Justice William F. Rylaarsdam, 1937-2020

It is hard to explain how important Justice William F. Rylaarsdam was to me. If you will forgive me for talking about myself a little, I will try to explain.

It was 1989. I had just been appointed to the superior court by Gov. George Deukmejian and was given a civil trial assignment. Everyone was very nice. When I saw other judges in the parking garage or elevator, they told me they were available if I needed any help with anything. But I felt so alone, so unconnected. There were only three other women on the court: Judges Jean Rheinheimer, Linda McLaughlin and Kathleen O'Leary.

Then one evening while I was working in my chambers, another judge, one of the "great oaks," telephoned me and told me he needed my help. I don't think I can relate how good that made me feel. I went directly to his chambers and he told me he was stumbling through some tricky jury instructions. I sat down, ready to provide whatever guidance and suggestions I could. The judge, aware that I was also a Registered Nurse, said, "Thanks for coming by. I had a growth removed last week. I'm supposed to go to the doctor, but if you'll take out my stitches, I can continue working."

A few months later, I was assigned to the Law & Motion department where Judge Rylaarsdam was the supervising judge. He was welcoming and delightful. My second or third day there, he popped into my chambers and sat on my sofa. He told me he had a rather troublesome summary judgment motion on the next day's calendar and wanted my perspective. We talked about the issues, going back and forth with our ideas. That was the beginning of a decades-long friendship with one of the most wonderful people I have ever met, and the best colleague anyone could have.

As the years went by, we tried to have our courtrooms next to each other. When I went on vacation, he covered mine, and I did the same for him. In the mid-1990s, we helped each other fill out our applications for the Court of Appeal. As we sealed our envelopes, he said, "May the best man win." He did. I had to wait several more years.

Justice Rylaarsdam's Roots

Bill Rylaarsdam started out in a little village in Holland as Willem Rijlaarsdam, named after his father's father as was the custom. None of his grandparents on either side went beyond the third grade, although his parents made it through the sixth grade. He said he remembered the smith's shop with its wooden stall for farm horses to be fitted with horseshoes and the smell when the red-hot shoe was pressed against a horse's hoof.

He first heard about America from his grandfather. Three young men, his grandfather, an uncle and their cousin, emigrated here in the late 1890s. They all returned to Holland to find wives, but the woman Bill's grandfather wanted to marry, said "yes," but only if they remained in Holland. They did. His grandfather talked about his experiences on an American farm and the English language. One day, he walked to a neighbor's farm and asked to borrow a farm implement. The neighbor responded, "help yourself," which in English, of course, means "yes, go ahead and take it." However, in Dutch, the same phrase means "no, you have to take care of your own needs." So, his grandfather walked back without the tool. When he told his boss what happened, the boss explained the significance of "help yourself," and he had to return to the neighbor to help himself.

Descendants of his two family members who remained in America spread across this country. One branch ended up as farmers in Ripon, California. When Justice Rylaarsdam's family came to the United States in 1953, they were sponsored by members of that family.

After Justice Rylaarsdam's grandfather settled back in Holland, he bought a horse and wagon, outfitted them to carry goods and passengers and started daily trips from their village of Hoofddorp, which had little to offer by way of stores, to Haarlem, a city seven miles away. The villagers would give him orders to make purchases for them in the city and he delivered the goods when he returned. For those who wanted to do their own shopping, he offered transportation. That was the beginning of the Rijlaarsdam trucking business which Justice Rylaasdam's father took over, expanding the route from Haarlem to Rotterdam and developing it into a package delivery service. Except for a period of time during World War II, when the Germans confiscated the trucks, the business went on and still exists today, run by a cousin.

When Justice Rylaarsdam was three years old, World War II began in Holland in May 1940, lasting only five days. After the Germans destroyed the city of Rotterdam by mass bombing, the Dutch surrendered. His father had been called to serve in the Dutch army in 1939, and after the surrender was a prisoner of war for a short time.

Justice Rylaarsdam's primary memories of World War II start around 1944. The Germans required all men between ages 16 and 40 to work as slave laborers in German factories. His father built a double ceiling over the back part of the house. When German soldiers searched the village homes looking for men, his father and others hid in the false ceiling. Justice Rylaarsdam has memories of sitting in the back room while soldiers with guns went through his house looking for his father, all the while knowing where he was hidden.

Justice Rylaarsdam remembered his father's constant black market food activities, so his family always had food. His mother kept a loaf of bread by the front door and beggars who came by would get a slice until the loaf was gone each day. Many parks were bare of trees because it was so cold in the winter and people needed wood for fuel. The Germans took over his school to use as a barracks, so the children were given an extended vacation. The husband of a Rijlaarsdam cousin, a teacher, gave out homework assignments.

During the 1944-1945 winter, there was a famine. Dutch railway workers went on strike to impede the movement of supplies to German troops. In retaliation, the Germans removed all foodstuffs from the country. American planes dropped food packages to the starving people. That was the first time he tasted a graham cracker. Children used the empty food cans as musical instruments, to make rafts and build huts. Many years later, Justice Rylaarsdam met a retired judge in Norwalk who was one of those pilots.

The allies liberated the southern part of The Netherlands by the fall of 1944, and Justice Rylaarsdam's village was liberated on May 5, 1945. People built bonfires in the streets. Everyone was dancing. Canadian soldiers on motorcycles arrived first. There were impromptu parades. Despite the fact the Germans required everyone to turn in or destroy their Dutch flags, every home had a red, white and blue Dutch flag displayed. Girls who had slept with Germans were dragged through the streets with their heads shaved.

