Sunday, March 14, 2021

Today in Supreme Court History: Benjamin Cardozo is sworn in as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court

You probably remember Benjamin Cardozo as the New York Court of Appeals judge who wrote Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad, which developed what has become the standard analysis for proximate cause in Tort law.  But in 1932, President Herbert Hoover appointed Cardozo to the Supreme Court of the United States to succeed Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.  Interestingly, Hoover, a Republican, appointed Cardozo even though he was a Democrat. I would be curious to know how many times that has happened since.

According to an article in The New York Times about Cardozo's appointment, "seldom, if ever, in the history of the Court has an appointment been so universally commended."

Cardozo was confirmed by a unanimous voice vote in the Senate on February 24 and was sworn in on March 14, 1932.

To celebrate, why not do some reading?  Here is a link to my article Ahead of his time: Cardozo and the Current Debates on Professional Responsibility, 34 Touro Law Review 101 (2018).

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