Lyman Duff

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Meaford, Canada West

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Ottawa, Ontario

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Sir Lyman Poore Duff, Template:Post-nominals (7 January 1865 – 26 April 1955) was a Canadian lawyer and judge who served as the eighth Chief Justice of Canada. He was the longest-serving justice of the Supreme Court of Canada,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> until Beverley McLachlin’s 17-year tenure from 2000-2017.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Early life and career

Born in Meaford, Canada West (now Ontario) to a Congregationalist minister, Duff received a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics and metaphysics from the University of Toronto in 1887. After graduation, he taught at Barrie Collegiate Institute while studying for the bar.Template:Sfn Duff later took courses at Osgoode Hall Law School and was called to the Ontario Bar in 1893.Template:Sfn

Duff practised as a lawyer in Fergus, Ontario, after being called to the bar.Template:Sfn In 1895, Duff moved to Victoria, British Columbia, and he continued his career there. In 1895, he was appointed Queen's Counsel (Q.C.), which became King's Counsel (K.C.) on 22 January 1901 upon the death of Queen Victoria.Template:Sfn In 1903, he took part, as junior counsel for Canada, in the Alaska Boundary arbitration.

Justice of the Supreme Court of British Columbia

In 1904, he was appointed a puisne judge of the Supreme Court of British Columbia.

Puisne Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada

File:Lyman Duff.jpg

Bust of Duff in the Supreme Court of Canada building.

On September 27, 1906, Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier nominated Duff for appointment to the Supreme Court of Canada following the death of Justice Robert Sedgewick on August 4, 1906.Template:Sfn Duff's appointment was well received by the legal community due to his good reputation and name recognition across Canada.Template:Sfn

Biographer Ricardo Williams notes that Duff did not immediately engage with the Court's work, instead in early cases he chose to write short decisions agreeing with another justice.Template:Sfn Duff wrote his first decision four months after his appointment.Template:Sfn<ref group="ps">Template:Cite CanLII</ref>

On January 14, 1919, he was appointed to the Privy Council of the United Kingdom.<ref>Appointment notice at Template:London Gazette</ref> Duff was the first and only Puisne Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada to be appointed to the Imperial Privy Council.Template:Sfn In 1924, he was elected as an honorary bencher of Gray's Inn, at the recommendation of Lord Birkenhead.<ref name=":0" />

In the Board of Commerce case (1920), a deadlocked 3–3 Supreme Court was unable to determine the validity of legislation dealing with the federal government's residue power under the peace, order, and good government provision of the British North America Act. Duff ruled against the validity of the legislation, and did not bind himself to the Privy Council's jurisprudence in the Local Prohibition Case.Template:Sfn The Privy Council on appeal followed some of Duff's reasoning. Snell and Vaughan note that Board of Commerce represents Duff's emergence as a justice with his own views that went on to influence Canadian constitutional law.Template:Sfn

In the Persons case, Duff in separate reasons from Chief Justice Anglin, agreed that women were not persons for the purpose of appointment to the Senate of Canada. Rather than Anglin's narrow originalist interpretation of the framer's intent for the Constitution Act, 1867, Duff did not take a direct stand on the issue. Instead he argued the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy imported under the preamble to the Constitution Act, 1867 and the peace, order and good government residual power of section 91 permitted the Canadian Parliament to set the qualification standards of Senators.Template:Sfn<ref group="ps">Template:Cite CanLII</ref> Ian Bushnell notes that Duff's reasons were politically unpalatable for Prime Minister King.Template:Sfn

During his years as a puisne justice, Duff appears to have not made any contribution of civil law cases coming out of Quebec.Template:Sfn He did not provide reasons in two leading civil law cases in 1920, and later in a 1933 speech, he noted he was not competent to discuss the development of civil law.Template:Sfn

In 1931, he served as Administrator of the Government of Canada (acting Governor-General of Canada) between the departure of Lord Bessborough for England and the arrival of Lord Tweedsmuir.Template:Sfn Duff took on the position, as the Chief Justice was unavailable. As Administrator, Duff opened Parliament and read the Speech from the Throne on 12 March 1931, becoming the first Canadian-born person to do so.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In 1931, Duff was named chairman of the Royal Commission into Railways and Transportation in Canada. When the commission completed its final report in 1932, Duff under severe stress suffered what Prime Minister R.B. Bennett described as a "complete nervous breakdown" and was hospitalized. The Prime Minister believed the situation was so severe that Duff would "not likely ever sit on the bench again."Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

Chief Justice of Canada

In poor health, Chief Justice Francis Alexander Anglin resigned on February 28, 1933, at the age of 67. He died three days later.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn On March 17, 1933, Prime Minister R.B. Bennett selected Duff as the 8th Chief Justice of Canada.Template:Sfn There was little evidence that Bennett considered other candidates for the appointment, but Bennett was cautious about the appointment due to Duff's poor health. Duff's appointment was popular among the legal community.Template:Sfn

