A court will find undue influence if the testator was capable of being influenced, improper influence was exerted on the testator, and the testamentary provisions reflect the effect of s
Trang 1defeating the testator’s testamentary plan If, however, the witness also would inherit under the laws of descent and distribution should the will be invalidated, he will forfeit only the interest in excess of the amount he would receive if the will were voided
Acknowledgment A testator is usually re-quired to publish the will—that is, to declare
to the witnesses that the instrument is his will
This declaration is called an ACKNOWLEDGMENT
No state requires, however, that the witnesses know the contents of the will
Although some states require a testator to sign the will in the presence of witnesses, the majority require only an acknowledgment of the signature If a testator shows the signature on a will that he has already signed to a witness and
acknowledges that it is his signature, the will is thereby acknowledged
Attestation An attestation clause is a certificate signed by the witnesses to a will reciting per-formance of the formalities of execution that the witnesses observed It usually is not required for a will to be valid, but in some states it is evidence that the statements made in the attestation are true
Testator’s Intent
For a will to be admitted to probate, it must be clear that the testator acted freely in expressing his testamentary intention A will executed as a result of undue influence, fraud, or mistake can
be declared completely or partially void in a probate proceeding
Howard Hughes and the Mormon Will
W
B
hen billionaire recluse Howard Hughes died
in 1976, it appeared that he had not left a will
Attorneys and executives of Hughes’s corporations
began an intensive search to find a will, while
speculation grew that Hughes might have left a
holographic (handwritten) will One attorney
pub-licly stated that Hughes had asked him about the
legality of a holographic will
Soon after the attorney made the statement, a
holographic will allegedly written by Hughes
appeared on a desk in the Salt Lake City
headquar-ters of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints, more commonly known as the Mormon
Church After a preliminary review, a document
examiner concluded that the will might have been
written by Hughes The Mormon Church then filed
the will in the county court in Las Vegas, Nevada,
where Hughes’s estate was being settled
The will, which became known as the Mormon
Will, drew national attention for a provision that gave
one-sixteenth of the estate, valued at $156 million, to
Melvin Dummar, the owner of a small gas station in
Willard, Utah Dummar told reporters that in 1975 he
had picked up a man who claimed to be Howard
Hughes and had dropped him off in Las Vegas
Though Dummar first said he had no prior
knowledge of the will or how it appeared at the
church headquarters, he later claimed that a man drove to his service station and gave him the will with instructions to deliver it to Salt Lake City Dummar said he had destroyed the instructions
Investigators discovered that Dummar had checked out a library copy of a book called The Hoax, which recounted the story of Clifford Irving’s forgery of an“autobiography” of Hughes The book contained examples of Hughes’s handwriting Document examiners demonstrated that Hughes’s handwriting had changed before the time the Mormon Will supposedly was written In addition, the examiners concluded that the will was a crude forgery Nevertheless, it took a seven-month trial and millions of dollars from the Hughes estate to prove that the will was a fake In the end, the court ruled that the will was a forgery
No valid will was ever found Dummar’s story later became the subject of the 1980 motion picture Melvin and Howard
FURTHER READINGS Freese, Paul L 1986 “Howard Hughes and Melvin Dummar: Forensic Science Fact Versus Film Fiction ” Journal of Forensic Sciences 31 (January).
Marks, Marlene Adler 1981 “Where There’s a Will Rhoden Recoups after Howard Hughes Fiasco ” National Law Journal (January 5).
