Associate Judge (1914-1927) and Chief Judge (1928-1932) of the New York State Court of Appeals, Associate Justice of the United State Supreme Court (1932-1938), Benjamin Cardozo remains one of the most influential and respected jurists of the twentieth century. His decisions in tort law and fiduciary responsibility defined many standards that continue today.

The son of a New York Supreme Court Justice, Benjamin Cardozo was born in New York City in 1870 and received his legal education at Columbia Law School. He was elected to the New York Supreme Court in 1913 and appointed to the Court of Appeals by designation of the Governor the following year. In 1917 he was elected to a 14-year term at the Court of Appeals where he served with distinction until he was appointed by President Herbert Hoover to the United States Supreme Court to succeed Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Like Holmes, Cardozo was a progressive jurist during a period of legal formalism where prevailing thought urged suppression of judicial creativity. Cardozo believed there was room for judicial lawmaking in the common law and promoted his activist philosophy not only in his decisions, but in his many lectures and treatises. Notwithstanding his progressive attitude, Cardozo still believed that the legislative and executive branches of government were primarily responsible for instituting social change in a democratic society and he would consistently defer to their prerogatives. He was a proponent of small, measured development, once stating: "Justice is not to be taken by storm. She is to be wooed by slow advances."

Judge Cardozo authored the seminal majority opinion in the 1928 New York case of Palsgraf v. Long Island R. R. (248 N.Y. 339) a case in which a railroad attendant, while assisting a passenger during boarding, accidentally dislodged an unmarked package the passenger was carrying. The package contained fireworks which exploded when the package fell on the rails and the concussion from the explosion caused scales to be overturned, injuring Mrs. Palsgraf. In discussing the potential scope of negligence liability the members of Court disagreed as to whether the railroad owed a duty to the public generally. Judge Cardozo opined that proximate cause extends liability to those whose conduct injures persons within the zone of reasonable foreseeability. "The risk reasonably to be perceived defines the duty to be obeyed and risks imports relation; it is risk to another or to others within the range of apprehension."

Benjamin Cardozo wrote prolifically, including: The Nature of the Judicial Process (1921), The Growth of the Law (1924), The Paradoxes of Legal Science (1928) as well as Law and Literature and Other Essays and Addresses (1931).

Judge Cardozo on the Court of Appeals steps Larger Image

Sketch of Judge Cardozo Larger Image

Judge Cardozo in Conference (Judge Crane is in the background) Larger Image

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