Judge Frank A. Picard
1889 - 1963
Frank A. Picard left his mark in Saginaw history with bold and colorful strokes. He was one of the 20th century’s most able and zesty figures in the federal judiciary. Sometimes he sparked controversy.
After appointment in 1939 by President Roosevelt, he served as U. S. judge for the Federal Court’s Eastern Michigan District until his retirement in 1961 because of failing health. Judge Picard was a jurist in the proudest tradition of American law. Some of his decisions and opinions helped shape the era in which he lived.
Perhaps the most historic was his 1947 definition of the legal term, de minimis. It shut the door on the portal-to¬portal pay issue and outlawed billions of dollars in industrial lawsuits filed by labor unions. It had flared across the country like wildfire and had threatened the entire economy. In 1954, he won international recognition for his conduct of the trial of six top Michigan communists convicted of conspiracy to teach and advocate overthrow of the government by force.
He was the first chairman of both the Michigan Liquor Control Commission and Michigan Unemployment Compensation Commission. He helped write the state liquor law and the Michigan Unemployment Compensation Act.
Before his appointment as a federal judge, he was for many years in the vanguard of Democratic Party state and national leaders.
Frank A. Picard had been a public figure virtually since 1907 when he captained and quarterbacked a state championship Saginaw High School football team. He played varsity football in 1910-11 at the University of Michigan, where he received his law degree in 1912. He was admitted to the bar for the practice of law the same year.
In 1913, he held his first public office as Saginaw County assistant prosecutor. In 1917, he interrupted his legal career to enlist in the army. He became an infantry captain. Most of his World War I service was overseas. After World War I, he returned to Saginaw to resume law practice. From 1924-28, he grounded himself thoroughly in municipal law as Saginaw city attorney.
One of Michigan’s leading attorneys at the time, Picard surprised friends and colleagues when he accepted the federal judgeship appointment in 1939, which then paid a slender $10,000 a year, though offering a lifetime of security. He had enjoyed a thriving legal practice including handsome retainers from several big Michigan corporations and industries. But intimates were not overly surprised. They knew that “Pic,” as they called him, was proud of his position in the federal judiciary he considered one of the nation’s bastions.
His longest exposure to the national spotlight was in the portal-to-portal overtime pay issue. This was whether workers should be paid for the time it took them, from the instant they reached their employer’s premises, to get to their working places, ready for work. Judge Picard’s decision against the workers was appealed to the U. S. Supreme Court, which upheld him. His decision was that portal-to-portal pay for walking from the plant gates to the job and then making ready for it was de minimis, or too trifling and insignificant to merit pay. His definition of de minimis was hailed by legal and economic experts as a masterpiece of applied common sense. It was the basis for the federal law Congress enacted in 1947, affirmatively declaring the principle.
As a practicing attorney, he always had a flair for the dramatic. It was a trait which followed him to the federal bench. He also took with him his courage, wit and sense of humor.
He narrowly missed death in 1956 when a crazed steamfitter managed to elude guards and fire a shotgun blast at Judge Picard as he presided in his Bay City courtroom. Pellets from the 16-gauge weapon imbedded themselves in the wall and left an 18-inch pattern near the judge’s head. After quiet and order had been restored to the courtroom, Judge Picard first looked somberly from the bench, then grinned and quipped to the lawyer trying a case when the shooting occurred: “Your speech certainly went over with a bang!” Later he dismissed the incident: “If I went into hibernation every time I got a threat or warning, I would never get out into the open.”
He gave liberally of his time for public betterment ventures. He served several years as Michigan chairman of the March of Dimes campaign. For many years, he was chairman of the Michigan Chapter of the American Christian Palestine Committee, for which his name was inscribed twice in the Golden Book of Jerusalem. He had been president of the Saginaw County Bar Association and president and governor of Michigan Kiwanis clubs.
He was a short man of sturdy build, later inclined to stockiness. The thick black hair of his youth never thinned, but first greyed and then whitened quite early in his life. He liked golf and almost always shot a respectable round. But his liking for the game was heightened by the comradeship and good-natured banter it could inspire. Many of his golfing buddies were Republicans, devout to the party scripture and of the mind that Democrats in high public office were suspect and of small ability. These he twitted gleefully on the golf course in trying to upset their game to collect on their bets.
For more than 25 years, he was a speaker in demand for his rendition of “The Trial of Jesus” from a legal aspect.
Frank A. Picard was born in Saginaw, October 19, 1889, the son of Alfred and Zepherine LaChappelle Picard, natives of Quebec. His death was in Saginaw, February 28, 1963. He and his wife, the former Ruth Caroline Doersam of Saginaw, had four children.