Richard Posner, influential judge and scholar, dies at 87

Richard Posner, the influential legal scholar and former federal appeals court judge known for applying economic theory to legal questions, has died at 87, the University of Chicago Law School said. The school said he died Tuesday; the announcement was reported without separate direct confirmation in the other accounts reviewed.

Posner was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in 1981 by President Ronald Reagan. He served nearly 36 years, retiring in 2017. During that time, he wrote thousands of opinions and became widely cited for a style described as pragmatic, analytical and often pointed.

His 1973 book, The Economic Analysis of Law, helped establish law and economics as a major approach to legal scholarship. Posner used economic reasoning to examine legal rules and institutions, and wrote on subjects ranging from contracts and antitrust to regulation and judicial decision-making. He also authored dozens of books and hundreds of academic articles.

His judicial opinions did not fit neatly into a single ideological category. In 2017, Posner joined the Seventh Circuit majority in Hively v. Ivy Tech Community College, which held that Title VII’s...