Harrie Brigham Chase (August 9, 1889 – November 17, 1969) was an American lawyer and judge. He served briefly on the Supreme Court of Vermont, and then was a

United States circuit judge In the United States, federal judges are judges who serve on courts established under Article Three of the U.S. Constitution. They include the chief justice and the associate justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, the circuit judges of the U.S. ...

of the

United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (in case citations, 2d Cir.) is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. Its territory comprises the states of Connecticut, New York and Vermont. The court has appellate ju ...

Education and career

Chase was born in Whitingham,

Vermont Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...

on August 9, 1889. He attended Whitingham public schools, Wilmington High School, and Phillips Exeter Academy.Walter J. Bigelow, ''Vermont, Its Government, 1919-1920'', Historical Publishing Company, 1919, p. 16. He attended

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native ...

, receiving an Artium Baccalaureus degree in 1909, and the Boston University School of Law, receiving a

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 Ch ...

in 1912. Admitted to the Vermont bar in 1912, he formed a partnership with his father in October of that year and continued to practice law until 1919 From February 1, 1919 to June 1919, he served as state's attorney of Windham County, Vermont.

State judicial service

Governor Percival W. Clement appointed him a superior court judge on May 16, 1919; at age 29, Chase was one of the youngest individuals in the state to become a judge. He served as a superior court judge until 1927, and was chief judge from 1926 to 1927. In 1927, he succeeded Frank L. Fish as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of Vermont, and served until 1929. He was succeeded on the Vermont Supreme Court by Julius A. Willcox.

Federal judicial service

Chase was nominated by President Calvin Coolidge (a native Vermonter) on January 19, 1929, to the

, to a new seat authorized by 45 Stat. 1081.Gerald Gunther, ''Learned Hand: The Man and the Judge'', pp. 243-45. Chase's nomination disappointed

Learned Hand Billings Learned Hand ( ; January 27, 1872 – August 18, 1961) was an American jurist, lawyer, and judicial philosopher. He served as a federal trial judge on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York from 1909 to 1924 a ...

and other advocates for the promotion of Thomas D. Thacher from the

United States District Court for the Southern District of New York The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (in case citations, S.D.N.Y.) is a federal trial court whose geographic jurisdiction encompasses eight counties of New York State. Two of these are in New York City: New ...

; Thacher went on to serve as

Solicitor General of the United States The solicitor general of the United States is the fourth-highest-ranking official in the United States Department of Justice. Elizabeth Prelogar has been serving in the role since October 28, 2021. The United States solicitor general represent ...

. Chase was confirmed by the

United States Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and pow ...

on January 31, 1929, and received his commission the same day. He primarily worked out of his chambers in

Brattleboro Brattleboro (), originally Brattleborough, is a town in Windham County, Vermont, United States. The most populous municipality abutting Vermont's eastern border with New Hampshire, which is the Connecticut River, Brattleboro is located about no ...

, Vermont, where he lived, and commuted to New York only when necessary, which meant that he never became part of the core of the court. He served as Chief Judge and as a member of the Judicial Conference of the United States from 1953 to 1954. He assumed

senior status Senior status is a form of semi- retirement for United States federal judges. To qualify, a judge in the federal court system must be at least 65 years old, and the sum of the judge's age and years of service as a federal judge must be at leas ...

on September 1, 1954, and heard very few cases after the mid-1950s. He was succeeded by Sterry R. Waterman, also of Vermont. His service terminated on November 17, 1969, due to his death.

Judicial demeanor and philosophy

Gerald Gunther, a Learned Hand biographer, described Chase as a modest man who "never claimed to be an intellectual or a penetrating student of the law... preferring his outings on the golf course to his struggles with arguments and judicial opinions," and yet had "integrity and competence" and was not a "political judge preoccupied with cronyism" as colleague Martin Thomas Manton was. (Manton resigned in the midst of corruption allegations in 1939 and served time in prison for accepting bribes.) Chase was considered a conservative member of the Second Circuit bench and is remembered today primarily in connection with his colleagues, including Hand.

Notable law clerk

Among Chase's law clerks was

James L. Oakes James Lowell Oakes (February 21, 1924 – October 13, 2007) was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and previously was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for ...

, who later himself became a Second Circuit judge.

Death

Chase died in Vernon, Vermont on November 17, 1969. He was buried at Morningside Cemetery in Brattleboro.

Family

Chase, a

Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...

, was a Universalist in religion. He was the son of attorney Charles Sumner Chase and Carrie (Brigham) Chase, and his siblings included Paul A. Chase, who served as an associate justice of the

Vermont Supreme Court The Vermont Supreme Court is the highest judicial authority of the U.S. state of Vermont. Unlike most other states, the Vermont Supreme Court hears appeals directly from the trial courts, as Vermont has no intermediate appeals court. The Court ...

. He married Mina A. Gilman of Brattleboro in 1912, and they had three children.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Chase, Harrie Brigham 1889 births 1969 deaths People from Whitingham, Vermont Vermont Republicans Vermont lawyers State's attorneys in Vermont Judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit United States court of appeals judges appointed by Calvin Coolidge 20th-century American judges Vermont state court judges Justices of the Vermont Supreme Court Dartmouth College alumni Boston University School of Law alumni Burials in Vermont