was quickly designated by the governor for service on the Court of Appeals. He was in 1917 appointed a judge of that court, and in 1926 was elected chief judge by the voters. In Palsgraf, Cardozo wrote for a 4–3 majority of the Court of Appeals, reversing the appellate judgment and directing that the case be decided for the defendant, the LIRR. Cardozo was joined by Judges Cuthbert W. Pound, Irving Lehman and Henry Kellogg. Despite being the longest statement of the facts in any of the four appellate opinions generated by the case, Cardozo's was described by Posner as "elliptical and slanted". It has also been deemed "highly abstract". According to Professor Walter O. Weyrauch in his 1978 journal article, "Cardozo's famous opinion reduced the complicated facts of the case to a bare minimum. Mrs. Palsgraf was transformed into a 'plaintiff' without age, family status, or occupation. The opinion omitted the nature of her injury, the amount of damages that she sought, and the size of the jury award." For example, Cardozo describes Palsgraf (whom he does not name, nor mention her daughters) as standing on the LIRR's platform, rather than waiting for a train, thus downplaying her status as a customer entitled to a high degree of care by the railroad. The explosive package is described as small, though the witnesses had described it as large. The scales are described as being "at the other end of the platform, many feet away" from the explosion, but the record does not support this statement. This characterization may have been based on testimony by Lillian Palsgraf, who had gone to buy a paper from a newsstand "at the other end of the platform", but who was yet close enough to see the package fall. Cardozo's characterization of distance would be challenged by the plaintiff in her motion for reargument, which would be denied with the rejoinder that however close she was to the explosion, she was not so close as to bring her within the zone of foreseeable risk. After the fact pattern, Cardozo began his discussion of the law with "the conduct of the defendant's guard, if a wrong in its relation to the holder of the package, was not a wrong in its relation to the plaintiff, standing far away. Relative to her it was not negligence at all." Cardozo quoted Pollock on Torts and cited several cases