Dick Latta Lansden (May 16, 1869 – August 10, 1924) was a justice of the Tennessee Supreme Court from 1910 to 1923.
[1] In 1920, Lansden issued a judicial order that set aside an injunction anti-suffragists had secured from a trial judge to prohibit Tennessee's Governor from certifying the state's ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which gave women the right to vote.
Justice Lansden's order broke a parliamentary logjam created by a lack of a legislative quorum (on a motion for reconsideration of the previous vote approving the amendment) and removed the final legal obstacle to Tennessee becoming the 36th and final state to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment.
The first person appointed to the position was Professor Jim Rossi in March 2019.
Dick L. Lansden Jr. was a partner of the firm that became Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis, LLP, now one of the oldest firms in Tennessee.