408 WILL
Trang 2Undue Influence Undue influence is pressure
that takes away a person’s free will to make
decisions, substituting the will of the influencer
A court will find undue influence if the testator
was capable of being influenced, improper
influence was exerted on the testator, and the
testamentary provisions reflect the effect of such
influence Mere advice, persuasion, affection, or
kindness does not alone constitute undue
influence
Questions of undue influence typically arise
when a will deals unjustly with persons believed
to be the natural objects of the testator’s bounty
However, undue influence is not established by
inequality of the provisions of the will, because
this would interfere with the testator’s ability to
dispose of the property as he pleases Examples
of undue influence include threats of violence
or criminal prosecution of the testator, or the
threat to abandon a sick testator
Fraud Fraud differs from undue influence in
that the former involves MISREPRESENTATION of
essential facts to another to persuade him to
make and sign a will that will benefit the person
who misrepresents the facts The testator still
acts freely in making and signing the will
The two types of fraud are fraud in the
execution and fraud in the inducement When a
person is deceived by another as to the character
or contents of the document he is signing, he is
the victim of fraud in the execution Fraud in
the execution includes a situation where the
contents of the will are knowingly
misrepre-sented to the testator by someone who will
benefit from the misrepresentation
Fraud in the inducement occurs when a
person knowingly makes a will but its terms are
based on material misrepresentations of facts
made to the testator by someone who will
ultimately benefit
Persons deprived of benefiting under a will
because of fraud or undue influence can obtain
relief only by contesting the will If a court finds
fraud or undue influence, it may prevent the
wrongdoer from receiving any benefit from the
will and may distribute the property to those
who contested the will
Mistake When a testator intended to execute
his will but by mistake signed the wrong
document, that document will not be enforced
Such mistakes often occur when aHUSBAND AND
WIFEdraft mutual wills The document that bears
the testator’s signature does not represent his testamentary intent, and therefore his property cannot be distributed according to its terms
Special Types of Wills
Some states have statutes that recognize certain kinds of wills that are executed with less formality than ordinary wills, but only when the wills are made under circumstances that reduce the possibility of fraud
Holographic Wills A holographic will is completely written and signed in the handwriting
of the testator, such as a letter that specifically discusses his intended distribution of the estate after his death Many states do not recognize the validity of holographic wills, and those that do require that the formalities of execution be followed
Nuncupative Wills A nuncupative will is an oral will Most states do not recognize the validity of such wills because of the greater likelihood of fraud, but those that do impose certain requirements The will must be made during the testator’s last sickness or in expecta-tion of imminent death The testator must indicate to the witnesses that he wants them to witness his oral will Such a will can dispose of only personal, not real, property
Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Wills Several states have laws that relax the execution requirements for wills made by soldiers and sailors while on active military duty or at sea In these situations
a testator’s oral or handwritten will is capable of passing personal property Where such wills are recognized, statutes often stipulate that they are valid for only a certain period of time after the testator has left the service In other instances, however, the will remains valid
Revocation of a Will
A will is ambulatory, which means that a competent testator may change or revoke it at any time before his death Revocation of a will occurs when a person who has made a will takes some action to indicate that he no longer wants its provisions to be binding and the law abides by his decision
For revocation to be effective, the intent of the testator, whether express or implied, must
be clear, and an act of revocation consistent with this intent must occur Persons who wish
to revoke a will may use a codicil, which is a
WILL 409
Trang 3document that changes, revokes, or amends part or all of a validly executed will When a person executes a codicil that revokes some provisions of a previous will, the courts will recognize this as a valid revocation Likewise, a new will that completely revokes an earlier will indicates the testator’s intent to revoke the will
Statements made by a person at or near the time that he intentionally destroys his will by burning, mutilating, or tearing it clearly dem-onstrate his intent to revoke
Sometimes revocation occurs by operation
of law, as in the case of a marriage, DIVORCE, birth of a child, or the sale of property devised
in the will, which automatically changes the legal duties of the testator Many states provide that when a testator and spouse have been divorced but the testator’s will has not been revised since the change in marital status, any disposition to the former spouse is revoked
Protection of the Family
The desire of society to protect the spouse and children of a decedent is a major reason both for allowing testamentary disposition of prop-erty and for placing limitations upon the freedom of testators
Surviving Spouse Three statutory approaches have developed to protect the surviving spouse against disinheritance: DOWER or curtesy, the elective share, andCOMMUNITY PROPERTY Dower or curtesy At common law, a wife was entitled to dower, a life interest in one-third
of the land owned by her husband during the marriage Curtesy was the right of a husband to
