Lemuel Shaw in the United States
Shaw, Lemuel (1781_1861)
United States Constitution
According to the Encyclopedia of the American Constitution, about its article titled SHAW, LEMUEL (1781_1861) Lemuel Shaw was chief justice of Massachusetts from 1830 to 1860, during which time he wrote a record number of opinions, over 2,200, only one in dissent. He dominated his court as no other judge has. His opinions were often comprehensive, ponderous, analytical treatises. He
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Lemuel Shaw
Introduction to Lemuel Shaw
Lemuel Shaw (1781-1861), American jurist, chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, and one of the major legal figures of the early industrial revolution in the United States. Shaw’s thinking profoundly influenced nearly every facet of the law, and many of his decisions remain leading cases in their fields.
Shaw was born at Barnstable, Massachusetts. After graduating from Harvard College in Cambridge, he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1804. He sat in the Massachusetts legislature as a representative and later as a state senator. Shaw was a prominent member of the Massachusetts constitutional convention of 1820, and in 1822 he drafted the first city charter of Boston. Shaw was appointed chief justice of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts in 1830 and served until 1860.
In his 30 years of service on the bench, Shaw handed down more than 2000 opinions, many of which are still cited in the courts today. In Commonwealth v. Hunt, he established a revolutionary precedent by ruling that it was not criminal for a combination of employees to refuse to work for an employer who hires nonunion labor. In Brown v. Kendall, he put forth the proposition of no liability, which states that a person is not liable for harmful consequences of an act when the act is unintentional and the person committing it is not negligent. In Norway Plains v. Boston & Maine Railroad, Shaw dealt with the question of a common carrier’s responsibility for goods. In the famous Commonwealth v. Webster case in which the defendant, a Harvard professor, was tried for the murder of a prominent Boston citizen, Shaw’s explanation of the principle of reasonable doubt to the jury has become a legal classic.” (1)
Resources
Notes and References
- Information about Lemuel Shaw in the Encarta Online Encyclopedia
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