hans linde and oregon supreme court and willamette university college of law and william o douglas

There are few Oregon lawyers or judges I respect as much as Hans Linde. Over an illustrious legal career that began more than 50 years ago as clerk for US Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, Hans has been an attorney in Washington DC, a professor at the University of Oregon Law School and a member, from 1976 until 1990, of the Oregon Supreme Court. He is now officially dubbed "Scholar in Residence" at Willamette University College of Law, though that means he does pretty much whatever he wants. Hans has been a towering figure in the development of state constitutional law, and several of his former students and clerks are now professors, judges and illustrious lawyers all over the country. At 81 he comes into the office every day, and usually is seen engaging one of the faculty members in a spirited conversation in their area of expertise. Hans is an energetic, upbeat intellectual, whose quest for understanding and desire to learn is an inspiration to those with whom he works.

Stopping by My Office on a Summer Day

So it was not at all unusual that Hans stopped by my office the other day, the day before he was to fly to China to introduce aspects of American law to Chinese students. Instead of his usual jovial self, however, "another" Hans appeared. He poked his head in the door and said, in his German accent, "I'm flustrated." Some might attribute the pronunciation of that word to the fact of his accent; I think it was a brilliant attempt to invent a new English word combining "frustrated" and "flustered" in the same word.

In any case, Hans told me what was "flustrating" him. He couldn't find a case that he wanted to use to illustrate some points of American law to the Chinese students. He knew the case was from the Oregon Supreme Court during his tenure there, and he knew that he was a dissenter in the case, but he forgot the grounds of the decision of the case. He couldn't remember whether the Court decided the case on evidentiary, takings, common law or statutory grounds. He said he had spent quite some time reading the West Law Headnotes on these areas of law and combing through some of his volumes of opinions at home, but to no avail. Thus, he was "flustrated," because he wanted to show students how the Headnote system worked and how constitutional and statutory issues were considered in Oregon.

I knew I was working on an essay that was going to take me a little while longer to finish, but I resolved to myself that I would see what I could do to help Hans find his case. I asked him a few things about the case. Did he remember the facts or the parties? No parties came to mind, but he thought it had something to do with the state's confiscating a truck and then tearing through the lining of the roof of the truck to try to find evidence of a crime. He said he recalled that Justice Gillette wrote the majority opinion and that he dissented in the case. Since I knew that Justice Gillette came on the Supreme Court in 1986 and Hans retired in January 1990, it seemed that we had about a three year window of possible cases. I said I would try to look for it and then went back to my work. He headed to his office.

Searching for a Case

So I finished the essay I was penning. It was about 3:00 and I knew Hans was leaving in about 30 minutes to get ready for his trip. I dove into the data bank of Oregon cases to see if I could find his case. But rather than doing it Hans' way, the right way, the way that law students, lawyers and professors have conducted searches for generations, by Headnotes and legal "doctrines," I decided to type in "Gillette" and "Linde" and dates between 1986 and 1989. Too many results. So, I narrowed the search, by including the word "lining" and "roof," but no cases resulted in which Linde was the dissenter and Gillette the author of the opinion. I continued for a while without success.

Then I thought for a moment. Perhaps his recollection is faulty, and Gillette wasn't the author of the opinion. Certainly Hans would not be mistaken that he dissented, so I just typed in "Linde" and "roof" and dates before 1990. Perhaps, I figured, if Gillette dropped out, the search could be broadened beyond those original dates. Up came about 7 or 8 cases. Only a few had Linde as a dissenter. Then I read the summary of one, which seemed to fit what he was talking about--the search of a pickup that was needed for evidence of a crime. Only thing is, Justice Campbell wrote the opinion, from which Hans dissented.

Bingo

So I knocked on Hans' door and he quickly finished his phone conversation. I displayed the case on my laptop screen to him. "Is this the case?" I asked. He glanced at it. "Yes, it is." I said, "Campbell authored it, and it was from 1984." He said, "Ah yes, I can see that now," as if I should have understood what he meant. But then he looked at me and said, "Well, Bill, how did you find it?" I responded that I did the search by rather rare words, such as "lining" or "roof" and then his name. I said that data bases are now arranged this way to that the greater specificity you have in a name or a peculiar word that came up in the case, the easier it is to find the case.

Hans looked at me with a mixture of bemusement and mock disdain. "You mean you found the case by typing in the word roof?" he asked incredulously. "That flustrates me even more! You shouldn't be able to find a case that way!" And then I saw it. Even though Hans is more computer literate than most 80 year-olds, his mind is shaped by another time in legal research. Like the humanities professor who still reaches for the hardbound "Readers Guide to Periodical Literature," Hans reached for the finding guides of another generation. But now things are different. We search by "roof" and "lining" and not the arcana of principles of inverse condemnation or other constitutional law doctrines. Two generations met and passed in that one encounter. Hans is still, however, without question, the teacher.

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