John Warner Fitzgerald

Fitzgerald was born in Grand Ledge, Michigan, on November 14, 1924.[1][2][3] He was born to a political family; he was the grandson of John Wesley Fitzgerald, a Michigan state representative from Eaton County (1895–96) and the son of Frank Dwight Fitzgerald, governor of Michigan from 1935–1936 and 1939, and Queena Warner Fitzgerald.[1][2]

Fitzgerald graduated from Grand Ledge High School in 1942.[2] Fitzgerald served in the U.S. Army infantry during World War II.[1][2] He received his undergraduate degree from Michigan State University in 1947 and his law degree from the University of Michigan Law School in 1954.[1][2][3] He also studied at Princeton University and the University of Arizona.[2]

Fitzgerald was the legal counsel for the Michigan State Senate from 1955 until 1958.[2] In 1958, Fitzgerald was elected to the Michigan State Senate, where he served until 1962.[1][2][3]

Fitzgerald practiced in the law firm of Fitzgerald & Wirbel until he was elected to the Michigan Court of Appeals in 1964.[1][2][3] Governor William Milliken appointed Fitzgerald to a one-year term on the Michigan Supreme Court in 1973.[1][2] Fitzgerald took his seat on January 1, 1974.[2] Fitzgerald was subsequently elected to a full eight-year term, and in his final year on the bench, in 1982, he was elected chief justice.[1]

Fitzgerald was a member of the original board of directors of Thomas M. Cooley Law School, and also taught as an adjunct, teaching the first property-law class there in 1983.[1][2] He later resigned from the board to become a full-time professor of law there.[1][2]

Fitzgerald died on July 7, 2006, at Mackinac Straits Hospital in St. Ignace, after a long illness, at age 81.[1] The Fitzgerald family has had a cottage on the Mackinac Island's East Bluff since 1961.[1]

Fitzgerald was a member of the First Congregational, United Church of Christ of Grand Ledge and the Little Stone Church, Union Congregational on Mackinac Island.[1] He was also a member of the Mackinac Island Yacht Club and a charter member of Mackinac Associates.[1]

Fitzgerald's papers are archived at the Bentley Historical Library of the University of Michigan.[3]

• Transcript of the Presentation of the Portrait of the Honorable John W. Fitzgerald at the Michigan Supreme Court, November 10, 1994