a life interest in all of his wife’s lands Most states have abolished common-law dower and curtesy and have enacted laws that treat husband and wife identically Some statutes subject dower and curtesy to payment of debts, and others extend rights to personal property as well as land Some states allow dower or curtesy
in addition to testamentary provisions, though
in other states dower and curtesy are in lieu of testamentary provisions
Elective share Although a testator can dispose of his property as he wishes, the law recognizes that the surviving spouse, who has usually contributed to the accumulation of property during the marriage, is entitled to a share in the property Otherwise, that spouse might ultimately become dependent on the
state For this reason, the elective share was created by statute in states that do not have community property
Most states have statutes allowing a surviv-ing spouse to elect either a statutory share (usually one-third of the estate if children survive, one-half otherwise), which is the share that the spouse would have received if the decedent had died intestate, or the provision made in the spouse’s will As a general rule, surviving spouses are prohibited from taking their elective share if they unjustly engaged in desertion or committed bigamy
A spouse can usually waive, release, or contract away his statutory rights to an elective share or to dower or curtesy by either an antenuptial (also called prenuptial) or postnup-tial agreement, if it is fair and made with knowledge of all relevant facts Such agreements must be in writing
Community property A community prop-erty system generally treats the husband and wife as co-owners of property acquired by either
of them during the marriage On the death of one, the survivor is entitled to one-half the property, and the remainder passes according to the will of the decedent
Children Generally parents can completely disinherit their children A court will uphold such provisions if the testator specifically men-tions in the will that he is intentionally dis-inheriting certain named children Many states, however, have pretermitted heir provisions, which give children born or adopted after the execution of the will and not mentioned in it an intestate share, unless the omission appears to be intentional
Other Limitations on Will Provisions
The law has made other exceptions to the general rule that a testator has the unqualified right to dispose of his estate in any way that he sees fit
Charitable Gifts Many state statutes protect a testator’s family from disinheritance by limiting the testator’s power to make charitable gifts Such limitations are usually operative only where close relatives, such as children, grand-children, parents, and spouse, survive
Charitable gifts are limited in certain ways For example, the amount of the gift can be limited to a certain proportion of the estate,
410 WILL
Trang 4usually 50 percent Some states prohibit
death-bed gifts to charity by invalidating gifts that a
testator makes within a specified period before
death
Ademption and Abatement ADEMPTION is
where a person makes a declaration in his will
to leave some property to another and then
reneges on the declaration, either by changing
the property or removing it from the estate
Abatement is the process of determining the
order in which property in the estate will be
applied to the payment of debts, taxes, and
expenses
The gifts that a person is to receive under a
will are usually classified according to their
nature for purposes of ademption and
abate-ment A specific bequest is a gift of a particular
identifiable item of personal property, such as
an antique violin, whereas a specific devise is an
identifiable gift of real property, such as a
specifically designated farm
A demonstrative bequest is a gift of a certain
amount of property—$2,000, for example—out
of a certain fund or identifiable source of
property, such as a savings account at a particular
bank
A general bequest is a gift of property
payable from the general assets of the testator’s
estate, such as a gift of $5,000
A residuary gift is a gift of the remaining
portion of the estate after the satisfaction of
other dispositions
When specific devises and bequests are no
longer in the estate or have been substantially
changed in character at the time of the testator’s
death, this is called ademption by extinction,
and it occurs irrespective of the testator’s intent
If a testator specifically provides in his will that
the beneficiary will receive his gold watch, but
the watch is stolen prior to his death, the gift
adeems and the beneficiary is not entitled to
anything, including any insurance payments
made to the estate as reimbursement for the loss
of the watch
Ademption by satisfaction occurs when the
testator, during his lifetime, gives to his
intended beneficiary all or part of a gift that
he had intended to give the beneficiary in her
will The intention of the testator is an essential
element Ademption by satisfaction applies to
general as well as specific legacies If the subject
matter of a gift made during the lifetime of
a testator is the same as that specified in a testamentary provision, it is presumed that the gift is in lieu of the testamentary gift where there is a parent-child or grandparent-parent relationship
In the abatement process, the intention of the testator, if expressed in the will, governs the order in which property will abate to pay taxes, debts, and expenses Where the will is silent, the following order is usually applied: residuary gifts, general bequests, demonstrative bequests, and specific bequests and devises
RESOURCES Beyer 2007 Wills, Trusts and Estates Examples & Explana-tions Frederick, MD: Aspen.
Brown, Gordon W., and Scott Myers 2008 Administration
of Wills, Trusts, and Estates 4th ed Clifton Park, NY:
Delmar/Cengage Learning.
CROSS REFERENCES Estate and Gift Taxes; Executors and Administrators;
Husband and Wife; Illegitimacy; Living Will; Parent and Child; Postmarital Agreement; Premarital Agreement;
Trust.
