Prof. Names ‘100 Most Creative Moments in American Law’

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Legal History

Prof. Names ‘100 Most Creative Moments in American Law’

Posted May 23, 2008, 01:58 pm CDT
By Molly McDonough

Calling on as many legal history teachers as he could, a Valparaiso University law school professor has come up with an intriguing list of the "100 Most Creative Moments in American Law."

In 2005, Robert F. Blomquist sent letters to some 426 American professors who noted that they teach legal history. He asked them to proffer their thoughts on which were the most creative moments in Anglo-American law.

Blomquist reports that he was pleasantly surprised at how many got back to him about his novel research project. He describes the project in this SSRN abstract, "American revolutionaries, constitutionalists, legislators, chief executives, judges, administrators, scholars and activists have creatively changed the law for over two centuries in mostly positive ways with some admittedly questionable innovations."

The paper is meant to explore the meaning of creative moments in law and to compare legal creativity with other kinds of creativity, specifically corporate, artistic, military and rhetorical.

Here's the first five from the Top 100 list (PDF):

The Constitution of the United States (1787) and the ratification debates (1787-1788)
The Declaration of Independence (1776)
The Bill of Rights (1791-1792)
The Articles of Confederation (1777)
The Ordinance of 1787: the Northwest Territorial Government

Also on the list at No. 23 is the GI Bill and at No. 68 is "Al Gore, Earth in the Balance (1992) and An Inconvenient Truth (2006)." The Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890) comes in at No. 71.

Which moments would you include? Answer in the comments below.

Hat tip Legal History Blog.

Comments

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Posted by MSG - 3 months, 3 days, 18 hours, 7 minutes ago

Well I can tell you what it would certainly not include which is Al Gore’s monumental lie - An Inconvenient Truth! - which he is making millions on - which is the basis of liberal policy that is hurting this country - prohibiting offshore drilling, drilling in Alaska and other US oil reserves, causing high gas and food prices and attacking the americal ideal of capitalism which made this country great, not socialist policies. Just look at France, Italy , Russia, and other European coutries that are finally facing the failure of socialist policies and are going conservative, lowering taxes, taking strong stances on illegal immigration, and relying on Nuclear power. Wake up America!
Posted by Donald G. Musick - 3 months, 3 days, 17 hours, 11 minutes ago

The executive order of President Harry S Truman which integrated the armed forces of the United States. About 1949?
Posted by Demcoratic booster - 3 months, 3 days, 16 hours, 32 minutes ago

Why can’t we all just get along
Posted by Neil - 3 months, 3 days, 14 hours, 28 minutes ago

Try the Slattery Report, or “The Problem of Alaskan Development” produced by US Dept. of the Interior under Secretary Harold Ickes. In November 1938 Ickes proposed the use of Alaska as a haven for Jewish refuges from Germany and other areas in Europe. The plan was nixed by Roosevelt. What if....
Posted by Kristin - 3 months, 3 days, 9 hours, 58 minutes ago

Wow, MSG - is there anything factually correct in your comment?
Posted by Texas Law Prof - 3 months, 3 days, 7 hours, 48 minutes ago

There is one thing factually correct in MSG’s comment, Kristin. WAKE UP AMERICA! The nation has slept while the fascist leaning administration of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, John Ashcroft and their fellow neocons has changed the U.S. into a virtual police state, has eviscerated the Bill of Rights, fostered the degeneration of the nation into a gang of torturers, waged an illegal and immoral war on Iraq, wrecked the U. S. economy, increased poverty and inequality,, sabotaged environmental programs and sold the nation to the highest bidder. MSG isn’t asleep, just brain dead.
Posted by Ellen Barshevsky - 3 months, 19 hours, 34 minutes ago

What about giving WOMEN the right to vote? Where is that? Why is not that highlighted? MEN have kept us in the dark for years, and only in the 20th century were we given the right to vote. Oh, it was OK for us to bear the children, clean the house, and otherwise be a free sex slave for MEN, but we couldn’t vote despite the fact that we were just as smart and dedicated as MEN. We were kept down by MEN (and still are), but some major WOMEN (like Elizabeth Cady Stanton) made it happen for us now. I say we can vote out bad POLITICIANS who do us wrong, and we must stick together to make sure that we are no longer victimiitzed by the MAN. Why isn’t this mentioned. Is it because the PROFESSOR is a MAN? Think about it. Now do you see what I am saying? All right then! WOMEN OF THE WORLD UNITE!
Posted by Lawwy Lawanovich - 3 months, 19 hours, 33 minutes ago

Roe v. Wade is on the list? I guess “creative” means “ignoring constitutional text.”
Posted by Another law prof - 3 months, 19 hours, 30 minutes ago

MSG - too much MSG in your food? As for creative moments, how about the Brandeis and Warren article that first articulated the right to privacy.
Posted by Bob - 3 months, 19 hours, 24 minutes ago

Marbury v. Madison
Posted by Lawwy Lawonovich - 3 months, 19 hours ago

Justice Thomas’ concurrence in Adarand v. Pena
Posted by t law - 3 months, 18 hours, 58 minutes ago

Traynor - strict liability?

