141 Facts About Learned Hand

Billings Learned Hand was an American jurist, lawyer, and judicial philosopher.

Learned Hand served as a federal trial judge on the US District Court for the Southern District of New York from 1909 to 1924 and as a federal appellate judge on the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from 1924 to 1951.

Between 1909 and 1914, under the influence of Herbert Croly's social theories, Learned Hand supported New Nationalism.

Learned Hand ran unsuccessfully as the Progressive Party's candidate for chief judge of the New York Court of Appeals in 1913, but withdrew from active politics shortly afterwards.

Learned Hand possessed a gift for the English language, and his writings are admired as legal literature.

Learned Hand rose to fame outside the legal profession in 1944 during World War II after giving a short address in Central Park that struck a popular chord in its appeal for tolerance.

Learned Hand is remembered as a pioneer of modern approaches to statutory interpretation.

Learned Hand believed in the protection of free speech and in bold legislation to address social and economic problems.

Learned Hand argued that the United States Constitution does not empower courts to overrule the legislation of elected bodies, except in extreme circumstances.

Billings Learned Hand was born on January 27,1872, in Albany, New York, the second and last child of Samuel Hand and Lydia Hand.

Samuel Learned Hand was an appellate lawyer, who had risen rapidly through the ranks of an Albany-based law firm in the 1860s and, by age 32, was the firm's leading lawyer.

Samuel Hand was a distant, intimidating figure to his son; Learned Hand later described the relationship with his father as "not really intimate".

Lydia Learned Hand was an involved and protective mother who had been influenced by a Calvinist aunt as a child; she passed on a strong sense of duty and guilt to her only son.

Learned Hand eventually came to understand the influences of his parents as formative.

Learned Hand was beset by anxieties and self-doubt throughout his life, including night terrors as a child.

Learned Hand spent two years at a small primary school before transferring at the age of seven to The Albany Academy, which he attended for the next 10 years.

Learned Hand never enjoyed the Academy's uninspired teaching or its narrow curriculum, which focused on Ancient Greek and Latin, with few courses in English, history, science, or modern languages.

Many years later, when he was in his 70s, Hand recorded several songs for the Library of Congress that he had learned as a boy from Civil War veterans in Elizabethtown.

Learned Hand finished near the top of his class and was accepted into Harvard College.

Learned Hand enrolled at Harvard College in 1889, initially focusing on classical studies and mathematics as advised by his late father.

Learned Hand embarked on courses in philosophy and economics, studying under the eminent and inspirational philosophers William James, Josiah Royce and George Santayana.

Learned Hand was not selected for any of the social clubs that dominated campus life, and he felt this exclusion keenly.

Learned Hand was equally unsuccessful with the Glee Club and the football team; for a time he rowed as a substitute for the rowing club.

Learned Hand later described himself as a "serious boy", a hard worker who did not smoke, drink, or consort with prostitutes.

Learned Hand became a member of the Hasty Pudding Club and appeared as a blond-wigged chorus girl in the 1892 student musical.

Learned Hand was elected president of The Harvard Advocate, a student literary magazine.

Learned Hand graduated with highest honors, was awarded an Artium Magister degree as well as an Artium Baccalaureus degree, and was chosen by his classmates to deliver the Class Day oration at the 1893 commencement.

Learned Hand was elected to the Pow-Wow Club, in which law students practiced their skills in moot courts.

Learned Hand was chosen as an editor of the Harvard Law Review, although he resigned in 1894 because it took too much time from his studies.

Apart from Langdell, Learned Hand's professors included Samuel Williston, John Chipman Gray, and James Barr Ames.

Learned Hand preferred those teachers who valued common sense and fairness, and ventured beyond casebook study into the philosophy of law.

Learned Hand emphasized the law's historical and human dimensions rather than its certainties and extremes.

Learned Hand stressed the need for courts to exercise judicial restraint in deciding social issues.

Learned Hand graduated from Harvard Law School with a Bachelor of Laws in 1896 at the age of 24.

Learned Hand returned to Albany to live with his mother and aunt and started work for the law firm in which an uncle, Matthew Hale, was a partner.

Hale's unexpected death a few months later obliged Learned Hand to move to a new firm, but by 1899, he had become a partner.

Learned Hand had difficulty attracting his own clients and found the work trivial and dull.

Learned Hand began to fear that he lacked the ability to think on his feet in court.

For two years, Learned Hand tried to succeed as a lawyer by force of will, giving all his time to the practice.

Learned Hand wrote scholarly articles, taught part-time at Albany Law School, and joined a lawyers' discussion group in New York City.

Learned Hand came from a line of loyal Democrats, but in 1898 he voted for Republican Theodore Roosevelt as governor of New York.

Learned Hand caused further family controversy by registering as a Republican for the presidential election of 1900.

The more cautious Fincke postponed her answer for almost a year, while Learned Hand wrote to and occasionally saw her.

Learned Hand began to look more seriously for work in New York City.

Learned Hand corresponded regularly with his doctor brother-in-law about initial difficulties in conceiving and about his children's illnesses.

Learned Hand survived pneumonia in February 1905, taking months to recover.

