Harry Kalven Jr. (September 11, 1914 – October 29, 1974) was an American legal scholar known for his scholarship on

tort law A tort is a civil wrong, other than breach of contract, that causes a claimant to suffer loss or harm, resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the tortious act. Tort law can be contrasted with criminal law, which deals with crime ...

and

United States constitutional law The constitutional law of the United States is the body of law governing the interpretation and implementation of the United States Constitution. The subject concerns the scope of power of the United States federal government compared to the indi ...

. He was the Harry A. Bigelow Professor of Law at the

University of Chicago Law School The University of Chicago Law School is the Law school in the United States, law school of the University of Chicago, a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. It employs more than 180 full-time and part-time facul ...

, having graduated from the

College A college (Latin: ''collegium'') may be a tertiary educational institution (sometimes awarding degrees), part of a collegiate university, an institution offering vocational education, a further education institution, or a secondary sc ...

and the Law School. Kalven coauthored, with Charles O. Gregory (and later Richard Epstein), a widely used textbook in the field of

torts A tort is a civil wrong, other than breach of contract, that causes a claimant to suffer loss or harm, resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the tortious act. Tort law can be contrasted with criminal law, which deals with c ...

, ''Cases and Materials on Torts.'' Kalven was also a scholar in the field of

constitutional law Constitutional law is a body of law which defines the role, powers, and structure of different entities within a state, namely, the executive, the parliament or legislature, and the judiciary; as well as the basic rights of citizens and, in ...

, particularly in the area of the First Amendment. Kalven is the coauthor of "The Contemporary Function of the Class Suit," one of the most heavily cited articles in the history of

American law The law of the United States comprises many levels of codified and uncodified forms of law, of which the supreme law is the nation's Constitution, which prescribes the foundation of the federal government of the United States, as well as v ...

, and widely considered to be the foundation of the modern

class action A class action is a form of lawsuit. Class Action may also refer to: * ''Class Action'' (film), 1991, starring Gene Hackman and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio * Class Action (band), a garage house band * "Class Action" (''Teenage Robot''), a 2002 e ...

lawsuit. He also co-authored a pioneering empirical study of ''The American Jury'' with his Chicago colleague Hans Zeisel. He coined the term Heckler's veto. He was chair of the committee that produced what became known as the " Kalven Report", a document outlining the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

's role "in political and social action." After his death, his son Jamie Kalven, a journalist and human rights activist, completed Kalven's unfinished manuscript which was published by Harper & Row in 1988 as ''A Worthy Tradition: Freedom of Speech in America''. In recognition of his impact on interdisciplinary legal research, the Law and Society Association awards the Harry J. Kalven, Jr. Prize each year to a scholar selected for “empirical scholarship that has contributed most effectively to the advancement of research in law and society.”

Selected works

*Harry Kalven Jr., ''A Worthy Tradition: Freedom of Speech in America''. Harper and Row Publishers. New York, 1988. *Harry Kalven Jr., ''The Negro and the First Amendment''. The Ohio State University Press, 1965. *Harry Kalven Jr, Report on the University's Role in Political and Social Action. University of Chicago ''Record Vol. 1, No. 1, November 11, 1967'' *Harry Kalven Jr. and Walter Blum, ''The Uneasy Case for Progressive Taxation''. University of Chicago Press, 1953 *Harry Kalven Jr. and Hans Zeisel, ''The American Jury''. Little Brown, 1965

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kalven, Harry 1914 births 1974 deaths American legal scholars American legal writers American political writers University of Chicago Law School alumni University of Chicago faculty University of Chicago Law School faculty American scholars of constitutional law Scholars of tort law 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American male writers American male non-fiction writers