the idea of situs, no clear definition of it is given. The conception seems to be that the legal situs, which may or may not be the actual situs of a thing or transaction, is that place the law of which governs when a question arises for decision. But what that place is, and what law does govern, still remains the very problem which we must solve, and as we are not brought any nearer to its solution if we call that place situs and the law which governs " the proper law," it is difficult to discover any fundamnental principle in the idea of situs. In seeking for an underlying principle, more attention might well be paid to the fact that conflict of laws, as is pointed out by Professor Dicey, deals with the recognition of rights actually acquired, i. e. rights which could be enforced by the sovereign of the state wheere they have their origin. In this view, it would follow that the law governing the acquisition of rights must ordinarily be the territorial law of that jurisdiction within which the rights are asserted to have arisen, and which controlled and could have prevented their arising. This principle of territoriality, if we may call it so, would, of course, be subject to important exceptions where by consent of all sovereigns a different rule has been established, as, for instance, in the case of status and of the inheritance of personalty. Important as these exceptions are, the principle is one which is founded on reason, and is free from the arbitrariniess involved in the notion of situs. It would take care of the law as to realty, which the present author is forced to regard as an exception to his theory, and would enable us as to personalty to avoid the unsatisfactory maxim, mobilia personam sequuntur. But difficulties of this kind are only in regard to theory. As an expo-*sition of the law the treatise is very satisfactory. Inaccuracies are comparatively few. It may be noted that in the discussion of the recognition of foreign judgments in personam, page 187, no reference is made to the English doctrine (see Godard v. Gray, L. R. 6 Q. B. 139), which is, it is believed, much sounder than the view of Hilton v. Guyot, 159 U. S. I 13. The arrangement presents the law in clear-cut outlines, and the idea of situs has served admirably as a mode of classification. H. K. THE LAW OF SURETYSHIP AND GUARANTY.
doi:10.2307/1323046 fatcat:ugplbiq54zcqxfeuheylqj4tcq