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David Sive (September 22, 1922 – March 12, 2014) was an American attorney,
environmentalist An environmentalist is a person who is concerned with and/or advocates for the protection of the environment. An environmentalist can be considered a supporter of the goals of the environmental movement, "a political and ethical movement that se ...
, and professor of
environmental law Environmental law is a collective term encompassing aspects of the law that provide protection to the environment. A related but distinct set of regulatory regimes, now strongly influenced by environmental legal principles, focus on the manage ...
, who has been recognized as a pioneer in the field of
United States environmental law United States environmental law concerns legal standards to protect human health and improve the natural environment of the United States. While subject to criticism at home and abroad on issues of protection, enforcement, and over-regulation, th ...
.


Early life and education

Sive was born in
Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
, on September 22, 1922, the son of Abraham Sive and Rebecca (née Schwartz) Sive. As a teenager, his growing love for the outdoors and fascination with the American wilderness, as well as his interest in the writings of
Thoreau Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817May 6, 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading transcendentalist, he is best known for his book ''Walden'', a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and hi ...
, Emerson, and
Wordsworth William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Ballads'' (1798). Wordsworth's ' ...
, led him to a lifelong passion for the natural environment, to wilderness preservation and environmental protection. Hiking and camping expeditions during his college years, to the Catskill and
Adirondack mountains The Adirondack Mountains (; a-də-RÄN-dak) form a massif in northeastern New York with boundaries that correspond roughly to those of Adirondack Park. They cover about 5,000 square miles (13,000 km2). The mountains form a roughly circular ...
of New York State, foreshadowed his advocacy in later years for the “forever wild” clause in the New York State constitution and his activism for environmental preservation in his home state and throughout the U.S. Sive graduated from
Brooklyn College Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls about 15,000 undergraduate and 2,800 graduate students on a 35-acre campus. Being New York City's first publ ...
with a degree in political science in 1943. He had enlisted in the
U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...
in 1942 and was called up in the spring of 1943 shortly before his college graduation. He served in the front lines in Europe, including in the
Battle of the Bulge The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, was the last major German offensive (military), offensive military campaign, campaign on the Western Front (World War II), Western Front during World War II. The battle lasted fr ...
, was wounded twice and awarded the
Purple Heart The Purple Heart (PH) is a United States military decoration awarded in the name of the President to those wounded or killed while serving, on or after 5 April 1917, with the U.S. military. With its forerunner, the Badge of Military Merit, w ...
with
Oak Leaf Cluster An oak leaf cluster is a ribbon device to denote preceding decorations and awards consisting of a miniature bronze or silver twig of four oak leaves with three acorns on the stem. It is authorized by the United States Armed Forces for a speci ...
. Convalescence at a U.S. Army hospital in
Devon, England Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devon i ...
gave him further opportunity to study the verse of
William Wordsworth William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Ballads'' (1798). Wordsworth's ' ...
. Sive enrolled at
Columbia Law School Columbia Law School (Columbia Law or CLS) is the law school of Columbia University, a private Ivy League university in New York City. Columbia Law is widely regarded as one of the most prestigious law schools in the world and has always ranked i ...
following his discharge from the Army in the fall of 1945. A
Harlan Fiske Stone Harlan is a given name and a surname which may refer to: Surname *Bob Harlan (born 1936 Robert E. Harlan), American football executive *Bruce Harlan (1926–1959), American Olympic diver *Byron B. Harlan (1886–1949), American politician *Byron G ...
scholar, he received the
Bachelor of Laws Bachelor of Laws ( la, Legum Baccalaureus; LL.B.) is an undergraduate law degree in the United Kingdom and most common law jurisdictions. Bachelor of Laws is also the name of the law degree awarded by universities in the People's Republic of Chi ...
degree in 1948.


Legal career

One of Sive's first lawsuits that gained public attention was ''David Sive v. Louis Newman'' (1951). In this case, Sive argued that the owner of a car that is double-parked is liable for damage incurred to a car traveling from the curb to the normal traffic stream. The argument was upheld. As a partner in the firm Winer, Neuberger & Sive, founded in New York City in 1962, and chairman of the Atlantic Chapter of the
Sierra Club The Sierra Club is an environmental organization with chapters in all 50 United States, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. The club was founded on May 28, 1892, in San Francisco, California, by Scottish-American preservationist John Muir, who be ...
in the 1960s, Sive developed his reputation as an expert litigator and fierce defender of the environment. The successor firm, Sive, Paget & Riesel, remains a leader in
environmental law Environmental law is a collective term encompassing aspects of the law that provide protection to the environment. A related but distinct set of regulatory regimes, now strongly influenced by environmental legal principles, focus on the manage ...
. Sive lost one of the earliest cases under the
National Environmental Policy Act The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is a United States environmental law that promotes the enhancement of the environment and established the President's Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). The law was enacted on January 1, 1970.Un ...
, ''Concerned About Trident v. Schlesinger'', 400 F.Supp. 454 (D.D.C. 1975). Among the many landmark cases Sive argued were ''
Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference v. Federal Power Commission ''Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference v. Federal Power Commission'', 354 F.2d 608 ( 2d Cir. 1965) is a United States Second Circuit Court of Appeals case in which a public group of citizens, the Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference, organize ...
'' (1971).Houck, Oliver A. (2002). "Unfinished Stories," 73 ''U. Colo. L. Rev.'' 867. The ''Storm King'' case accorded standing to a citizens group without financial interest in the proposed power project and ordered the defendant to explore alternatives. Con Ed eventually abandoned the project. Other notable cases included ''Committee for Nuclear Responsibility, Inc. v. Schlesinger'' (1971), argued before the
U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
, which attracted wide media attention to the issue of governmental underground nuclear bomb testing and its potential environmental effects at
Amchitka Island Amchitka (; ale, Amchixtax̂; russian: Амчитка) is a volcanic, tectonically unstable and uninhabited island in the Rat Islands group of the Aleutian Islands in southwest Alaska. It is part of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Re ...
,
Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...
; ''Concerned About Trident, Inc. v. Rumsfeld'' (1976), which established that strategic military decisions are not exempt from compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act; ''Mohonk Trust v. Board of Assessors of Town of Gardiner'' (1979), a real property case that on appeal established that land owned by a trust for environmental preservation and use could be exempt from real property taxes; ''Citizens Committee for the Hudson River v. Volpe et al.'' (1970), which stopped the construction of a proposed expressway on fill to be placed in the
Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...
.


