William Shankland Andrews

William Shankland Andrews (1903)

William Shankland Andrews (September 25, 1858 – August 5, 1936) was an American lawyer and politician from New York.

Life[]

He was the son of Chief Judge Charles Andrews, the husband of Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews and the great grandfather of Nancy Andrews, an American biologist. After completing studies at St. John's Academy, Manlius, New York, where he was Head Boy in 1872, Andrews graduated from Harvard College in 1880, received his Juris Doctor degree from Columbia University in 1882, and commenced practice in Syracuse in 1884.

He was a Justice of the New York Supreme Court from 1900 to 1921. In 1917, he was designated^[1] by Governor Charles S. Whitman a judge of the New York Court of Appeals, and in 1921, he was elected to a regular seat. He dissented from several opinions by noted fellow judge Benjamin Cardozo. These included dissents in Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co. and Meinhard v. Salmon, both cases in which Andrews expressed a sharply different philosophy of the responsibilities people owe to one another.

Andrews retired from the bench at the end of 1928 when he reached the constitutional age limit of 70 years. He died from a fall from his bed, three days after the death of his wife.^[2]

External links[]

Historical Society of the Courts of New York (portrait gallery with a link to a biography of William S. Andrews)

References[]

^ A "designation" is an appointment which does not require confirmation by the State Senate.
^ "W.S. Andrews Dies in Fall From Bed. Retired Appellate Judge, Distinguished for Rulings, Found Dead in Syracuse Home. Followed Wife in 3 Days. Lehman Declares State and Thousands of People Suffer Loss by Their Deaths". New York Times. August 6, 1936. Retrieved 2008-05-20. William Shankland Andrews, former judge of the State Court of Appeals, was found dead in his bedroom at Wolf Hollow, his Taunton estate, this morning. He was the victim of a peculiar accident, his neck having been broken when he fell from his bed, apparently in an effort to reach a glass of milk on a table beside the bed. He was 77 years old.

[1] A "designation" is an appointment which does not require confirmation by the State Senate.

[2] "W.S. Andrews Dies in Fall From Bed. Retired Appellate Judge, Distinguished for Rulings, Found Dead in Syracuse Home. Followed Wife in 3 Days. Lehman Declares State and Thousands of People Suffer Loss by Their Deaths". New York Times. August 6, 1936. Retrieved 2008-05-20. William Shankland Andrews, former judge of the State Court of Appeals, was found dead in his bedroom at Wolf Hollow, his Taunton estate, this morning. He was the victim of a peculiar accident, his neck having been broken when he fell from his bed, apparently in an effort to reach a glass of milk on a table beside the bed. He was 77 years old.

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