Friedrich Kessler (lawyer)

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Friedrich Kessler (born August 25, 1901 in Hechingen ; † January 21, 1998 in Berkeley ) was a German-American legal scholar and, among other things, a professor at Yale Law School .

Life

Friedrich Kessler was born as the son of the Stuttgart Higher Regional Court Councilor Wilhelm Kessler (1879–1952). He studied from 1919 to 1922 in Tübingen, Munich and Marburg, then in Berlin , where he in 1928 graduated with his doctorate Dr. jur. completed. From 1926 he worked at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Comparative and International Private Law. From 1931 to 1933 he was a private lecturer at the Handelshochschule Berlin .

The takeover of power by the National Socialists meant a profound turning point for Kessler. On the one hand, the totalitarian spirit of the system contradicted its basic liberal attitude and made its work more difficult. But even more important was the Jewish faith of his wife Eva (1888–1983), a daughter of the Berlin lawyer Paul Jonas . These circumstances led the couple to emigrate to the USA in July 1934 . Kessler had been an American citizen since 1942.

Here Kessler was Assistant Professor at Yale Law School from 1935 to 1938, then Associate Professor at the University of Chicago School of Law from 1938 to 1947, and Professor at Yale Law School from 1947 to 1970 . After his retirement in 1970 he worked at the Law School of the University of California, Berkeley . He lived there until his death.

Kessler's research focus was on contract law , where he also dealt with questions of commercial and regulatory law. In 1944 he published his best known article, Contracts of Adhesion — Some Thoughts About Freedom of Contract . In it he described the problem of a contract between two partners with different negotiating positions. In Kessler's opinion, such agreements counteract the concept of freedom of contract that was shaped in the 18th and 19th centuries . In addition, such contracts reversed the evolution from status to law and resulted in the conclusion of contracts becoming a one-handed privilege .

Fonts

  • Getting married under the law of the United States of America . Ebering, Berlin 1929 (dissertation of October 13, 1928: Legal theses ... for the acquisition of the degree of Dr. juris utriusque ...).
  • Negligence in North American tort law with a comparative consideration of English and German law (=  contributions to foreign and international private law . Volume 6 ). De Gruyter, Berlin 1932.
  • Natural Law, Justice and Democracy - Some Reflections on Three Types of Thinking About Law and Justice. In: Tulane Law Review. 19, No. 32, 1944 ( semanticscholar.org PDF).
  • Automobile Dealer Franchises: Vertical Integration by Contract. In: The Yale Law Journal. Volume 66, No. 8, pp. 1135-1190, 1957.
  • with Richard H. Stern: Contract, Competition, and Vertical Integration. In: The Yale Law Journal. Volume 69, No. 1, 1959 ( digitalcommons.law.yale.edu ).
  • with Edith Fine: Culpa in Contrahendo, Bargaining in Good Faith, and Freedom of Contract: A Comparative Study. In: Harvard law review. Volume 77, No. 3, January 1964, pp. 401-419.

literature

  • Werner Röder, Herbert A. Strauss : Kessler, Friedrich . In: Institute for Contemporary History (ed.): Biographical manual of German-speaking emigration after 1933–1945 . tape 1 : politics, economy, public life . KG Saur, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-598-11420-6 , p. 616 ( books.google.de ).
  • Otto Sandrock: Friedrich Kessler and Anglo-American Contract Law - Lessons for International Contract Law . In: Marcus Lutter, Ernst Stiefel, Michael H. Hoeflich (eds.): The Influence of German Emigrants on Legal Development in the USA and in Germany: Lectures and Lectures at the Bonn Symposium in September 1991 . Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 1993, ISBN 3-16-146080-4 , p. 475–486 ( books.google.de - reading sample).
  • Christian Joerges : Demos vs. Ethnos in Private Law: Friedrich Kessler and His German Heritage . In: The Yale Law Journal . tape 104 , no. 8 , 1995, ISSN  0044-0094 , pp. 2137-2143 , JSTOR : 796995 .
  • Anthony T. Kronman : My Senior Partner . In: The Yale Law Journal . tape 104 , no. 8 , 1995, ISSN  0044-0094 , pp. 2129-2131 , JSTOR : 796993 .
  • John K. McNulty: A Student's Tribute to Fritz Kessler . In: The Yale Law Journal . tape 104 , no. 8 , 1995, ISSN  0044-0094 , pp. 2133-2136 , JSTOR : 796994 .
  • John K. McNulty : Dedicated to Friedrich Kessler Upon His Eightieth Birthday, August 25, 1981. Yale Law Report, Winter 1981-1982

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Friedrich Kessler: Contracts of Adhesion - Some Thoughts about Freedom of Contract . In: Columbia Law Review . tape 43 , no. 5 , 1943, ISSN  0010-1958 , pp. 629-642 , doi : 10.2307 / 1117230 , JSTOR : 1117230 .
personal data
SURNAME Kessler, Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American lawyer
DATE OF BIRTH August 25, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Hechingen
DATE OF DEATH January 21, 1998
Place of death Berkeley