IN MEMORIAM PETER M. GERHART 1945-2021.

• Author: Berg, Jessica
• Position: Professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law - Includes 10 testimonials - Ohio

The editors of the Case Western Reserve Law Review respectfully dedicate this issue to Professor Peter M. Gerhart. On March 11, 2021, Case Western Reserve University School of Law held a memorial service to honor Professor Gerhart's memory and celebrate his life. The following tributes were first delivered at that service.

Jessica Berg and Michael Scharf

Peter Gerhart, longtime professor and former dean of the Case Western Reserve University School of Law, passed away on February 7, 2021, after suffering a brain hemorrhage. He was a dedicated teacher, a prolific scholar, and a caring and engaged colleague. We will miss his ever-present smile!

Peter was the John Homer Kapp Professor of Law and held a secondary appointment at the Weatherhead School of Management. He received his B.A. from Northwestern University in 1967 and his J.D. from Columbia University Law School in 1971. He began his career as an associate at the law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges in New York City before teaching for eleven years and serving as associate dean and interim dean at Ohio State University College of Law.

After a national search, Peter joined the Case Western Reserve law school faculty as dean in 1986. He served in that capacity for ten years, until 1996. During his decanal tenure, he played a key role in developing the Frederick K. Cox International Law Center and the Milton A. Kramer Law Clinic. A talented and experienced higher education administrator, he served as the interim president of Lake Erie College from 2015 to 2016.

Peter was a noted expert in antitrust and trade regulation before joining our law school, and later a specialist in international economic law and globalization. He published dozens of law review articles in leading law journals. Most recently, he focused on legal theory. His trilogy of acclaimed books published by Cambridge University Press spanned the legal universe: Tort Law and Social Morality (2010), Property Law and Social Morality (2014), and Contract Law and Social Morality (2021). Each followed the novel approach he developed regarding legal reasoning, making the case that the doctrinal categories we use to understand private law have only artificial boundaries. The books stand as a memorial to Peter's scholarship and life's work.

While service and scholarship played a crucial role in Peter's career, his passion for teaching, especially first-year law students, stands out as one of his defining characteristics. By his own choice, he taught four different courses in our 1L curriculum: torts, contracts, property, and legislation & regulation, sometimes covering two of them in the same year. Moved by the recent spate of incidents of racial injustice, he devoted part of his fall 2020 sabbatical to designing a course in structural racism and the law.

Peter truly loved teaching and freely gave much of his time and energy to our students. He was also a phenomenal colleague, whose warmth and wisdom were shared widely throughout our faculty. He cared deeply about the law school, provided the two of us valuable advice about dean-ing, and assisted in fundraising. His impact will long outlast him.

([dagger]) Co-Deans, Case Western Reserve University School of Law.

Melvyn R. Durchslag ([dagger])

I first met Peter in the coffee shop of a Holiday Inn, someplace off 1-71, just north of Columbus. It was, as I recall, the fall of 1985. He was the Academic Dean at Ohio State's law school, and I was chair of our Dean Search Committee. Peter insisted on meeting at this out-of-the-way, off-campus place because he didn't want it known, at least not just yet, that he was interested in leaving Ohio State to become the Dean at Case Western Reserve School of Law. That was thirty-five-plus years ago, so I don't remember exactly what we talked about during the several hours we spent together. What I do remember was his captivating smile and his obvious enthusiasm for accepting a new challenge. I left our meeting pretty much convinced that Peter was going to be our next Dean.

