Justice William Cary Van Fleet

Justice William Cary Van Fleet

• Find A Grave Memorial ID # 114196336
• Judge Van Fleet's Wikipedia Page

Born: March 24, 1852, in Maumee City, Ohio
Died: September 3, 1923 in San Francisco County, California

Federal Judicial Service:

Judge, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California

Received a recess appointment from Theodore Roosevelt on April 2, 1907, to a new seat authorized by 34 Stat. 1253; nominated to the same position by Theodore Roosevelt on December 3, 1907. Confirmed by the Senate on December 17, 1907, and received commission on December 17, 1907. Service terminated on September 3, 1923, due to death.

Education:

Read Law, 1873

Professional Career:

• Assistant District Attorney, Sacramento County, California, 1878-1879
• State Assemblyman, California, 1881-1882
• Director, California State Prisons, 1883-1884
• Judge, Superior Court of California, 1884-1892
• Justice, Supreme Court of California, 1894-1899

Other Nominations/Recess Appointments:

President issued recess appointment to U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, March 4, 1907, and subsequently cancelled appointment
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Justice Van Fleet served on the Superior Court of Sacramento, California, was born March 24, 1851, in Maumee City, Ohio, near which place his father still resides, now at an advanced age. Upon the father’s side he is of an old family that emigrated from Holland, while on the mother’s side he is connected with the historical American families of Boone and Lincoln, his grandmother’s father being a Boone, while her mother was of the family from which sprang Abraham Lincoln.

He was brought up and educated to the point of leaving school, in his native town, and in the city of Toledo. In 1869 he came to California, remaining in Sacramento, where he immediately began the study of law in the office of Messrs. Beatty & Denson, the former of whom (his uncle by marriage), the well-known and universally esteemed Judge H.O. Beatty, was formerly Chief Justice of the State of Nevada, but has now retired from active practice. Judge Denson, the other member of the firm, formerly occupied a seat upon the bench as Judge of the District and Superior Courts of this county.

In 1873 Judge Van Fleet was admitted to the bar, and in the following year commenced to practice at Elko, Nevada. He remained there only two years, however, returning to Sacramento in 1876, and has since that time been actively identified with the history of this city. In 1880 he was elected a member of the State Assembly from Sacramento, upon the Republican ticket, in which party Judge Van Fleet has always taken an active and intelligent part. During his term he held the chairmanship of the Military Committee, and also of that of the Committee on the Yosemite Valley and Big Trees, being the only member who was chairman of two committees.

In 1883 Judge Van Fleet was appointed by Governor Stoneman one of the Board of State Prison Directors, which position he resigned on his election to the bench. He was elected to his present position upon the bench of the Superior Court in the year 1884, holding office for the long term. Judge Van Fleet is an active member in high standing of the Knights of Honor, the order of Odd Fellows, of the Masons, and of the Knights Templar. In 1882 he went East to Baltimore as Grand Representative of the Knights of Honor. Judge Van Fleet has the reputation of being a good lawyer, sound in practice, active and diligent in his attention to the interests of clients, and deeply read in all branches of the law. As a judge he is fair and impartial, firm and fearless in his determinations, bringing to bear upon all points an accurate knowledge of the minuter technicalities, as well as the broader principles of the science of law.

Personally he is a highly popular man, commanding the esteem and confidence of all circles to the fullest extent, and is regarded as a man who has open before him the highest walks of judicial life, being fitted by birth and personal characteristics to fill any position to which he may be called. He has been married twice, the first time in 1877, to Mary Isabella Carey, the daughter of Hon. R.S. Carey, of Sacramento; his wife died, however, during the first year of their marriage, leaving an infant son. He was married the second time in January, 1887, to Miss Lizzie Eldridge Crocker, daughter of Clark W. Crocker, of San Francisco, by whom he also has a son.

From Wikipedia:

William Cary Van Fleet (March 24, 1852 – September 3, 1923) was a United States federal judge.

Born in Maumee, Lucas County, Ohio, Van Fleet read law to enter the bar in 1873. He was an assistant district attorney of Sacramento County, California from 1878 to 1879. He was a California State Assemblyman from 1881 to 1882, and was the Director of California State Prisons from 1883 to 1884. He was a judge of the Superior Court of California from 1884 to 1892, and an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of California from 1894 to 1899.

On April 2, 1907, Van Fleet received a recess appointment from President Theodore Roosevelt to a new seat on the United States District Court for the Northern District of California created by 34 Stat. 1253. Formally nominated on December 3, 1907, he was confirmed by the United States Senate on December 17, 1907, and received his commission the same day. Van Fleet served until his death.
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William Cary Van Fleet, a Justice of the State Supreme Court from April, 1894, until January, 1899, was born in Ohio, March 24, 1852, the son of a farmer who had removed from his native state, Pennsylvania. He was educated in his native village, Monclova. and in Toledo, Ohio, and coming early in life to California, located at Sacramento and studied law. He was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court at the age of twenty-one, April IS- 1873.

He was a member of the assembly at the twenty-fourth session, 1881, and a State prison director, 1883-84. Judge Van Fleet, who has always been of Republican politics, was elected Judge of the Superior Court of Sacramento, first, in the fall of 1884. He served a full term, and was re-elected without opposition in 1890. He resigned the office in 1892, November 7, and removed in the same month to San Francisco.

On April 25, 1894, Governor Markham appointed Judge Van Fleet a Justice of the Supreme Court, in place of Judge Paterson, re signed. At the next election. November 1894, the Judge was chosen to fill out the unexpired 756 History of the Bench and Bar of California term of four years.

