Benjamin N. Cardozo

Benjamin Nathan Cardozo (May 24, 1870–July 9, 1938) was a distinguished American jurist who is remembered not only for his landmark decisions on negligence but also his modesty and philosophy.

Biography

Early years

Born in New York City to Albert and Rebecca Nathan Cardozo, he was a twin, born with his sister Emily. Cardozo's ancestors were Sephardic Jews who immigrated to the United States in the 1740s and 1750s from Portugal via the Netherlands and England.

Related Topics:
New York City - Sephardic Jews - Portugal - Netherlands - England

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Albert Cardozo was himself a justice of the Supreme Court of New York (the state's general trial court) until he was implicated in a judicial corruption scandal, sparked by the Erie Railway takeover wars, in 1868. The scandal led to the creation of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York and Albert's resignation from the bench. After leaving the court, he practiced law until his death in 1885.

Related Topics:
Albert Cardozo - Supreme Court of New York - Erie Railway - Association of the Bar of the City of New York

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Rebecca Cardozo died in 1879, and Benjamin was raised during much of his childhood by his sister Nell, who was 11 years older than Benjamin. At age 15, Cardozo entered Columbia University and then went on to Columbia Law School in 1889. Cardozo wanted to enter a profession that could materially aid himself and his siblings, but he also hoped to restore the family name, sullied by his father's actions as a justice. After only two years, and without a law degree, Cardozo left Columbia to practice law.

Related Topics:
1879 - Columbia University - Columbia Law School - 1889

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Illustrious career

From 1891 to 1914, Benjamin Cardozo practiced law in New York City with his brother Albert Cardozo, Jr., until Albert's death in 1909.

Related Topics:
1891 - 1914 - Albert Cardozo, Jr.

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In the November 1913 elections, Cardozo was narrowly elected to the state Supreme Court, the same trial court on which his father had served. Cardozo took office on January 5, 1914. Less than a month later, Cardozo was appointed to the New York Court of Appeals, the highest court in the state. He was the first Jew to serve in the Court of Appeals and remained there until 1932, becoming Chief Judge on January 1, 1927.

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His tenure was marked by a number of original rulings, in tort and contract law in particular. In 1921, Cardozo gave the Storrs lectures at Yale, which was later published as The Nature of the Judicial Process, a book that remains valuable to judges today. Shortly thereafter, Cardozo became a member of the group that founded the American Law Institute, which crafted a Restatement of the Law of Torts, Contracts, and a host of other private law subjects. His majority opinion in Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co. in 1928 was important in the development of the concept of proximate cause in tort law.

Related Topics:
Tort - Contract - Storrs - Yale - The Nature of the Judicial Process - American Law Institute - Restatement - Torts - Contracts - Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co. - Proximate cause

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In 1932, President Herbert Hoover appointed Chief Judge Cardozo to the U.S. Supreme Court to succeed Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. The New York Times said of Cardozo's appointment that "seldom, if ever, in the history of the Court has an appointment been so universally commended." (New York Times, February 16 1932, pp. 1) On a radio broadcast on March 1 1932, the day of Cardozo's confirmation, Clarence R. Dill, Democratic Senator for Washington, called Hoover's appointment of Cardozo "the finest act of his career as President." (New York Times, March 2 1932 pp. 13) The entire faculty of the Law School of the University of Chicago had urged Hoover to nominate him, as did the deans of the schools of law at Harvard, Yale, and Columbia. Justice Harlan Fiske Stone strongly urged Hoover to name Cardozo, even offering to resign to make room for him if Hoover had his heart set on someone else (Stone had in fact suggested to Coolidge that he should nominate Cardozo rather than himself back in 1925 (Handler, 1995)). Hoover, however, originally demured: there were already two justices from New York, and a Jew on the court; in addition, another Justice, McReynolds was a notorious anti-semite. When the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, William E. Borah of Idaho added his strong support for Cardozo, however, Hoover finally bowed to the pressure.

Related Topics:
Herbert Hoover - U.S. Supreme Court - Oliver Wendell Holmes - February 16 - 1932 - March 1 - March 2 - University of Chicago - Harvard - Yale - Columbia - Harlan Fiske Stone - Coolidge - 1925 - McReynolds - William E. Borah

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Cardozo was the second Jew, after Louis Brandeis, to be appointed to the Supreme Court. Because of his Iberian roots and fluency in Spanish, a few commentators consider him to have been the first Hispanic Justice as well, although his family origins were in Portugal rather than Spain. In his years as an Associate Justice, he handed down opinions that stressed the necessity for the law to adapt to the realities and needs of modern life.

Related Topics:
Louis Brandeis - Hispanic - Associate Justice

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During his tenure on the United States Supreme Court, Cardozo authored a host of influential opinions, whether writing for the majority or writing in concurrence or dissent. http://straylight.law.cornell.edu/supct/cases/judges/toj_cardozo.html His most famous was 1937's Palko v. Connecticut which rationalized the Court's previous holdings incorporating specific portions of the Bill of Rights against the states via the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as declaring that the due process clause incorporated those rights which were "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty." Though Palko's result was overturned in 1969's Benton v. Maryland, Cardozo's analysis of the Due Process Clause has never been displaced.

Related Topics:
Palko v. Connecticut - Bill of Rights - Due Process Clause - Fourteenth Amendment

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A man alone

In late 1937, Cardozo had a heart attack, and in early 1938, he suffered a stroke. He died on July 9, 1938, at the age of 68.

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Of the six children born to Albert and Rebecca Cardozo, only Emily married, and she and her husband did not have any children. As far as is known, Benjamin Cardozo led the life of a celibate. As an adult, Cardozo no longer practiced his faith, but remained proud of his Jewish heritage.

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