Joseph Grodin

Joseph Raymond Grodin (born August 30, 1930) is a lawyer, law professor, and a former Presiding Justice of the California Court of Appeal and an associate justice of the Supreme Court of California.

Grodin was born in Oakland, California in 1930.

Grodin's father had emigrated from Vilkaviškis, Lithuania where his own father and grandfather had been rabbis.

The family owned a successful men's clothing store on Broadway known as Schwartz & Grodin.

Grodin went to Sunday school at Temple Sinai and graduated in 1948 from Piedmont High School, where he played fullback on the football team.

Three years later Grodin graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with honors.

While at Cal, Grodin was on the debate team with fellow future California Supreme Court Justice Allen Broussard.

Grodin enrolled in a Harvard Ph.D. program to pursue his interest in political economy but local labor lawyer and future Justice Mathew Tobriner encouraged him to go to law school first.

In 1951, Grodin matriculated at Yale Law School, with future Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt, future Justice Ellen Ash Peters and future congressman Allard K. Lowenstein as classmates.

He studied contracts under Friedrich Kessler, civil procedure under Circuit Judge Charles Edward Clark, property under Myres S. McDougal, equity under Circuit Judge Jerome Frank, arbitration under Wesley Alba Sturges, future interests under Ashbel Green Gulliver, philosophy under F. S. C. Northrop and jurisprudence under Felix S. Cohen.

No other students enrolled in community property so the professor only met with him twice, once to tell him he could find books on the subject in the library, and next to tell him to write the exam questions then answer them.

During both summers Grodin returned to work in Tobriner's labor law practice.

Grodin graduated cum laude in 1954.

Worried about Yale's lack of emphasis on black letter law, Grodin hired Bernard E. Witkin to tutor him for the California Bar Exam.

Grodin next received a Fulbright grant to study at the London School of Economics under Otto Kahn-Freund.

He would extend the grant to finish a Ph.D. so as to get a draft exemption from the Korean War.

Grodin returned to California in 1955 and joined Tobriner's law firm.

His clients included union boss David Dubinsky.

In 1959, Grodin became a partner after both Tobriner and Leland Lazarus were appointed to the bench by Governor Pat Brown.

Grodin began teaching labor law part-time at University of California, Hastings College of Law.

Wanting to visit his close friend, future Justice Hans A. Linde, in 1970 Grodin took a year off from the firm to teach at the University of Oregon School of Law.

When Grodin returned to San Francisco he began teaching full-time at UC Hastings.

The California Agricultural Labor Relations Board had just been created after a hard fought campaign by Cesar Chavez and California Secretary of Agriculture Rose Bird.

Governor Jerry Brown, a Yale Law School graduate who clerked for Justice Tobriner, needed a Teamsters voice on the board so he appointed Grodin, serving alongside future Cardinal Roger Mahony.

Relations were contentious; the board was picketed by opposing sides at the same time and was shouted down in a Teamsters hall in Salinas, California.

When the legislature stopped paying board members, Grodin resigned.

When the court abolished the death penalty in People v. Anderson (1972) the electorate restored it with California Proposition 17 (1972) and expanded it with California Proposition 7 (1978).

Regardless, in July 1979 Governor Brown appointed Grodin to a newly created seat on Division One of the California Court of Appeal, First District.

When Grodin displayed unfamiliarity with the California Penal Code at his first writ conference, Justice John Racanelli suggested he needed to "do a little homework."

Grodin was further humbled when he had to dissent in the first labor case he heard, despite citing a book he had written on the topic.

Governor Brown promoted Grodin to Presiding Justice on Division Two of the California Court of Appeal, First District, in March 1982.

While in Sacramento, defense attorney Terence Hallinan convinced Grodin to give notorious farm worker serial killer Juan Corona a new trial.

Affirming the judgment, the Supreme Court largely quoted from Grodin's opinion.

Governor Brown appointed Grodin to the California Supreme Court in December 1982.

With Grodin, Governor Brown had appointed all but two of the court's justices.

When Grodin and a bare majority of the court found the Federal Arbitration Act did not apply to California's franchising statute, he was reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court in Southland Corp. v. Keating (1982).

On the court, Grodin compiled a solid liberal record, voting mostly with Chief Justice Rose Bird.

He was considered supportive of trial lawyers and defense attorneys, while seeming skeptical of law enforcement and business interests.

He opposed the death penalty.

Grodin lost his Supreme Court seat in a contentious 1986 retention election that also removed Justice Cruz Reynoso and Chief Justice Rose Bird.