Education
University of Iowa College of Law. University of Iowa.
University of Iowa College of Law. University of Iowa.
Born in Princeton, Illinois, Lay was injured playing football while attending the United States Naval Academy, which ended his plans for military service. He earned a bachelor"s degree from the University of Iowa in 1949 and received his law degree in 1951. After working as a trial lawyer in Milwaukee and Omaha, he was appointed to the Eighth Circuit at age 39 by President Lyndon B. Johnson.
One of his most notable rulings was Jenson v.
Eveleth Taconite Company, a landmark sexual harassment case that was the subject of the 2005 film North Country. The Supreme Court of the United States agreed with his 1971 dissent on behalf of two Iowa convicts whose parole was revoked without trial in Morrissey v.
Brewer and his dissent in Junior Chamber of Commerce v. McClure, which compelled the Junior Chamber of Commerce to admit women.
Lay dissented in United States v.
$124,700 in United States. Currency, a case that still stands, upholding the civil forfeiture of properties possibly connected to drugs. From 1995 to 2001, he served as a full-time visiting faculty member at William Mitchell College of Law. He died at his home in North Oaks, Minnesota.