Skelly Wright - implied warranty of habitability?
Posted by John - 3 months, 18 hours, 45 minutes ago

Absolutely hilarious that Al Gore is in there. Shows that Law Professors are all about psuedointelllectual fads and follies as much os anyone else. (Or cynicism, if they’ve found a way to cash in on global warmism the sa Gore has.)
Posted by David - 3 months, 17 hours, 59 minutes ago

Cardozo’s NY Court of Appeals business law decisions: Wood V. Lucy, Lady Duff-Gordon, Jacob & Youngs v. Kent, Meinhard v. Salmon, etc.
Posted by John Vail - 3 months, 17 hours, 46 minutes ago

I would add George Mason’s Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom, which was an important precursor to the First Amendment, and the formation of the ACLU in reaction to the Palmer Raids, which gave rise to the idea that the First Amendment coudl be enforced.
Posted by Elliott Meisel - 3 months, 17 hours, 19 minutes ago

Griswold v. Connecticut 1965- not only the foundation for Roe v. Wade but the first real decision citing the Ninth Amendment (by two Justices) for the proposition that the Bill of Rights does NOT exhaust the rights retained by the people (Douglas-penumbras and emanations) and that the government is one of limited granted powers without regard to the restraints of the Bill of Rights, which as Hamilton feared, would create “Exceptions to Powers Not Granted”, a concept that the so-called “original intent” justices either can’t, due to intellectual deficiency, or won’t , due to ideological hypocrisy, grasp.
Posted by Tdubyadubya - 3 months, 17 hours, 18 minutes ago

Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific RR--corporations have same due process rights as living persons.

The poison pill takeover defense.
Posted by Caterina - 3 months, 16 hours, 53 minutes ago

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka
Posted by Jack Levey - 3 months, 16 hours, 3 minutes ago

Al Gore’s book is “creative” in the same way that most works of fiction are creative. Gore has gone a step further by passing off his fiction as fact, and attacking anyone who points out its departures from fact. As literary frauds go, his is one of the more successful.
Posted by Um, Ellen - 3 months, 15 hours, 38 minutes ago

Ellen at 7, um, your point is made. And way too loud. Decaf for you sister.
Posted by David - 3 months, 15 hours, 32 minutes ago

Lockner and not the NLRA! Just citing all of Roosevelt doesn’t do it for me.
Posted by John - 3 months, 15 hours, 30 minutes ago

Anglo-American legal history? Anyone heard og the Magna Carta?
Posted by Doneil - 3 months, 15 hours, 28 minutes ago

I agree with Bob on Marbury v. Madison. Judicial review should be in the top ten. Also high on the list for “creative” moments is Res Ipsa, Miranda and everybody’s favorite: “The fruit of the poisonous tree.”
Posted by R. Curtis McNeil - 3 months, 15 hours, 28 minutes ago

Where is Wickard v. Filburn? You have to be pretty creative to decide that the federal power to regulate interstate commerce extends to the production and consumption of wheat that never left the farm and was never in any stream of commerce.
Posted by Doneil - 3 months, 15 hours, 24 minutes ago

Right - Wickard was great, but can it top the “emanations” from the other constitutional rights that one of our supreme court justices seemed to sense?
Posted by Aaron Eitan Meyer - 3 months, 15 hours, 7 minutes ago

Zenger’s Case should be on there. The truth as a defense to a defamation action AND jury nullification in one case.
Posted by Mark - 3 months, 14 hours, 10 minutes ago

THE WORLD IS ENDING! LIBERALZ AHHH!!

What is mankind’s facination with organized lists?
Posted by RL - 3 months, 13 hours, 59 minutes ago

How about John Yoo’s torture memos? It takes alot of creativity to get around the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Geneva Convention, the U.N. Convention Against Torture, other international and federal law, and any sense of humanity or morality to put out that kind of work.
Posted by Maria Arndt - 3 months, 13 hours, 52 minutes ago

Very interesting.
Love the Valpo connection.
Good story.
Posted by J.Abbott - 2 months, 3 weeks, 6 days, 19 hours, 48 minutes ago

Henry David Thoreau’s essay On Civil Disobedience
Posted by SAM - 2 months, 3 weeks, 3 days, 21 hours, 52 minutes ago

Hawkins v. McGhee, the case of the hairy hand.
Posted by Bill - 2 months, 3 weeks, 3 days, 4 hours, 6 minutes ago

Texas Law Prof: “changed the U.S. into a virtual police state”??? “Fascists”? Can the predictable and worn-out hyperbole. Yeah, it’s such a police state. I’m no big fan of the Bush administration, but liberal academics have done more to destroy basic individual liberties in this country than anything the Bush admin has done. Speech codes, multiculturalism, and “zero tolerance” all equal the death of common sense, rationality and proportionality.

Breath into a paper sack for a while to calm down your hyperventilating. Don’t worry, the smirking chimp will be out of office soon enough. If Obama gets in, you can slather his butt with kisses, since he’s such a rock superstar who will single-handedly restore all of our freedoms and restore America to its former glory, and assure the fawning respect of all the socialist European nations.

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