Benjamin N. Cardozo

But they all look for conduct that essentially proves the existence of the contract without needing a piece of paper.

And we must inject some extreme doctrinal depth here by looking at the specific standard articulated by Judge Benjamin Cardozo in the famous case Burns v. McCormick.

The standard is that the physical acts must be unequivocally referable to the alleged oral agreement.

What does that actually mean in practice?

New York, the court assumed that the freedom of speech was protected against the states, and that soon became settled law.

In 1937, in Palco v. Connecticut, Justice Benjamin Cardozo gave the method its test.

Only those rights implicit in the concept of ordered liberty would bind the states, and the judges would decide which those were.

Frank Palco had been tried a second time for the same killing after the state appealed his first verdict.

And again, plaintiff's counsel continued to argue that the guard's negligence was a question of fact.

Now, this case was written by Chief Judge Cardozo, and Cardozo at this time was obviously on the New York Court of Appeals.

He would later go on to be a Supreme Court justice.

Mm-hmm.

And Cardozo is known for his writing.

Mm-hmm.

The way that he writes is, is very particular and a lot of people have mixed feelings about how Cardozo writes.

I like how Cardozo writes.

The case reached the highest court in New York, and it resulted in a legendary clash of legal titans.

Chief Judge Benjamin Cardozo And Judge William Andrews.

They provided two completely contradictory philosophies on how the law should handle the outward ripples of causation.

Cardozo wrote the majority opinion.

He approached this entirely as a question of duty rather than causation.

He maps out the physical space of the platform and creates the concept of the zone of danger.

Cardozo's logic is clinical.

He says that negligence is not a free-floating concept in the air.

Right.

And the defining framework for this comes from a legendary nineteen twenty-eight New York case, Palsgraf versus Long Island Railroad Company, written by Justice Benjamin Cardozo.

Cardozo.Oh, tell me the story.

I love a good historical case.

It is arguably the most famous tort case in American history.

She sues the railroad, arguing the guards were negligent in how they shoved the passenger.

I mean, they did cause the explosion that knocked over the scale, right?

But did they owe a duty to Helen Palsgraf? Justice Cardozo said no.

Let's look at the classic wrong pipes case, Jacob and Young's versus Kent.

This opinion was written by the legendary Justice Benjamin Cardozo in nineteen twenty-one, and it remains a cornerstone of legal education.

We have a very wealthy man, Mr. Kent.

He hires a prestigious contractor to build a lavish, expensive country residence.