vWILL, HUBERT LOUIS Hubert Louis Will was appointed U.S district judge for the Northern District of Illinois on October 27, 1961, by PresidentJOHN F.KENNEDY Like Kennedy, Will has been called an idealist and a pragmatist His challenge to other federal judges is famous: produce the highest quality justice in the shortest time and at the lowest cost, consistent with that quality To meet his own challenge, Will developed innovative case-management techniques over the years—and he willingly shared them, through judicial semi-nars, with many of the nation’s leading jurists
Will was among the first to use pretrial scheduling conferences, pretrial orders, and standardized pretrial order forms to organize and supervise the course of a trial from the outset His aversion to lengthy and costly trials caused him to be, at times, an outspoken critic of the U.S trial lawyers He was a longtime crusader for higher professional standards and better practice skills within the trial bar Lawyers seldom took issue with Will’s position on the issue He was a respected trial lawyer for almost
20 years before coming to the federal bench
Will was born April 23, 1914, in Milwaukee
As a law student at the University of Chicago he was among a select group of students chosen to
JUDGES FOR CENTURIES HAVE THOUGHT THAT THEY WERE JUST SUPPOSED TO BE SKILLED REFEREES WHO WOULD STEP INTO THE RING WHEN THE LAWYER COMBATANTS SAID THEY WERE READY
TO FIGHT
—H UBERT L OUIS W ILL
WILL, HUBERT LOUIS 411
Trang 5meet with attorney CLARENCE DARROWfor infor-mal Sunday afternoon discussions on legal topics One of Darrow’s favorites was VOIR DIRE, which is the preliminary examination of prospective jurors or witnesses to inquire into their competence As a judge, Will enjoyed the dynamics of the jury selection process
In 1937 Will earned a doctor of jurispru-dence degree from the University of Chicago
That same year, he accepted a position with the general counsel’s staff of the U.S.SECURITIES AND
as special secretary to U.S senator ROBERT F
special secretary, Will also served as clerk of the Senate Committee on Banking and Currency In
1940 Will joined the Tax Division of theJUSTICE
attorney general It was in the Tax Division that Will got his first real courtroom experience
There he briefed and argued cases in the U.S
Court of Claims and various district courts He also tried cases in all the circuit courts of appeals and the U.S Supreme Court
Later, Will served as general counsel for the Office of Price Administration and as tax counsel to the U.S alien property custodian
By 1943, he was active in the military as a member of the Office of Strategic Services He later served as acting chief of the Counter Espionage Branch in the European theater of operations Before WORLD WAR II ended, he earned a promotion to captain and a citation for bravery Thereafter he remained active in veterans’ affairs
At the close of the war, Will and his wife and four children returned to Chicago, where he
joined the law firm of Pope and Ballard A year later, he became a partner in the firm of Nelson, Boodell, and Will From 1946 to 1961 Will made his name as a tough—and winning—trial attorney As a consequence of his work and reputation, Will was well known in Chicago circles of the DEMOCRATIC PARTY His name was soon added to a short list of possible appointees
to the federal bench In October 1961 President Kennedy named Will U.S district judge for the Northern District of Illinois In 1965 Will called
on his tax litigation background when he presided over the trial and acquittal of former Illinois governor William G Stratton on charges
Internal Revenue, 54 T.C 255 [T.C 1970])
As a new judge, Will faced a staggering number of cases, and he was often frustrated when valuable courtroom time was devoted to issues he would not have bothered to handle as
an attorney Recognizing the need to better manage the volume and disposition of his cases, Will turned to colleagues for advice and assistance Seasoned federal judges had practical suggestions for the newest among them, but no forum for sharing that expertise To address this problem, Will was asked to join senior judges
on a planning committee charged with devel-oping training seminars for new district judges His contribution and insight proved valuable
By 1963 Will was part of a permanent faculty responsible for training new judges He remained
on the faculty for the next 25 years
Throughout the 1960s Will experimented with methods to improve court procedures The first standard forms for prisoners’HABEAS CORPUS
petitions and CIVIL RIGHTS complaints were drafted in his chambers Will acknowledged
Hubert Louis Will 1914–1995
❖
1914 Born, Milwaukee, Wisc.
1938 Joined Securities and Exchange Commission
as a general counsel
1939–45 World War II 1914–18
World War I
❖
1950–53 Korean War
1961–73 Vietnam War
◆
◆
1965 Presided over Stratton v Commissioner of Internal Revenue
1963 Helped to train new district judges; joined Judicial Conference Committee on Bankruptcy Administration
1995 Died, Chicago, Ill.
1946 Became a partner in the Chicago firm of Nelson, Boodell and Will
1961 Appointed U.S district judge for Northern District of Ill.
◆ ◆ ◆
1971 Appointed to Commission
on the Bankruptcy Law of the United States
1940 Joined Tax Division of Department of Justice 1944–45 Served as chief of Counter Espionage Branch of European theater
412 WILL, HUBERT LOUIS
Trang 6that the forms were a simple solution but saw
them as essential to sorting valid prisoner pleas
from those that were “recreation for people
with time on their hands.”