Coming to America

After the war, the Rijlaarsdam trucking business was close to ruin. The American Rylaarsdams encouraged the family, the parents and four children, of which Justice Rylaarsdam was the oldest, to move to the United States. The decision to move to California was made in 1951, but a long wait followed. Word from the United States consulate in Amsterdam finally came. The family left for America on a ship named "Nieuw Amsterdam" in June 1953 when Justice Rylaarsdam was 16. He was the only one in the family who spoke English. One of the entertainers on the ship was Jimmy Durante.

When they arrived in New York, the whole family was on deck to see the Statue of Liberty. They rode the subway, went to the top of the Empire State Building and saw a show at Radio City Music Hall before boarding a train to California via Chicago. As Holland is very flat, the family was most amazed with the Rocky Mountains.

Rylaarsdam family members met them at the train station in Stockton. The next day, Justice Rylaarsdam helped his uncle haymaking in the field. Before long, they moved into a house in Modesto. At first, Justice Rylaarsdam, his father and brother picked peaches at local farms in the San Joaquin Valley. In September, his parents tried to register him for high school. When the school officials realized the subjects he had already studied, they sent him to junior college instead. While attending school, he operated the switchboard at the Modesto Bee. He received a scholarship to U.C. Berkeley. While there, he worked in the warehouse of a veterinary supply company and lived in a cooperative boarding house, $50 a month for room and board.

During his 1956 Christmas vacation, Justice Rylaarsdam's minister played matchmaker, and he met Jan, whose father was born in Holland and whose mother was of Dutch descent. Their first date was spent watching a new invention called color television displayed in a store window. They married on Sept. 7, 1957, and eventually had four children.

Justice Rylaarsdam Entered the Law

Justice Rylaarsdam's veterinary supply employer transferred him to Southern California. Later, bored with the business, Justice Rylaarsdam decided to go to law school. He selected Loyola Law School, mainly because it charged $12.15 a unit for tuition, as compared to USC's $15 a unit. He graduated first in his class in 1964. Later he received a Master of Laws from the University of Virginia School of Law.

Apparently it was serious business paying that tuition. A 1966 case in the United States Tax Court states: "The sole issue for decision is whether petitioner William F. Rylaarsdam is entitled to deduct as an ordinary and necessary business expense under section 162(a) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, expenses in the amount of $1,153.77 which he incurred during the year 1962 in attending law school." The tax court held that the expenses were not deductible as expenses incurred in carrying out any trade or business. The tax man always wins, even when challenged by a brilliant up and coming lawyer.

Justice Rylaarsdam's first legal job, as a law clerk at the firm of Welch and Cummings, was arranged by his law school professor, Otto Kaus, who later became a California Supreme Court justice. The first case he ever tried, and lost for $1,250, was before the Hon. John Arguelles, who also ended up on the California Supreme Court.

Justice Rylaarsdam practiced law for over 21 years, trying hundreds of cases, and was also involved in Pasadena politics. I first met him in the late 1970s when he was defending an insurance company and I was assisting my boss, who was representing the plaintiff, in a bad faith case.

In 1985, Gov. George Deukmejian appointed Justice Rylaarsdam to the superior court, first in Los Angeles and nine months later Orange County. He loved his nine months at the Norwalk courthouse. When he came to Orange County, I appeared before him several times, always very satisfied with the results. I remember one time after I stood before the bench and made my appearance, he said, "Ms. Moore, you look lovely today." Apparently remembering that Women's Lib had arrived, he cleared his throat and mumbled, "Mr. Smith, that is a very nice tie you're wearing."

Governor Pete Wilson appointed Justice Rylaarsdam to the Court of Appeal in 1995. One of my favorite opinions authored by Justice Rylaarsdam is Plotnik v. Meihaus. The case involved two feuding neighbors. One of the neighbors had a 12- to 15-pound dog named Romeo. Romeo ran into the other neighbor's backyard, whereupon the neighbor beat Romeo with a baseball bat. Justice Rylaarsdam upheld the award of emotional distress damages to Romeo's owner.

Retirement on the Horizon

In 2014, I interviewed Justice Rylaarsdam for the Appellate Court Legacy Project. A few of his comments deserve to be quoted. About his judicial philosophy, he said: "If I have anything that you would call a judicial philosophy it's probably that I try to apply the law by reading the statute and reading the cases and not to put too much of my own gloss on it. I think that's a constant struggle we have as judges, to separate what we perceive to be the law and the way we would like the law to be. So I guess you might call me a strict constructionist."

What he likes about being a judge? "Well, I think it's the best job I've ever had. It's interesting because everything I've done in the law I have really loved. It's been a great career. And at various stages of my life, I think being a trial lawyer for 21 years -- I loved doing that. I felt very good about myself doing that. Then I got appointed to the trial court and I loved doing that. Then I came to the Court of Appeal. I've been here almost 20 years now. And again, at that stage of my life, I think right now, I would be retired if I was still in the trial courts because I'm not so sure I could deal with people coming at me all day long. But the Court of Appeal is just a great job for this stage of my life and I hope to be doing it a while longer."

In the interview, I asked whether being an immigrant affected the way he judged, and he responded: "You know, I'm so identified with America and the culture of the United States where I have now spent 61 of my 77 years that I feel as American as you do. I don't really feel any difference in terms of having been born in a different country."

Justice Rylaarsdam retired in 2016 because Jan was ill. He has been missed. Everyone at the Court of Appeal loved his constant good cheer and exuberance. He played Santa Clause each year at our court holiday party, handing out the pirate exchange gifts. Jan died in 2017.

Justice Rylaarsdam met a woman named Barbara and they fell in love and had each other for almost three years together. They were married on July 16 in Big Sur. Justice Rylaarsdam passed away a few weeks later, on August 3. He will be sorely missed. The Court of Appeal's flags are at half staff in honor and memory of Justice Rylaarsdam. 