Sunday, March 14, 2021

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

Benjamin Cardozo is better known to my students 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 and because I know you must be eager to know why I am writing about this today, here is a link to my article Ahead of his time: Cardozo and the Current Debates on Professional Responsibility34 Touro Law Review 101 (2018).

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