In the area of civil litigation, Will was a vocal
advocate of bifurcated trials, or trials in which
certain issues are considered separately, for
example, guilt and punishment, liability and
damages He was among the first to use pretrial
scheduling conferences, pretrial orders, and
standardized pretrial order forms to control the
course of a trial from the outset An amendment
to rule 16 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure
covering pretrial scheduling conferences is often
called the Will rule He was also known for the
20 questions rule, which limits the number of
interrogatories without court approval, and the
straight face test, cautioning attorneys against
taking a“position on any issue in any case that
he or she cannot take with a straight face.”
Throughout the 1960s Will traveled to other
districts to demonstrate case management
techniques His most famous bit of
grand-standing took place when he set out to prove
that the use of individual calendaring systems
could improve judicial efficiency and clear
courtroom backlogs While carrying a full
caseload in the Northern District of Illinois,
Will served for just three days a month on the
district court in Philadelphia, where he disposed
of more than 100 cases in under ten months
In addition to experimenting with general
courtroom efficiency, Will gave special attention
to the administration ofBANKRUPTCYcases in the
federal system He joined the Judicial Conference
Committee on Bankruptcy Administration in
1963 In the decade that followed, he developed
criteria for adding bankruptcy judgeships,
pro-posed limits on bankruptcy administration costs,
and revised bankruptcy rules in his own
jurisdic-tion In recognition of his expertise, Will was
appointed to the Commission on the Bankruptcy
Law of the United States in 1971 by Chief Justice
recommendations became the law of the land
Starting in the mid-1970s, Will served the
Courts of Appeals for the Second, Fifth, Seventh,
District of Columbia, and Federal Circuits He
also took temporary assignments in the district
courts of Milwaukee and Madison, Wisconsin;
South Bend, Indiana; Phoenix, Arizona; and
Springfield, Illinois Will assumed senior status
with the District Court for the Northern District
of Illinois in 1979 He died from cancer on December 9, 1995, in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin
RESOURCES Cole, Jeffrey N., and Robert E Shapiro 1993 “Interview with Judge Herbert L Will ” Litigation 20.
Federal Judicial Center Available online at http://www.fjc.
gov (accessed August 27, 2009).
Goulden, Joseph C 1974 The Benchwarmers New York:
Weybright and Talley.
Schmidhauser, John R 1979 Judges and Justices: The Federal Appellate Judiciary Boston: Little, Brown.
CROSS REFERENCES Bankruptcy; Burger, Warren Earl; Wagner, Robert Ferdinand.
WILLFUL Intentional; not accidental; voluntary; designed
In General
There is no precise definition of the term willful because its meaning largely depends on the context in which it appears It generally signifies a sense of the intentional as opposed to the inadvertent; the deliberate as opposed to the unplanned; and the voluntary as opposed to the compelled After centuries of court cases, it has
no single meaning, whether as an adjective (willful) or an adverb (willfully)
Statutes andCASE LAWhave adapted the term willful to the particular circumstances of action and inaction peculiar to specific areas of the law, including TORT LAW, CRIMINAL LAW, WORKERS’
A willful violation, for example, may mean a deliberate intent to violate the law, an intent to perform an act that the law forbids, an intent to refrain from performing an act that the law requires, an indifference to whether or not action
or inaction violates the law, or some other variant
In Criminal Law
In criminal law, willfully ordinarily means with
a bad purpose or criminal intent, particularly if the proscribed act is “malum in se” (an evil in itself, intrinsically wrong) or involves MORAL
unlawful killing of another individual without any excuse or MITIGATING CIRCUMSTANCES If the forbidden act is not wrong in itself, such as driving over the speed limit, willfully is used to mean intentionally, purposefully, or knowingly
WILLFUL 413
Trang 7In Workers’ Compensation
Under workers’ compensation laws, willful mis-conduct by an employee means that he inten-tionally performed an act with the knowledge that it was likely to result in serious injuries
or with reckless disregard of its probable con-sequences A finding of “willful misconduct”
prevents the employee from being awarded compensation for his injuries
Under unemployment compensation laws,
an employee who is fired on willful misconduct grounds is not entitled to recover unemployment compensation benefits Common examples
of such willful misconduct include excessive absenteeism, habitual lateness, deliberate viola-tions of an employer’s rules and regulaviola-tions, reporting for work in an intoxicated condition, and drinking alcoholic beverages while on the job
WILLIAMS ACT The Williams Act of 1968 amended the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 (15 U.S.C.A § 78a et seq.) to require mandatory disclosure of infor-mation regarding cash tender offers When an individual, group, or corporation seeks to acquire control of another corporation, it may make aTENDER OFFER, which is a proposal to buy shares of stock from the stockholders for cash or some type of corporate security of the acquiring company Since the mid-1960s, cash tender offers for corporate takeovers have become favored over the traditional alternative, thePROXY
campaign A proxy campaign is an attempt to obtain the votes of enough shareholders to gain control of the corporation’s board of directors
