In Memoriam

• Publication year: 2024
• Citation: Vol. 93 No. 4 Pg. 58
• Pages: 58

In Memoriam93 J. Kan. Bar Assn 4, 58 (2024)Kansas Bar JournalAugust 2024

Justice Fred Six

(4/20/1929 — 4/24/2024)

Former Chief Justice Lawton Nuss presented these remarks at Fred and Lilian Six's memorial service on May 9, 2024. Afterward, the Board of Editors asked Chief Justice Nuss if the Journal could reprint his remarks here, including his comments addressing various judges and lawyers at the service. Special thanks go to Chief Justice Nuss for consenting to this request and to John Peck, who sits on the Board of Editors, for asking Chief Justice Nuss to share his remarks with the bar.

When Fred Six applied to be on the Kansas Supreme Court in 1988, my law partner, Aubrey Linville, was on the Nominating Commission. Aubrey told me last week that in 1988 he had informed his fellow commission members, "Fred Six was born to be a Supreme Court justice."

Judges and lawyers know that witnesses cannot give their opinions without first laying a foundation. So here is Aubrey's. He had lived with Fred in a KU fraternity in the late 1940s. In fact, Fred had once levied a fine against Aubrey for violating the house's "quiet hours" — time reserved for what Fred reasonably thought was the serious matter of studying.

When Aubrey later was a KU law student, he learned Fred had been editor-in-chief of its Law Review and ranked No. 1 in his class. As possible proof of the impact that Fred's earlier fine had had on Aubrey, he, too, became editor-in-chief of the Law Review — and No. 2 in his class. Additionally, Aubrey knew through Fred's 30 years of fine legal work since then that Aubrey's mind certainly was not the last one Fred had influenced.

I agree with Aubrey's opinion. And here is my foundation for it.

After a distinguished career at the bar, Fred was sworn into the Kansas Court of Appeals in 1987, and in 1988 became the first Court of Appeals judge ever to join the Supreme Court. Judge Jean Shepherd, you introduced him at his swearing-in ceremony as "a person held in the highest professional and personal esteem by his colleagues and friends throughout this state."

When I was a lawyer, I read many Kansas appellate court opinions. I came to especially admire those of Justice Fred Six. As was said about the writings of U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan II, Fred's opinions were closely reasoned and clearly written. Accordingly, his opinions made my life as a lawyer much easier because they allowed me to explain to clients the most likely outcome of appeals. Fred and I never met; I only knew him from his opinions.

Then in the fall of 2002, I was appointed to become his new colleague. For me, the appointment was a dream come true. But I also had some trepidation, for several reasons:

• First, this would be the first time the Supreme Court's personnel had changed in seven years. That meant my new colleagues were pretty well set in their ways. So, fitting in would be a challenge.

• Second, all of the justices had some degree of judicial experience before joining the Supreme Court. I had none. In fact, I was the first lawyer in nearly 25 years to move directly to the Supreme Court. So, this rookie had more than the...