Background
Marshall Jay Williams, son of Dr. Charles M. Williams and Margaret J. Williams, was born on February 22, 1837 on a farm in Fayette County, Ohio.
Marshall Jay Williams, son of Dr. Charles M. Williams and Margaret J. Williams, was born on February 22, 1837 on a farm in Fayette County, Ohio.
His early education was in the local common schools, in which, by the age of sixteen, he had taught several terms. After spending two years at Ohio Wesleyan University, he began the study of law in 1855 in the office of Nelson Rush at Washington Court-House, Ohio.
At the age of twenty, since minors were not admitted to the bar in Ohio, he moved to Iowa where the rules were less stringent, but after practising there for a year, returned to Ohio and settled at Washington Court-House. He soon acquired a large practice which extended into surrounding counties.
He was elected prosecuting attorney of Fayette County in 1859 and reëlected in 1861; in 1869 he was elected to the General Assembly and returned in 1871. Upon the establishment of the circuit courts in 1884, he was elected a judge of the court of the second circuit and was chosen by his colleagues as their first chief justice. After but two years' service on this bench he was elected a judge of the supreme court, and assumed office in 1887. Elected for three successive terms, he served for nearly sixteen years, being chief justice by rotation during the last year of each term.
In 1891 he became the first dean of the College of Law of Ohio State University, which opened its doors for the first time in October of that year, with thirty-three students in the basement of the Franklin County Court House. He lectured in this school until 1893, when his health began to decline.
While still on the bench and serving as chief justice, he died, in Columbus.
Williams' opinions as a supreme court judge are found in 45-66 Ohio State Reports. They are not great opinions nor do they show a wide range of scholarship, but they are able - characterized by their brevity, unusual clarity, and reliance upon principles of law rather than decided cases.
In accordance with the prevailing spirit of the times, he was conservative in his views of constitutional law, as is evidenced by his concurrence in the decisions declaring unconstitutional the "sub-mechanics lien law" and the progressive inheritance tax law, both later made possible in Ohio by constitutional amendment, but both of which, according to modern legal thinking, were valid without such amendment. In the field of tort law, however, when questions of negligence and liability to injured workmen were involved, he was singularly sympathetic to the claims of the injured party. Infants should be held to the degree of care exercised not by prudent adults but by infants of their own age and experience; railroads cannot by contract relieve themselves of liability for their own negligence; persons having on their premises things which are dangerous and attractive to children are liable for injuries to such children even though they be trespassers; defendants who have the "last clear chance" to avoid an injury either because they saw or ought to have seen the peril of the plaintiff are liable for injury done even though the plaintiff was himself guilty of contributory negligence; a municipality is liable for defects in the streets even though such streets be built with care according to a plan adopted by the city council - these are examples of the liberal doctrines which found expression in his opinions.
He married Bertha (Taylor) Williams of Clermont County in May 1860, and they had one adopted daughter.