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IN THE UNITED STATES

FULLY ANNOTATED

BY

CHARLES THADDEUS TERRY

President National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws 1913,
1914, 1915; Chairman New York State Commission on Uniform State
Laws since 1904; Dwight, Professor of Law, Columbia University.

EDITED AND PUBLISHED

UNDER THE AUSPICES AND FOR THE PURPOSES OF THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE
OF COMMISSIONERS ON UNIFORM STATE LAWS

NEW YORK
BAKER, VOORHIS & CO.,

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FOREWORD

A book containing the text of the Uniform State Laws promulgated by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws and enacted in the various states, should be of assistance to the Bench and Bar. Each of the Uniform Acts approved in more recent years by the Conference has contained the provision that the Act shall be so construed as to effectuate its purpose of making uniform the law upon the subject with which it deals. Both the general theory of the movement for Uniform State Laws and the specific mandate involved in this provision give to the decisions in any particular state upon the question of the interpretation or construction of a particular section of any one of the Uniform Acts, substantially the force of a legal precedent of the utmost persuasiveness upon the particular court which may have the same question under consideration, although it may be the court of another state than that in which such decisions are found. Only thus can uniform State Laws be kept genuinely uniform. It should be, therefore, of considerable assistance to courts, in so deciding cases arising under the Uniform Acts, as to keep the laws uniform, to have at hand in a single compilation all the decisions bearing upon the particular question at issue. Furthermore, it would seem that such a text-book would be of service to practicing attorneys, in that it will furnish a ready reference to decisions on points arising under the Uniform Acts which at this time are very important and of constant occurrence.

The purpose of this book, however, is simply to promote uniformity of laws and nothing else. To accomplish this purpose it is clear that after Uniform State Laws have been enacted they must be, on the one hand, kept free from statutory amendment (other than those approved by the National Conference of Commissioners in the same way in which the original act was approved), and also free from divergence of judicial con

struction. Both those purposes, it would seem, should be subserved by this book.

It is inevitable that inaccuracies should be found in the following pages. Where so many statutory enactments were presented for comparison and so many decisions were to be read, it would be strange indeed if there had not been errors and inadvertencies which have crept into the text. No claim is made that perfection has been accomplished; but on the contrary, indulgence, criticism and indication of errors, by those who may use the book, are invited.

KEY TO THE BOOK

The precise text of the Uniform State Laws heretofore prom. ulgated by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws will be set forth each in a separate chapter. The various sections of each law are numbered in accordance with the numbering given by the Conference at the time it approved the Acts respectively.

Under each section of each of the Acts will be printed the decisions bearing upon such section arranged in alphabetical order according to the names of the states in which such decisions were rendered. By this arrangement, it will be easy to find the decisions of any state on any provision of any Uniform Act.

Furthermore, in connection with the text of each of the Uniform Acts as approved by the Conference, there will be printed the citation or location of the corresponding statute in the laws of each of the states, or in other words, the place where each of such Uniform Acts may be found will be given with the text of the Act, and furthermore, the corresponding section numbers will be given as between the Act as approved by the National Conference of Commissioners, and as found in the statute books, or laws, of each of the states; and this information will be given likewise according to states, arranged in their alphabetical order. In this way, a search by court or practitioner in any state for decisions under a particular section of the Uniform Law, as it appears upon the statute books of his state, may be prosecuted easily and without loss of time. In other words, each chapter of the book contains a complete Uniform Act, together with a full citation of decisions in all the states interpretating the Act. If one desires to learn the interpretation of a specific section of one of the Uniform Acts, he turns to that chapter of the book which is devoted to that Act; he then finds the particular section under which the question of

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