Benjamin Cardozo

Before joining the U.S. Supreme Court, Benjamin Cardozo authored the landmark New York Court of Appeals decision in MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co. in 1916. This ruling fundamentally changed product liability law by removing the privity requirement for negligent manufacturers. He also penned the famous Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co. opinion in 1928 regarding proximate cause.

Benjamin Cardozo served as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1932 until his death in 1938. He was nominated to the Court by President Herbert Hoover to fill the vacancy left by the legendary Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. During his tenure, he became part of the liberal "Three Musketeers" alongside Louis Brandeis and Harlan Fiske Stone.

Cardozo is widely celebrated for his role in advancing sociological jurisprudence, which argues that laws must adapt to the changing needs of society. He outlined his judicial philosophy in his famous collection of lectures, The Nature of the Judicial Process, published in 1921. His pragmatic approach had a profound and lasting impact on the development of American common law.

There has been historical debate over whether Benjamin Cardozo was the first Hispanic Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. Cardozo was a Sephardic Jew of Portuguese descent, born in New York City in 1870. While some consider his Portuguese heritage as making him Hispanic, he did not identify with the term, and Sonia Sotomayor is generally recognized as the first Hispanic Justice.