Because of abuses with cash tender offers, Congress passed the Williams Act in 1968, whose purpose is to require full and fair disclosure for the benefit of stockholders, while at the same time providing the offeror and management equal opportunity to present their cases fairly
The Williams Act requires any person who makes a cash tender offer (which is usually 15 to
20 percent in excess of the current market price) for a corporation that is required to be registered under federal law to disclose to the federalSECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION(SEC) the source of the funds used in the offer, the purpose for which the offer is made, the plans the purchaser might have if successful, and any contracts or understandings concerning the
target corporation The act also requires that the tender offer be kept open for at least 20 business days Shareholders who agree to tender their shares are given specific withdrawal rights There are also rules that govern situations when the tender offer price is increased
Filing and public disclosures with the SEC are also required of anyone who acquires more than 5 percent of the outstanding shares
of any class of a corporation subject to federal registration requirements Copies of these dis-closure statements must also be sent to each national securities exchange where the securities are traded, making the information available to shareholders and investors
The law also imposes miscellaneous sub-stantive restrictions on the mechanics of a cash tender offer, and it imposes a broad prohibition against the use of false, misleading, or incom-plete statements in connection with a tender offer The Williams Act gives the SEC the authority to institute enforcement lawsuits FURTHER READINGS
Fleming, Rusty A 2003 “A Case of ‘When’ Rather Than
‘What’: Tender Offers under the Williams Act and the All Holders and Best Price Rules ” Southern Illinois University Law Journal 27 (winter).
Tyson, William C., and Andrew A August 1983 “The Williams Act after RICO: Has the Balance Tipped in Favor of Incumbent Management? ” Hastings Law Journal 35 (September).
CROSS REFERENCES Mergers and Acquisitions; Securities and Exchange Com-mission.
vWILLIAMS, FRANKLIN HALL Franklin H Williams was a lawyer, government administrator, and ambassador who played an important role in the modern CIVIL RIGHTS
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Williams worked to desegregate public schools, public housing, and workplaces Franklin Hall Williams was born on Octo-ber 22, 1917, in Flushing, New York He graduated from Lincoln University in Pennsyl-vania in 1941 and served in a racially segregated unit of the U.S Army duringWORLD WAR II He graduated from Fordham University School of Law in 1945
After receiving his law degree, Williams accepted a position with the NAACP From
THE MASS MEDIA
CONSTANTLY TAUNT
THE GHETTO WITH
THE AFFLUENCE OF
MODERN SOCIETY
—F RANKLIN H.
W ILLIAMS
414 WILLIAMS ACT
Trang 81945 to 1950, Williams was an assistant special
counsel for the NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND
later became an associate justice of the U.S
Supreme Court Williams worked with Marshall
during the NAACP’s efforts to desegregate
public education, which were significantly aided
by the 1954 U.S Supreme Court decision in
347 U.S 483 Brown overruled the 1896
decision of PLESSY V FERGUSON, 163 U.S 537,
which had allowed racially segregated facilities
on trains and, by implication, in public schools
In 1950 Williams became the NAACP’s
regional director of the western states Under
his leadership, the office pushed for legislation on
minority employment, open housing, and other
organization to become an assistant attorney
general of California, where he was instrumental
in setting up the state’s constitutional rights
section
In 1961 Williams became special assistant to
Sargent Shriver, who helped to establish the Peace
Corps In 1963 Williams served as director of the
African regional division In the same year,
Williams became the first African-American to
serve as U.S representative to the United Nations
Economic and Social Council
In 1965 President LYNDON B JOHNSON
appointed Williams to be the U.S ambassador
to Ghana Williams held the post until 1968 and
is credited with improving what had been
strained relations between the U.S and Ghana
Williams returned to New York City after
leaving his diplomatic post He headed the
Urban Center at Columbia University and
served as vice chairperson of the New York Board of Higher Education In 1987 Williams chaired the New York State Judicial Commis-sion on Minorities, which examined the treat-ment of minorities in the state’s courts
Williams also served as president of the Phelps-Stokes Fund from 1970 to 1990 This foundation was established in 1911 to improve educational opportunities for African-Americans, Native Americans, and Africans One of Williams’s first moves as president was to persuade the foundation’s board to divest itself
of holdings in corporations that did business in South Africa, which at that time was governed
by a white minority employing the racially segregated practices of apartheid Williams’s divestiture action was later adopted by other foundations and institutions Williams died on May 20, 1990, in New York City
vWILLIAMS, GEORGE HENRY George Henry Williams served as U.S attorney general from 1871 to 1875 A state and territorial judge, as well as a U.S senator, Williams was nominated to be chief justice of the United States by PresidentULYSSES S.GRANTin
1873, but he was never confirmed
According to theJUSTICE DEPARTMENT’s publi-cation, Attorneys General of the United States, Williams was born on March 23, 1823, in New Lebanon, New York, the son of Taber Williams and Lydia Goodrich Williams He received an academic education, studied law, and was admitted to the New York bar in 1844 Williams moved to Fort Madison, Iowa, and established
