Benjamin Kaplan, 99, esteemed jurist, law professor
Few justices were as revered for their writing and thinking as Benjamin Kaplan, yet each ruling he penned for the Supreme Judicial Court or the state Appeals Court renewed his sense that this time he might not be up to the challenge.
“I don’t come to decisions easily,’’ he told the Globe in 1981, restless physically and intellectually as he sat in a swivel chair in his book-lined study. “I really have been in pain most of the time.’’
That discomfort seemed reserved only for him, though. For others, perusing his work was a sublime pleasure.
“He wrote opinions that were so elegant they were breathtaking,’’ said Margaret H. Marshall, chief justice of the SJC. “I remember reading an opinion he wrote when he was 92 or 93, after I had become a judge, and thinking, ‘I’m just never going to be able to write like that.’ He summarized facts, laid out the legal challenges, and reached conclusions in English that was not filled with legalese. It was conversational English, but somehow captured the most sophisticated thoughts. I always loved reading a Kaplan opinion.’’
Justice Kaplan, whom hundreds of Harvard Law School students considered their most influential teacher, died of pneumonia Wednesday in his Cambridge home. He was 99 and kept writing opinions until a few years ago for the Massachusetts Appeals Court, where he was recalled as a justice after reaching the SJC’s mandatory retirement age of 70....
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“I don’t come to decisions easily,’’ he told the Globe in 1981, restless physically and intellectually as he sat in a swivel chair in his book-lined study. “I really have been in pain most of the time.’’
That discomfort seemed reserved only for him, though. For others, perusing his work was a sublime pleasure.
“He wrote opinions that were so elegant they were breathtaking,’’ said Margaret H. Marshall, chief justice of the SJC. “I remember reading an opinion he wrote when he was 92 or 93, after I had become a judge, and thinking, ‘I’m just never going to be able to write like that.’ He summarized facts, laid out the legal challenges, and reached conclusions in English that was not filled with legalese. It was conversational English, but somehow captured the most sophisticated thoughts. I always loved reading a Kaplan opinion.’’
Justice Kaplan, whom hundreds of Harvard Law School students considered their most influential teacher, died of pneumonia Wednesday in his Cambridge home. He was 99 and kept writing opinions until a few years ago for the Massachusetts Appeals Court, where he was recalled as a justice after reaching the SJC’s mandatory retirement age of 70....