At the election in November, 1898, he was again one of the two Republican nominees for Supreme Judge. His party ticket was successful, but Judge Van Fleet was defeated by a small majority, owing to a misconception in the minds of many per sons of the doctrine of a decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Fox vs. Oak land Street Railway Company, 118 Cal. 55- This was an action for damages for the loss of a child (four and a half years old) of a laboring man, the child having been accidentally killed by a street railroad car. The opinion was written by Judge Van Fleet, and some of the language employed to state the doctrine relied on was excepted to by a few newspapers as making a distinction between the rich and the poor in the administration of justice.

Quite naturally, a man in the humbler walks of life, uninformed in legal science, might see in this decision as thus interpreted by the newspapers, a discrimination against his class, but every lawyer who read it must have accepted it as sound in law and sustained by judicial authority, unbroken through centuries, and as being susceptible of no such construction as that sought to be put upon it. It is very proper to place on record in this History the language used by Judge Van Fleet in this case, to which exception was taken and which so unexpectedly operated to terminate his distinguished career on the Supreme bench.

The question under discussion was that of excessive damages, and among other things. not pertinent here, it was said: "There was no averment or evidence of peculiar or special damages, nor the right to exemplary or punitive damages, the plaintiff's cause of action resting solcy upon his right to recover for the loss of the services of his child resulting from its death.

"The jury were properly instructed that they could award nothing in the way of penalty for his death, nor for sorrow or grief of his parents, but must confine their verdict to an amount which would justly compensate plain tiff for the probable value of the services of the deceased until he had attained his majority, taking into consideration the cost of his support and maintenance during the early and helpless part of his life: that while they could consider the fact that plaintiff had been deprived of the comfort, society, and protection of his son.

This consideration could only go to affect the pecuniary value of his services to plaintiff. "Upon the evidence and these instructions the jury gave a verdict for six thousand dollars.”We think it quite manifest, upon its face, that the verdict was actuated by something other than a consideration of the evidence. Under no conceivable method or rule of compensation permissible under the evidence could such a result have been attained.

There was nothing to indicate that the value of the child's services would have been greater than that of the ordinary boy of his age, assuming that such a fact would have been pertinent. He was a mere infant, and for many years at best, under ordinary conditions—and it is by such we must judge—he would have remained, however dear to their hearts, a subject of expense and outlay to his parents, without the ability to render pecuniary return. And common experience teaches further that, even after reaching an age of some usefulness, he yet would continue for the better part of his remaining years of minority more a source of outgo than of income. . . .

"But assuming that the deceased would have been set to useful and valuable employment of some appropriate character as early as ten years of age, which is unusual, at no average rate of wages or income which he could reasonably have earned, would it be at all probable that in the time intervening his majority he could have earned, over and above the cost and expense of his maintenance, the very large sum given by the verdict?”

Under the circumstances of the case it is solely by the probabilities that these things can be estimated. And while in no sense conclusive, we have the right, and it is most reasonable in judging of the probable character of occupation the deceased would have pursued, to regard, with the other circumstances surrounding him. The calling of his father—since experience teaches that children do very frequently pursue the same general class of business as that of their parents. (Walters v. Chicago, etc., R. R. Co.. 41 Iowa. 71. 73-)"

Upon his retirement from the Supreme Bench at the opening of the year 1809, Judge Van Fleet resumed practice at San Francisco with E. B. and Geo. H. Mastick. In August. l8qg. Upon his return from a short trip abroad. Judge Van Fleet was appointed by Governor Gage a member of the commission for the revision and reform of the law, which office he now holds. In April, 1877. At Sacramento, Judge Van Fleet was united in marriage with Miss Isa bella Carey, daughter of R. S. Carey, an old and influential citizen of that place, of Democratic politics. Mrs. Van Fleet died at Sacramento in February, 1878, leaving an infant son. In January. 1887. Judge Van Fleet married Elizabeth, the second daughter of the late Clark W. Crocker, a brother of Charles Crocker, and one of the firm of Sisson, Wallace & Crocker. By this marriage Judge Van Fleet has three sons and a daughter.

William Van Fleet, History of the Bench and Bar of California, Oscar Tully Shuck

From the 1860 United States Census, Carey Van Fleet lived at Monclova, Lucas County, Ohio, with his father, mother, and siblings. The family at the time consisted of:

• Head Cornelius Van Fleet 42
• Wife Anna Van Fleet 40
• Son Mobry Van Fleet 20
• Son Henry Van Fleet 18
• Son Plinny Van Fleet 16
• Daughter Martha Van Fleet 13
• Daughter Mary Van Fleet 10
• Son Carey Van Fleet 8
• Son Townsend Van Fleet 2

From the 1880 United States Census, he lived in Sacramento, Sacramento County, California.

From the 1900 United States Census, William Van Fleet lived with his wife and children in San Francisco, San Francisco County, California. The family at the time consisted of:

• Head William Van Fleet 48
• Wife Elsie Van Fleet 40
• Son Alan Van Fleet 12
• Son Clark Van Fleet 10
• Son William Van Fleet 9
• Daughter Julia Van Fleet 5
• Servant Wong Bao 43
• Nurse Sarah Ryder 29

From the 1910 federal census, William C. Van Fleet lived with his father, mother, aunt, and siblings at San Francisco, California. The family at the time consisted of:

• Head William C Van Fleet 58
• Wife Lizzie C Van Fleet 50
• Sister Fannie C Mccreary 42
• Son Allan C Van Fleet 22
• Son Clark C Van Fleet 20
• Son William C Van Fleet 18
• Daughter Julia Van Fleet 15

From the 1920 federal census, William C. Van Fleet lived with his wife, daughter, and sister-in-law at San Francisco, California. The family at the time consisted of:

• Head William C Van Fleet 67
• Wife Lizzie C Van Fleet 58
• Sister in Law Fanie C Mccreary 44
• Daughter Julia C Van Fleet 24