The family at first spent summers in Mount Kisco, with Learned Hand commuting on the weekends.

Frances Learned Hand spent increasing amounts of time with Dow while her husband was in New York, and tension crept into the marriage.

Learned Hand regretted Frances' long absences and urged her to spend more time with him, but he maintained an enduring friendship with Dow.

Learned Hand blamed himself for a lack of insight into his wife's needs in the early years of the marriage, confessing his "blindness and insensibility to what you wanted and to your right to your own ways when they differed from mine".

Learned Hand continued to be disappointed in his progress at work.

Learned Hand became involved briefly in local Republican politics to strengthen his political base.

One of the youngest federal judges ever appointed, Learned Hand took his judicial oath at age 37 in April 1909.

Learned Hand served as a United States district judge in the Southern District of New York from 1909 to 1924.

Learned Hand dealt with fields of common law, including torts, contracts, and copyright, and admiralty law.

Learned Hand made some important decisions in the area of free speech.

Learned Hand was politically active in the cause of New Nationalism.

Learned Hand approved of the ex-president's plans to legislate on behalf of the underprivileged and to control corporations, as well as of his campaign against the abuse of judicial power.

Learned Hand sought to influence Roosevelt's views on these subjects, both in person and in print, and wrote articles for Roosevelt's magazine, The Outlook.

Learned Hand considered the election merely as a first step in a reform campaign for "real national democracy".

Learned Hand accepted the Progressive nomination for chief judge of New York Court of Appeals, then an elective position, in September 1913.

Learned Hand refused to campaign, and later admitted that "the thought of harassing the electorate was more than I could bear".

Learned Hand had already turned to an alternative political outlet in Herbert Croly's The New Republic, a liberal magazine which he had helped launch in 1914.

Learned Hand wrote a series of unsigned articles for the magazine on issues of social reform and judicial power; his only signed article was "The Hope of the Minimum Wage", published in November 1916, which called for laws to protect the underprivileged.

Learned Hand made his most memorable decision of the war in 1917 in Masses Publishing Co.

Learned Hand always maintained that his ruling had been correct.

Learned Hand had known that ruling against the government might harm his prospects of promotion.

Learned Hand was passed over in favor of Martin T Manton.

Learned Hand believed the United States should endorse the League of Nations and the Treaty of Versailles, despite their flaws.

The next Second Circuit vacancy arose in 1921, but with the conservative Warren G Harding administration in power, Hand did not put himself forward.

Nonetheless, Learned Hand's reputation was such that by 1923, Justice Holmes wanted him on the Supreme Court, and in 1924 Harding's successor, Calvin Coolidge, appointed Learned Hand to the Second Circuit.

Learned Hand committed himself to public impartiality, despite his strong views on political issues.

Learned Hand remained, a strong supporter of freedom of speech, and any sign of the "merry sport of Red-baiting" troubled him.

In 1922, Learned Hand privately objected to a proposed limit on the number of Jewish students admitted to Harvard College.

In public, Learned Hand discussed issues of democracy, free speech, and toleration only in general terms.

Learned Hand came to accept Frankfurter's view that redistribution of wealth was essential for economic recovery.

Learned Hand voted for Roosevelt again in 1940 and 1944, but he remained vigilant on the constitutional dangers of big government.

Learned Hand had no hesitation in condemning Roosevelt's 1937 bill to expand the Supreme Court and pack it with New Dealers.

Learned Hand was increasingly called upon to judge cases arising from the flood of New Deal legislation.

Learned Hand relished the challenge of interpreting such legislation, calling it "an act of creative imagination".

When war broke out in Europe in 1939, Learned Hand adopted an anti-isolationist stance.

Learned Hand rarely spoke out publicly, not only because of his position but because he thought bellicosity unseemly in an old man.

Not an admirer of Manton, Learned Hand nonetheless testified at his trial that he had never noticed any corrupt behavior in his predecessor.

Learned Hand concentrated on maintaining good relations with his fellow judges and on cleansing the court of patronage appointments.

DC circuit judge Wiley Blount Rutledge, whom Roosevelt appointed, died in 1949, while Learned Hand lived until 1961.

Learned Hand was relieved when the United States entered the war in December 1941.

Learned Hand felt free to participate in organizations and initiatives connected with the war effort, and was particularly committed to programs in support of Greece and Russia.

Learned Hand backed Roosevelt for the 1944 election, partly because he feared a return to isolationism and the prolonging of the wartime erosion of civil liberties.

Learned Hand condemned the Nuremberg war-crimes trials, which he saw as motivated by vengeance; he did not believe that "aggressive war" could be construed as a crime.

Learned Hand stated that all Americans were immigrants who had come to America in search of liberty.

Learned Hand continued to work as before, combining his role as presiding judge of the Second Circuit with his engagement in political issues.

Learned Hand argued that such a law would imply that intolerance could base itself upon evidence.

Learned Hand was distressed by the crusade against domestic subversion that had become part of American public life after the war.

Learned Hand particularly despised the anti-Communist campaign of Senator Joseph McCarthy that began in 1950 and which became known as McCarthyism.

