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This summer I am planning to put together a casebook that is for leisurely reading, rather than a law-school course. My tentative title is "The Canon of American Common Law." 

It is an idea of mine that started with the thought that it would be exciting to give a special award to the first-year law student with the highest combined grade-point average in the three common law courses: Contracts, Property, and Torts. A good name would be the Holmes Award. But what would be a suitable prize? A perfect token, I thought, would be a book of the classic common-law cases. I think such a book would also be nice to have available for casual students of the law ? people who would like to do some exploring in the law ? but who are not looking for three years of law school.

Below is my very-rough draft table of contents, along with a list of ?on the bubble? cases that are deserving, but that I might leave out to keep the size of the book manageable. I would be very grateful for your comments. Do any of the cases fail to qualify as classics? Am I grievously leaving something out? Am I close to closing in on a canonical list? Or am I way off?

Wood v. Boynton

Webb v. McGowin

Raffles v. Wichelhaus (The Peerless Case)

Hamer v. Sidway

Lucy v. Zehmer

Wood v. Lucy, Lady Duff-Gordon

Hawkins v. McGee

Peevyhouse v. Garland Coal & Mining Co.

Hadley v. Baxendale

Ghen v. Rich

Pierson v. Post

Brown v. Voss

Hannah v. Peel

Moore v. Regents of the University of California

Vanna White v. Samsung Electronics America, Inc.

State v. Shack

Boomer v. Atlantic Cement Co.

Vosburg v. Putney

Garratt v. Dailey

Fisher v. Carrousel Motor Hotel, Inc.

Ploof v. Putnam

Katko v. Briney

Vincent v. Lake Erie Transportation Co. 

Byrne v. Boadle

Palsgraf v. Long Island R.R. Co.

Summers v. Tice

Tarasoff v. Regents of University of California

U.S. v. Carroll Towing Co.

Vaughan v. Menlove

Rylands v. Fletcher

Escola v. Coca-Cola Bottling Co. of Fresno

Dougherty v. Salt

Taylor v. Caldwell

Brown v. Kendall

I de S et ux. v. W de S

Indiana Harbor Belt. R. Co. v. American Cyanamid Co.

Lumley v. Gye

MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co.

Stone v. Bolton

You?ll notice there are a few English cases in the mix, but they are ones that, I think, are nonetheless, classics of American common law, generally because of their entrenchment in the American 1L curriculum.

Also, you?ll notice I have not included any U.S. Supreme Court cases. That?s another casual-casebook project ? but a worthy one. I plan to take that up separately.