a law practice, but in 1847 he was elected as
a state district judge In 1853 he moved
Franklin Hall Williams 1917–1990
❖
1917 Born, Flushing, N.Y.
1945–50 Served as assistant special counsel for NAACP's Legal Defense and Educational Fund
1939–45 World War II 1914–18
World War I
❖
1950–53 Korean War
1961–73 Vietnam War
◆
◆
1961 Became special assistant to Sargent Shriver
1959 Became assistant attorney general of California
1990 Died, New York City 1950–59 Served as NAACP's regional director of the western states
◆
1965–68 Served as U.S ambassador
to Ghana
1970–90 Served
as president of the Phelps-Stokes Fund
1954 U.S Supreme Court outlawed "separate but
equal" education in Brown v Board of Education
1963 Served as director of the African
York State Judicial Commission on Minorities
IBELIEVEIHAVE LIVED LONGER AND HAPPIER THAN IFI
HAD BEEN RAISED TO
[THE]EXALTED OFFICE[OFCHIEF
JUSTICE]
—G EORGE H ENRY
W ILLIAMS
WILLIAMS, GEORGE HENRY 415
Trang 9west again, becoming chief justice of Oregon Territory
In 1865 Williams was elected to represent Oregon in the U.S Senate He aligned himself with the Radical Republicans, who opposed President ANDREW JOHNSON’s programs for the South during RECONSTRUCTION following the end
of the U.S CIVIL WAR The animosity between Congress and Johnson led to ARTICLES OF
attempt to convict Johnson failed by one vote
After Williams lost his Senate seat, President Grant appointed Williams attorney general in
1871 His term as attorney general was unre-markable, but his reputation was damaged by the events surrounding his failed nomination as chief justice in 1873 There were allegations that Williams had participated in fraudulent activities involving voting in Oregon, but the organized bar
on the East Coast also feared that as a frontier lawyer from Oregon, Williams was ill-prepared to preside over a Court that decided many complex commercial cases A man of little formal educa-tion, Williams appeared too undistinguished to serve on the Court It is likely, however, that the many political scandals involving corruption in the Grant administration unfairly tarnished Williams’s nomination
When it became clear that his nomination was doomed, Williams asked President Grant to withdraw his name from consideration He continued as attorney general for two more years, resigning in 1875 Williams abandoned national politics after his resignation and returned to Oregon, where he practiced law for many years in Portland His last public position was as mayor of Portland from 1902 to
1905 He died on April 4, 1910, in Portland, Oregon
FURTHER READINGS Kaltman, Al 2000 Cigars, Whiskey, and Winning: Leadership Lessons from Ulysses S Grant Paramus, N.J.: Prentice Hall.
Justice Department 1985 Attorneys General of the United States, 1789–1985 Washington, D.C.: U.S Government Printing Office.
CROSS REFERENCE Grant, Ulysses Simpson.
vWILLISTON, SAMUEL Samuel Williston was a noted law professor and
United States during the early twentieth cen-tury A professor of law at Harvard Law School from 1890 to 1938, his works The Law Governing Sales of Goods at Common Law and Under the Uniform Sales Act (1909) and The Law
on Contracts (1920) are recognized as leading treatises
Williston was born on September 24, 1861,
in Cambridge, Massachusetts He earned a bachelors degree from Harvard University in
1882 and then worked for three years to earn the money needed to attend Harvard Law School In 1888 Williston graduated from law school and established successful law practices
in Boston and Cambridge
In 1890 Williston accepted a professorship
at Harvard Law School As an assistant profes-sor, Williston turned down many promising career opportunities, including offers of dean-ships at three other law schools and a position
as reporter to the Massachusetts Supreme Court, which might have led to a judicial
George Henry Williams 1823–1910
1910 Died, Portland, Ore.
◆
1823 Born,
New Lebanon,
N.Y.
