Today in Supreme Court History: November 26, 1829

11/26/1829: Justice Bushrod Washington dies. He was President George Washington's nephew.

Justice Bushrod Washington

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

Keyes v. United States, 109 U.S. 336 (decided November 26, 1883): lieutenant’s suit for back pay dismissed because he was validly court-martialed (one of the judges, his C.O., was a main witness, but he didn’t object at that time) and because President’s appointment of his successor terminated his commission (a much smaller Army in those days!)

Nitro-Lift Technologies v. Howard, 568 U.S. 17 (decided November 26, 2012): objection to non-compete agreements involved federal law (Federal Arbitration Act) but was matter for arbitrator in first instance (Oklahoma Supreme Court had tried to rest its decision on Oklahoma law as to enforceability of such agreements)

Palmer v. BRG of Georgia, 498 U.S. 46 (decided November 26, 1990): Do bar review companies form a cartel in violation of the Sherman Act? The Court here says: Yes! At my law school they seemed to be in competition but that might be illusory. (Full disclosure: at the time I was my law school’s BarBRI rep, but it was because I had been sleeping with the previous year’s rep.) Here, former law student sued after companies agreed that one of them would not compete in that state (Georgia). The Court relied on United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 1940, where oil companies agreed to temporary buys to keep oil prices up (that case was more famous for Douglas’s footnote 59 which said price fixing was per se illegal regardless of means to do so or existence of overt act).

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Gerard N. Magliocca, who not too long ago noted he is taking a break from not only social media but blogging, wrote an interesting short [his books tend to be short] biography, Washington’s Heir: The Life of Justice Bushrod Washington.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujO-TW5VRXQ

Overall, I found his books interesting, including the constitutional developments surrounding Andrew Jackson and William Jennings Bryan. Also, his book on John Bingham.

BTW, “Bushrod” was Bushrod Washington’s mother’s maiden name.

[Dan Schiavetta]

His brother Pushrod became a mechanic.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Yes. He wasn't very good.

People had to keep on pushing the carriages he worked on out of the mud. They got very hot and sweaty doing so. So, carriages he worked on began to be known as "hot rods."

[Malika the Maiz]

“He was President George Washington's nephew.”

Meritocracy!

[JoeFromtheBronx]

To be fair, he was nominated by President John Adams.

[not guilty]

Is Bushrod Washington the Cousin of his Country?

[Syd Henderson]

Bushrod Washington was President of the American Colonization Society which actually colonized Liberia. He has an island there named Bushrod Island. However, he didn't send his own slaves there but sold some to maintain Mount Vernon.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Jim Abrahams, one of the creators of the highly quotable movie "Airplane!" has passed away.

The film is largely based on the 1950s airplane disaster film "Zero Hour." The "straight film" is enjoyable in a vacuum though now it's hard to watch it without considering the parody.

The parody took chunks of the original film, sometimes even exact line from the script. To quote one article:

So you’d do that for lots of the dialogue?
Jerry Zucker: A lot of it, yeah.
Jim Abrahams: Constantly. There’s a line in [1957 airplane thriller] Zero Hour! that says — how does the line go?
Jerry Zucker: “Stewardess, can you face some unpleasant facts?” And then, in Zero Hour!, she says, “Yes.” But in our movie, she says, “No.”
David Zucker: Or “We need somebody who can not only fly this plane, but who didn’t have fish for dinner.”
Abrahams: That’s an actual line! That was a line from Zero Hour! Written by Arthur Hailey.
David Zucker: The whole plot of Zero Hour! is that everyone on a plane who ate fish, including the pilots, got sick.
Jerry Zucker: We just put that line in, verbatim.

https://archive.is/AxaxH

[bernard11]

The culprit in the 50's version, which I recall seeing, was halibut. I don't remember what the tainted marine life was in Airplane!.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I'm so glad Beavis and Butthead aren't commenting on this particular post.