A professor of law at UCLA for over 40 years, Jesse Dukeminier,
died April 20 at the age of 78. He will be remembered as the man
“you were always glad to see.”
Renowned for his contributions to the field of property law,
Dukeminier’s casebooks on property and wills, trusts and
estates are among the most widely-used in the country in their
fields.
Dukeminier’s book “Gilbert’s Summary of
Property” continues to be a popular work. He wrote
significant articles about property law and on legal issues related
to architecture and visual arts.
For four decades, Dukeminier was widely respected by students
and was honored twice, most recently in 1992, as professor of the
year by the School of Law’s graduating classes.
UCLA Professor Emeritus William Warren, a colleague and friend,
said Dukeminier was always a “great favorite with
students,” not only for his scholarship but for his
personality as well.
Dukeminier received a Lifetime Achievement Award in Teaching and
became the first UCLA Law faculty member to receive a University
Distinguished Teaching Award. He also received the School of
Law’s Rutter Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Dukeminier was born in West Point, Mississippi and studied at
Harvard University, receiving his bachelor’s degree in 1948.
He received his law degree from Yale in 1951 and practiced law with
a Wall Street firm.
Dukeminier came to UCLA in 1963, after teaching at the law
schools of Harvard and University of Chicago. Colleagues said
Dukeminier, who struggled with and died of heart disease, was
planning to return to the university.
“He was a warm, friendly person who paid attention to his
friends … he was a friend of mine for four years and this passing
was a great shock,” Warren said.
Warren said Dukeminier was a lover of the arts, particularly of
opera. He traveled all over the world to visit different opera
houses, Warren said.
Dukeminier and David Sanders, his life partner of over 40 years,
were always at the operas and theaters, said Professor Emeritus
Kenneth Karst, a close friend of Dukeminier for many years. Karst
said Dukeminer’s attitude about the opera was always a
light-hearted one.
“He was one of those people who carried their devotion to
high culture lightly … he was not always telling you about these
interests. He just had them. He never assumed the slightest air of
false superiority,” Karst said.
Karst also described Dukeminier as a great conversationalist and
storyteller who profited from his experiences living in different
regions of the United States.
Remembering a time when he ran into Dukeminier in New York City,
Karst said it was always a delight to see Dukeminier.
“That was one of those occasions when to see Jesse would
be to light up … he was one of those people that just brightened
the world around him … even when he was gravely ill,” Karst
said.
Dukeminier is survived by Sanders and his two sisters, Mary
Lockett and Ann Howell.