Harris & Ewing, Inc. · Public domain

A jurist whose opinions shaped modern American common law, particularly around negligence and foreseeability; his 1928 ruling in Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co., written as chief judge of the New York Court of Appeals, is still taught in nearly every first-year torts class for how it defined the limits of a defendant's duty of care. Appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1932 to succeed Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., he became part of the Court's liberal bloc, known as the Three Musketeers, defending New Deal legislation against a skeptical majority.