Learned Hand ruled therefore that papers seized during the arrest had been inadmissible as evidence.

The trial judge's failure to disclose all the wiretap records, Learned Hand concluded, necessitated a reversal of Coplon's conviction.

In Dennis, Learned Hand affirmed the convictions under the 1940 Smith Act of eleven leaders of the Communist Party of the United States for subversion.

Learned Hand ruled that calls for the violent overthrow of the American government posed enough of a "probable danger" to justify the invasion of free speech.

In 1953, Learned Hand wrote a scathing dissent from a Second Circuit decision affirming the perjury conviction of William Remington, a government economist accused of Communist sympathies and activities.

Only after stepping down from his position as a full-time judge in 1951 did Learned Hand join the public debate on McCarthyism.

Learned Hand followed this up with an address to the Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York the next year.

In 1951, Learned Hand retired from "regular active service" as a federal judge.

Learned Hand assumed senior status, a form of semi-retirement, and continued to sit on the bench, with a considerable workload.

Learned Hand was convinced that his wife had rescued him from a life as a "melancholic, a failure [because] I should have thought myself so, and probably single and hopelessly hypochondriac".

Shortly afterward, to Dworkin's surprise, Learned Hand wrote him a personal check for an extra month's pay as a wedding present.

Learned Hand remained in good physical and mental condition for most of the last decade of his life.

Learned Hand's views were widely criticized as reactionary and unfortunate, with most deploring the fact that they might encourage segregationists who opposed libertarian judicial rulings.

Catcher in the Rye author JD Salinger became a neighbor in Cornish, New Hampshire in 1953, and Learned Hand became Salinger's best and almost only friend as Salinger become more and more reclusive.

Learned Hand joked that he felt idle because he had taken part in no more than about 25 cases that year, and that he would start another job if he could find one.

Learned Hand was taken to St Luke's Hospital in New York City, where he died peacefully on August 18,1961.

Learned Hand was buried next to his wife in the family plot at Albany Rural Cemetery near Menands, New York.

Learned Hand saw the Constitution and the law as compromises to resolve conflicting interests, possessing no moral force of their own.

Learned Hand therefore regarded toleration as a prerequisite of civil liberty.

Learned Hand's skepticism extended to his political philosophy: he once described himself as "a conservative among liberals, and a liberal among conservatives".

Learned Hand, who believed, following Thomas Hobbes, that the rule of law is the only alternative to the rule of brutality, leaned towards Hamilton.

Learned Hand nevertheless saw the liberty to create and to choose as vital to peoples' humanity and entitled to legal protection.

Learned Hand assumed the goal of human beings to be the "good life", defined as each individual chooses.

Between 1910 and 1916, Learned Hand tried to translate his political philosophy into political action.

Learned Hand discovered that party politicking was incompatible not only with his role as a judge but with his philosophical objectivity.

The pragmatic philosophy Learned Hand had imbibed from William James at Harvard required each issue to be individually judged on its merits, without partiality.

Learned Hand was an interventionist on foreign policy, supporting US involvement in both world wars, and disdained isolationism.

Learned Hand has been called one of the United States' most significant judicial philosophers.

Learned Hand viewed it as a judicial "usurpation" for the Supreme Court to assume the role of a third chamber in these cases.

Nevertheless, Learned Hand did not hesitate to condemn Roosevelt's frustrated attempt to pack the Supreme Court in 1937, which led commentators to warn of totalitarianism.

The answer, for Learned Hand, lay in the separation of powers: courts should be independent and act on the legislation of elected governments.

Learned Hand adhered to the doctrine of presumptive validity, which assumes that legislators know what they are doing when they pass a law.

Learned Hand believed that courts should protect the right to free speech even against the majority will.

Learned Hand was the first judge to rule on a case arising from the Espionage Act of 1917, which sought to silence opposition to the war effort.

Learned Hand felt he had "no choice" but to agree that threats against the government by a group of Communists were illegal under the repressive Smith Act of 1940.

Critics and disappointed liberals accused Learned Hand of placing his concern for judicial restraint ahead of freedom of speech.

Learned Hand confided to a friend that, if it had been up to him, he would "never have prosecuted those birds".

Learned Hand therefore opposed the use of its "due process of law" clauses as a pretext for national intervention in state legislation.

Learned Hand even advocated the removal of those clauses from the Constitution.

Learned Hand contended that the term had inflated in scope beyond the meaning intended in the Bill of Rights.

Learned Hand maintained this stance even when the Supreme Court struck down anti-liberal laws that he detested.

Learned Hand played a key role in the interpretation of new federal crime laws in the period following the passing of the US Criminal Code in 1909.

Learned Hand's opinions have proved lasting in fields of commercial law.

Learned Hand was referring to reporting of individual income through corporate tax forms for legitimate business reasons.

In tax decisions, as in all statutory cases, Learned Hand studied the intent of the original legislation.

Learned Hand's opinions became a valuable guide to tax administrators.

Learned Hand was a founding member of the American Law Institute, where he helped develop the influential Restatements of the Law serving as models for refining and improving state codes in various fields.