Duff had been passed over for the role of Chief Justice in 1924 by Prime Minister Mackenzie King, owing to his support of the Robert Borden government and his alcoholism.Template:Sfn It had been rumored that Duff was intoxicated at the opening of Parliament and the funeral of Chief Justice Davies, and Mackenzie King wrote that Duff's drinking went on for "sprees for weeks at a time."Template:Sfn The appointment of Anglin serious hurt Duff's feelings and he considered resigning from the Court.Template:Sfn Anglin had written the Justice Department advising against appointing Duff to the role of Chief Justice, and resentment remained between Anglin and Duff during the term.Template:Sfn

He was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St. Michael and St. George the following year<ref>Appointment notice at Template:London Gazette</ref> as a result of Prime Minister Richard Bennett's temporary suspension of the Nickle Resolution.<ref group="ps">Hansard (House of Commons Debates, 17th Parliament, 5th Session: Vol. 1), page 99. </ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

When Governor General Lord Tweedsmuir died in office on February 11, 1940, Chief Justice Duff became the Administrator of the Government for the second time.Template:Sfn He held the office for nearly four months, until King George VI appointed Alexander Cambridge, 1st Earl of Athlone as Governor General on June 21, 1940.Template:Sfn Duff was the first Canadian to hold the position, even in the interim. A Canadian-born Governor General was not appointed until Vincent Massey in 1952.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Duff also heard more than eighty appeals on the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, mostly Canadian appeals; however, he never heard Privy Council appeals from the Supreme Court of Canada while he served on the latter, otherwise, it would have been seen as a conflict of interest. The last Privy Council appeal heard by Duff was the 1946 Reference Re Persons of Japanese Race.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite ODNB</ref>

In 1942, Duff served as the sole member of a Royal Commission constituted to examine the Liberal government's conduct in relation to the defence of Hong Kong. The resulting report, which completely exonerated the government, proved to be controversial, and was seen by many as a whitewash.Template:Citation needed

Upon reaching the mandatory retirement age for judges in 1939, his term of office was extended by three years by a special Act of Parliament;<ref group="ps">Template:Cite canlaw</ref> in 1943, his term of office was extended for another year by Parliament.<ref group="ps">Template:Cite canlaw</ref><ref name=":0" /> He retired as Chief Justice in 1944.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Legacy

Duff poses with his bust at its official unveiling on September 5, 1947. In the photo (from left to right): J.L. Ilsley, J.C. McRuer, Duff, John T. Hackett, K.C., Prime Minister W.L. Mackenzie King and Chief Justice Thibaudeau Rinfret.

Duff employed a conservative form of statutory interpretation. In a 1935 Supreme Court of Canada judgment, he detailed how judges should interpret statutes:

Template:Quote

Duff has been called a "master of trenchant and incisive English," who "wrote his opinions in a style which bears comparison with Holmes or Birkenhead."<ref>Template:Cite journal at 51</ref> A former assistant of Duff, Kenneth Campbell, argued that Duff was "frequently ranked as the equal of Justices Holmes and Brandeis of the United States Supreme Court".Template:Sfn Gerald Le Dain, an academic and later a judge on the Supreme Court, asserted that Duff "is generally considered to have been one of Canada's greatest judges."Template:Sfn Other writers have taken a less favourable view, instead arguing that Duff's reputation is largely unearned; his biographer concluded that he was not an original thinker, but essentially a "talented student and exponent of the law rather than a creator of it."Template:Sfn

More recent commentary has focused on Duff's legal formalism and its effect on Canadian federalism. A later successor Chief Justice of Canada, Bora Laskin attacked Duff's decisions, arguing that Duff used circular reasoning and hid his policy-laden decisions behind the doctrine of stare decisis.<ref>Template:Cite journal, at 1069-70.</ref> As well, Lionel Schipper noted that, in reviewing Duff's judgments, it was:

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In their 1985 review of the history of the Supreme Court of Canada, Snell and Vaughan note that Duff was "most famous justice in the history of the institution [of the Supreme Court of Canada]."Template:Sfn

Honours

In 1923, Mount Duff (Yakutat), also known as Boundary Peak 174, was named after him.<ref name="gnis">Template:Cite gnis</ref>

References

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Lyman Duff

Contents

Early life and career

Justice of the Supreme Court of British Columbia

Puisne Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada

Chief Justice of Canada

Legacy

Honours

References

Primary sources

Works cited

Further reading

External links

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Lyman Duff

Early life and career

Justice of the Supreme Court of British Columbia

Puisne Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada

Chief Justice of Canada

Legacy

Honours

References

Primary sources

Works cited

Further reading

External links

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