Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 08.pdf/20

 The New Supreme Court Justice. advocates as Joseph H. Choate and John E. Parsons, is really a treatise upon the law of undue influence affecting testament-making; and it became further notable. And the like may be said of his opinion to be found in 145 N. Y. (N. Y. Health Department v. Trinity Church Corporation), in which he most earnestly discussed how far regulation of a merely police nature could disturb rights of the possession and uses of realty. The case had excited much popular attention, because there had been a newspaper trial of it, and editors had summed up rather un kindly against the alleged greed of a wealthy church congregation. That charge was, however, eloquently parried by Stephen P. Nash, who in the annals of the Episcopal Church became the successor of Murray Hoffman as the emeritus counsel in Canon law. That case will always be found valu able to the members of the profession who desire to examine the extent or limitations of those police regulations which affect the possession and enjoyment of realty. In the same volume appeared another opinion of Judge Peckham in a case where there had been a preliminary newspaper trial, which is more frequent — and indeed audacious — in New York City than in all the other cities of the Union and Great Britain together. The question considered was the reinstate ment of a policeman after apparent proce dure of dismissal by his superiors. In yet another notoriously tried newspaper case — Kennedy v. The (much abused) Ele vated Railway, he rendered a notable opinion involving the law of injury to easements of air and light. His judicial associates seemed to ever take pleasure in calling on his pen for opinions in much litigated popular legal conflicts. For, in framing the consultation views of those associates and of himself, he displayed tact in expression, along with his logical considerations. I once heard a client observe: "The other judges did not treat me fairly; but.

although Peckham beat me, his views seemed as caressing as is the fault-finding of a loving and tender-hearted woman." And yet when the demerits of a considered case were to be aggressively considered, Judge Peckham was equal to administering a pa ternal drubbing. In preparing this paper, I passed several delightful hours turning the leaves of the forty-six volumes of New York reports, which contain his opinions, as scattered through them. But perhaps the most originally conceived, and best treated opinion will be found in a forthcoming volume. This was delivered only a fortnight before his nomination to his new judicial duty. It will become known as Schuyler v. Curtis. Some ladies of a patri otic association had conceived the idea of publicly erecting two statues — one to a representative woman philanthropist, and another to a representative woman reformer. As subject for the former, they selected a deceased associate, Mrs. Mary Hamilton Schuyler; and for the latter subject, a lady much noted in newspaper history, and about whose deserts of fame opinions widely differed. A relative of the late Mrs. Schuyler applied for an injunction to restrain the feminine association from erecting a statue to her, basing opposition upon her well known, while living, indisposition to publicity, and partly upon the proposed public association of her memory with that of the other lady. Judge Peckham, in denying — per curiam — the injunction, most learnedly and interest ingly, even to a layman reader, discussed what he felicitously termed " the right of privacy." The Court denied the injunction on the jurisdictional ground that this right of privacy had expired with Mrs. Schuyler's death — following the analogy of. a tort — and did not enter into the domains of coram judice, by even intimating what her own remedy might have been, had she sur vived to personally consider the taste or