For reasons that had nothing to do with Peter (that could well be a book-length essay), it wasn't an easy road to his faculty vote. But in the end, it was Peter's charm and, I shall say, his scholarship that won the day. The latter initially concerned me, not for any substantive reason, but rather because I knew nothing about antitrust law, which was Peter's area of expertise, and therefore had no way of evaluating his scholarship. So I went to Arthur Austin, our antitrust scholar, to ask him to review Peter's work. (1) Well, Arthur could at times be, let us say, quite demanding. But Peter passed the Austin test with flying colors. I knew then we had our next Dean. And, it turns out, Art was spot on. As will become evident in a few minutes, Peter went on to become a world recognized scholar for his innovative and unique approach to the law of Torts, Contracts, and Property. (2)

Largely because Peter knew me better than anyone else on the faculty, he asked me to be his Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. With that, Peter started a tradition that lasts to this day--a tradition of having, as the Dean's right-hand person, an Academic as well as an Administrative Dean. As might be imagined, Peter and I became very close during the three-and-a-half years I served as Academic Dean. Neither time nor space permits recounting those years when we worked hand in hand to administer the school. What I will say is that he inadvertently saved my career and conceivably my marriage. As the "Peter Principle" (no pun intended) would have it, he made me realize that I had reached the highest level of my incompetence--the highest level of my administrative ladder. I could never have done for this or any other institution what Peter did for this law school. He worked tirelessly and often into the wee hours of the night (as his wife Ann can attest) raising money--lots of money, cajoling alums, and putting out the internal fires that I had neither the authority nor the ability to put out. And all with that captivating smile and calm demeanor. I once asked him how he could do what he does--how could he deal with the demands of his office and maintain his upbeat attitude and calm composure. He told me it was easy, if only you believed in your institution. And Peter believed in Case Western Reserve School of Law. Next to his family, whom he deeply loved and cherished, he devoted his life to this law school, to its students, and to his faculty and administrative colleagues. His legacy as dean, teacher, devoted colleague, and--maybe more than anything else--decent and caring human being, lives on. No one person can aspire to anything more.

([dagger]) Professor Emeritus of Law, Case Western Reserve University.

(1.) See, e.g., Peter M. Gerhart, The "Competitive Advantages" Explanation for Intrabrand Restraints: An Antitrust Analysis, 1981 Duke L.J. 417; Peter M. Gerhart, The Supreme Court and Antitrust Analysis: The (Near) Triumph of the Chicago School, 1982 Sup. Ct. Rev. 319.

(2.) See, e.g., Peter M. Gerhart, Contract Law and Social Morality (2021); Peter M. Gerhart, Property Law and Social Morality (2014); Peter M. Gerhart, Tort Law and Social Morality (2010).

Juliet P. Kostritsky ([dagger])

We all knew Peter in different ways. Here are some of the ways our students and I remember Peter. Of course, our stories are just a fraction of stories repeated by faculty, students, and staff at the law school and--we are sure--at other organizations Peter was involved with. Peter was always reaching out to others, and he will be missed.

His Kindness to Students: Years later, students recall getting emails (which they saved) telling them that they were not defined by their grades. Peter would send this email out to students while they were anxiously awaiting their grades. This email helped students recognize that life continues even if their grades disappoint them, and that learning is a lifelong process.

During the pandemic, his classroom was an oasis of kindness and a place of welcome and learning.

His students delighted him. He relished answers that were surprising. When studying an epileptic-driver case in Torts, a student responded with an unusual answer about damages that involved suggesting a hug as a possible remedy. Professor Gerhart, delighted, taken aback, responded: "I had not heard that answer."

His Kindness to His Peers: Peter recently consoled me at the intensive care waiting room while waiting for my husband to come out of open-heart surgery. He somehow managed to find out where I was waiting with my best friend in the hospital. He helped lessen the worry while we were waiting for the outcome.

Empathetic and a Problem Solver: When Case had no maternity leave policy and Peter was Dean, he made a maternity leave for me possible. I don't know what magic wand he waved, but he somehow made it happen.

Insatiable Intellectual Curiosity: One semester Peter told me he wanted to enroll in my Advanced Contracts class as a student. He soon was co-teaching the class with me. It was so fun playing off different ideas with him. I approached the class from a law-and-economics perspective and he from a social-morality perspective. The students benefited from hearing us spar. In addition, Peter and I met with another colleague weekly over the course of a summer at a Starbucks to discuss incomplete contracts, externalities, and bargaining...