The Nature of the Judicial Process
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Just as Justice Benjamin Cardozo's opinion in the Palsgraf case is arguably the most famous and influential opinion he authored, his book The Nature of the Judicial Process continues to exert influence among legal scholars today. It may not carry the precedential power which Palsgraf has in the torts law arena, but there are few judges and justices in the United States who have not heard of The Nature of the Judicial Process. Many a black-robed jurist has a copy on her law library shelf if not on her laptop computer. An electronic copy of this influential legal treatise can be found on the Internet[1].
A copy of the famous Palsgraf case [2] is also on the Internet as are the dissents. The legal case has always been of interest to legal scholars, but there has also been of late an unusual interest in what some have described as the Palsgraf curse [3] . To this day, some family members believe bad luck is hard on their heels ever since that morning of August 24, 1924, when Mrs. Palsgraf was injured after an unidentified man dropped a parcel containing fireworks setting into motion a series of events -- unforeseeable to be sure -- leading to the collapse of scales and her famous accident and, subsequently, the learned and precedent-setting opinion by Cardozo.
The Nature of the Judicial Process is a tract on judicial decision making. It advocates a method for solving the great problem: grey areas in the law. It prescribes a method of 4 parts for making a decision. It was Cardozo's way, modeled after Holmes, of making law.
