Justice Cardozo: After 80 years, still a dick

Cardozo is hailed as a model of judicial clarity. However, I'd dare say that anyone who spent three years slogging through lawschool (and, particularly the (in)famous Palsgraf v. Long Island R.R. case), would tend to disagree. Which is why, and I thought it odd to harken back to the Great Depression for this verbiage, the Florida 3rd Court of Appeals approvingly cites Cardozo in a routine appeal from a foreclosure case.

New York Cheif Judge Benjamin Cardozo: Still a dick. Does this look like a man who gives a shit about people losing their homes?

The lower court judge, in granting a 30 day extension for debtors to sale their home prior to foreclosure, noted that these are truly grim economic times, unemployment is rampant, the market is screwed, and she saw no problem granting 30 days for the debtors to try to sell their home. Old Republic Bank appealed seeking "guidance" in the standards for foreclosures. The 3rd Court of Appeals agreed with Old Republic, stating that the law was not a place for "benevolence and compassion", and that they were not legally cognizable grounds. Rather, according to the Court of Appeals, the trial judge abused her discretion because (and citing to Cardozo):

A judge must not “yield to spasmodic sentiment, to vague and unregulated benevolence” and is “not a knight-errant roaming at will in pursuit of his own ideal of beauty or of goodness...He is to draw his inspiration from consecrated principles,”

True that may be, but property courts, and the underlying real property at dispute, tend to be equitable in most jurisdictions. That is, general principles of equity can guide the judge in balancing the interests for the parties. I do not know the particular facts of this case; however, I can state unequivocally (after working for State court judges), that compassion is very much a hallmark of the equitable principles. In fact, the very first equitable maxim that guides such determinationa in real property is "equity abhors a foreclosure". Closely related is "equity delights in equality." It certainly seems that the judge here was trying to obviate the need for a foreclosure, and get the bank equitably situated (if possible) by a debtor-work out. That's not wholly compassionate, it's friggin equitable. Story here.