Academic experience

Sive taught litigation and environmental law for many years at
Columbia Law School Columbia Law School (Columbia Law or CLS) is the law school of Columbia University, a private Ivy League university in New York City. Columbia Law is widely regarded as one of the most prestigious law schools in the world and has always ranked i ...
, and also taught environmental law as a visiting faculty member at the Universities of Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, Utah, Hawaii, Colorado, and Washington. He joined the faculty of Pace University Law School in 1995; the Pace Law Library houses the David Sive Manuscript Collection, for students and scholars of environmental law.


Environmental organizations

Sive was a leader and activist with a number of environmental organizations. He was a founding member of
Natural Resources Defense Council The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is a United States-based 501(c)(3) non-profit international environmental advocacy group, with its headquarters in New York City and offices in Washington D.C., San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Bo ...
, the nation’s leading public interest law firm in this specialty, and of the
Environmental Law Institute The Environmental Law Institute (ELI) is a non-profit, non-partisan organization, headquartered in Washington, D.C., that seeks to "make law work for people, places, and the planet" through its work as an environmental law educator, convener, publ ...
. Sive was also among the lawyers representing the Sierra Club when the
Internal Revenue Service The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting U.S. federal taxes and administering the Internal Revenue Code, the main body of the federal statutory ta ...
abruptly ended the Club's tax-exempt status in 1966. That move had the quite unintended effect of turning Sierra Club into the nationally known organization it remains and vastly increasing its membership. Sive subsequently served on the Club's Board of Directors. Sive was a founder of Environmental Advocates of New York, a contributing founder of
Friends of the Earth Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) is an international network of environmental organizations in 73 countries. The organization was founded in 1969 in San Francisco by David Brower, Donald Aitken and Gary Soucie after Brower's split with ...
, a member of the board of directors of the Hudson Valley Institute and Scenic Hudson, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, while serving on the board of directors of the
Association of the Bar of the City of New York The New York City Bar Association (City Bar), founded in 1870, is a voluntary association of lawyers and law students. Since 1896, the organization, formally known as the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, has been headquartered in a ...
; and a multi-year chair of the annual ALI-ABA Conference on Environmental Law.Houck, Oliver A. (2004). "More Unfinished Stories: Lucas, Atlanta Coalition, and Palila/Sweet Home," 75 ''U. Colo. L. Rev.'' 331, fn.1.


Honors and awards

He was the recipient of many awards, from the Environmental Law Institute, the New York State Environmental Planning Lobby, the Sierra Club, the
New York State Bar Association The New York State Bar Association (NYSBA) is a voluntary bar association for the state of New York. The mission of the association is to cultivate the science of jurisprudence; promote reform in the law; facilitate the administration of justice ...
, The Nature Conservancy, the New York State Parks and Conservation Association, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and others. He was a prolific author and lecturer on the topics of environmental law and litigation.


References


Notes


Further reading

* Fox, Margalit (March 19, 2014)
David Sive, a Father of Environmental Law and Advocacy, Dies at 91
The New York Times (New York, NY). Retrieved December 26, 2015. * Carlson, Ann E. (1998). "Standing for the Environment," 45 ''UCLA L. Rev.'' 931.


External links

*
David Sive Manuscript Collection, Pace Law School Library


In the Archives and Special Collections at Marist College
Sive, Paget & Riesel, PC

William H. Rodgers, Jr., The Most Creative Moments in the History of Environmental Law: The Who’s, Washburn Law Journal

Interview with David Sive
Rutgers Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and was a ...
Oral History Archive {{DEFAULTSORT:Sive, David American environmentalists Columbia Law School alumni American environmental lawyers 1922 births 2014 deaths New York (state) lawyers Pace University faculty Brooklyn College alumni 20th-century American lawyers United States Army personnel of World War II