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| Arthur Linton Corbin | |
|---|---|
| Name | Arthur Linton Corbin |
| Birth date | 1874 |
| Birth place | Litchfield, Connecticut |
| Death date | 1967 |
| Death place | New Haven, Connecticut |
| Occupation | Legal scholar, Professor of Law |
| Alma mater | Yale University |
| Notable works | "Corbin on Contracts" |
| Institutions | Yale Law School |
Arthur Linton Corbin was an influential American jurist and scholar whose work reshaped contract law doctrine in the 20th century. A long-serving professor at Yale Law School, he authored the multi-volume treatise "Corbin on Contracts" and engaged with contemporaries across Harvard Law School, Columbia Law School, and the University of Chicago Law School. Corbin's interpretations influenced judicial decisions in state and federal courts, including debates at the United States Supreme Court and citations by judges in New York and California courts.
Born in Litchfield, Connecticut, Corbin grew up during the post-Reconstruction era alongside figures shaped by the industrial expansion centered in New England. He attended preparatory schools that counted alumni who later studied at Yale University and Harvard College. Corbin studied law at Yale Law School, where he encountered professors influenced by legal thinkers from Oxford University and Cambridge. While at Yale he read treatises that traced back to writings by William Blackstone, consultations of Justice Joseph Story, and the evolving scholarship of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. and Roscoe Pound.
Corbin joined the faculty of Yale Law School as a professor, serving during the administrations of university leaders like Arthur Twining Hadley and James Rowland Angell. He spent decades teaching alongside colleagues connected to networks including Harvard Law Review editors, alumni of Columbia Law School, and trustees from institutions such as Princeton University and Brown University. Corbin participated in conferences that drew participants from the American Bar Association, the American Law Institute, and state bar associations in New York and Illinois. He delivered lectures that were attended by deans from University of Pennsylvania Law School, Cornell Law School, and visiting scholars from Oxford University and University of Paris circles.
Corbin championed interpretive approaches that contrasted with formalist positions advanced at institutions like Harvard Law School by scholars such as Christopher Columbus Langdell's intellectual heirs and influenced by jurists including Benjamin N. Cardozo and Felix Frankfurter. He emphasized the importance of intent, performance, and equitable remedies, engaging with doctrines cited in cases from the Second Circuit and decisions influenced by judges like Learned Hand and Hugo Black. Corbin's analyses intersected with developments in commercial law and discussions in bodies such as the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws and the Restatement (Second) of Contracts project undertaken by the American Law Institute. His views were debated by proponents of textualist readings who invoked authorities including John Marshall and critics citing Samuel Williston.
Corbin's signature work, the multi-volume "Corbin on Contracts", joined the ranks of treatises like Williston on Contracts and comparative studies referencing scholars from Germany and the United Kingdom. He contributed articles to law reviews produced by editorial boards at Yale Law Journal, Harvard Law Review, Columbia Law Review, and University of Chicago Law Review. Corbin published critiques and expansions responding to caselaw from the Supreme Court of the United States, state supreme courts such as New York Court of Appeals and California Supreme Court, and administrative decisions involving agencies connected to Federal Trade Commission precedents. His essays engaged with philosophical work by John Dewey and legal realist scholars linked to Karl Llewellyn and Jerome Frank.
Corbin's influence reached academics, practitioners, and jurists across jurisdictions including Connecticut, New York, California, the Eighth Circuit, and the Ninth Circuit. Courts cited his treatise in contract disputes involving corporations like those based in New York City and Chicago, and in cases touching on commercial transactions regularized by bodies such as the Uniform Commercial Code drafters. Critics from schools of thought connected to Samuel Williston and later textualists including judges from the Supreme Court era critiqued Corbin's pragmatism; defenders invoked precedents from Lord Mansfield and comparative scholars from France and Germany. Corbin's students and intellectual descendants included professors who taught at Harvard Law School, Columbia Law School, and Stanford Law School, and his treatise continues to be cited alongside works from the American Law Institute and modern commentators on contract doctrine. Corbin's legacy persists in contemporary scholarship engaging with cases from tribunals like the New York Court of Appeals and scholarship published in journals such as the Yale Law Journal and the Harvard Law Review.
Category:American legal scholars Category:Yale Law School faculty Category:1874 births Category:1967 deaths