1844 Admitted
to New York bar
1853 Moved to Oregon Territory
1865–71 Served in U.S.
Senate 1853–57 Served as chief justice of Oregon Territory
1914–18 World War I 1861–65
U.S Civil War
1858 Moved to Portland and opened private practice
1859 Oregon admitted to Union as 33rd state
1871–75 Served as U.S attorney general
1873 Nominated by President Grant for chief justice of U.S Supreme Court, but withdrew his name
1902–05 Served as mayor of Portland, Oregon
1847 Elected state district
judge in Ft Madison, Iowa
THE MODERN LAW
RIGHTLY CONSTRUES
BOTH ACTS AND
WORDS AS HAVING
THE MEANING WHICH
A REASONABLE
PERSON PRESENT
WOULD PUT UPON
THEM IN VIEW OF THE
SURROUNDING
CIRCUMSTANCES
—S AMUEL W ILLISTON
416 WILLISTON, SAMUEL
Trang 10appointment on the state’s highest court
Will-iston unsuccessfully argued for the defense in
the case of Boston & Maine Railroad v Hooker
before the U.S Supreme Court on December 10
and 11, 1913
During his career at Harvard, Williston
aligned himself with legal formalism, which in
the early twentieth century dominated legal
thought in the United States Legal formalism
views the law as a body of scientific rules from
which legal decisions may be readily deduced
Existing rules are elevated into the category of
self-evident truths In practice, this meant that
the law was unconcerned with social and
economic forces
The desire for form and structure permeates
Williston’s writings According to Williston, the
law must be stated as simply as possible, and it
must be certain If the law is simple and certain,
he argued, parties can use it to resolve their
disputes withoutLITIGATION, as a sign of a sound
legal system Therefore, Williston believed, the
ideal course for the law was the construction of
broad, general rules
Williston was able to apply his legal
philosophy to the American Law Institute’s
Restatement of Contracts The purpose of
the Restatement was to set forth the basic
principles of contract law by means of a
coherent series of “black letter” principles,
drafted with precision, that were consistent
with the best traditions of the COMMON LAW,
rooted in precedent, yet flexible enough
to accommodate growth and development in
the law Williston explained each principle
with commentary and concrete examples of its
application Williston died on February 18,
1963, in Cambridge, Massachusetts
FURTHER READINGS Boyer, Allen D 1994 “Samuel Williston’s Struggle with Depression ” Buffalo Law Review 42 (winter).
Williston, Samuel 1940 Life and Law: An Autobiography.
Boston: Little, Brown Republished by Gaunt (Holmes Beach, Fla.), 1998.
vWILMOT, DAVID David Wilmot was a lawyer, judge, U.S senator, and member of the U.S House of Representa-tives From 1845 to 1851 the Pennsylvania Democrat served in the House where he drew national attention for his 1846 proposal The
into the territories newly acquired from Mexico
Wilmot’s disenchantment with slavery and the
him to help form the REPUBLICAN PARTY Wilmot was born on January 20, 1814, in Bethany, Pennsylvania He studied the law with
an attorney and became a member of the Pennsylvania bar in 1834 He established a law practice in Towanda and was soon recognized
as an able lawyer
However, politics drew Wilmot’s interest He became active in the Democratic Party and in
1845 he was elected to the U.S House of Representatives Wilmot strongly supported Pres-ident JAMES K POLK and the Mexican War that began in 1845 When President Polk requested a congressional appropriation of $2 million to purchase land from Mexico, however, Wilmot vehemently objected to suggestions that slavery could be established in the newly acquired areas
He introduced the Wilmot Proviso to ban the spread of slavery but could not secure passage by both houses of Congress
Wilmot left Congress in 1851, disenchanted with the COMPROMISE OF 1850, which admitted
Samuel Williston 1861–1963
1861 Born,
Cambridge, Mass.
1861–65
U.S Civil War
1914–18 World War I
1939–45 World War II
1950–53 Korean War
1961–73 Vietnam War
◆
1882 Earned A.B from Harvard University
1890–1938 Served
as professor of law at Harvard Law School
1903 Appointed to Weld professorship at Harvard
1909 The
Law of Sales
published
1919 Appointed to Dane professorship at Harvard
1920 The Law of Contracts published
1933 The first
Restatement
of Contracts
published
1940 Life and Law,
An Autobiography
published
1963 Died, Cambridge, Mass.
DEMOCRACY IS A PRINCIPLE OF ETERNAL JUSTICE
—D AVID W ILMOT
WILMOT, DAVID 417