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Richard Lowell Nygaard

United States federal judge

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 22, 2026
Entity authorityQ7327476 ↗
Source-derived summary

Richard Lowell Nygaard (born July 9, 1940) is a Senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

Education and career

Richard Lowell Nygaard was born in Thief River Falls, Minnesota, on July 9, 1940. He received a Bachelor of Science degree cum laude from the University of Southern California in 1969 and a Juris Doctor from the University of Michigan Law School in 1971. He was a Petty Officer Second Class in the United States Naval Reserve from 1958 to 1964. He was in private practice in North East, Pennsylvania from 1972 to 1980. He was a judge on the Court of Common Pleas, Sixth District of Pennsylvania, Erie, Pennsylvania from 1981 to 1988.

Federal judicial service

Nygaard was nominated by President Ronald Reagan on May 25, 1988, to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit vacated when Judge Joseph F. Weis Jr. assumed senior status. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on October 14, 1988, and received his commission on October 17, 1988. He assumed senior status on July 9, 2005.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Richard Lowell Nygaard” as united States federal judge. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1940, 1969, 1971, 1958—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1940-07-09. The account is most persuasive where Richard, Lowell and Nygaard can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as united States federal judge. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7327476. VIAF identifies the subject as 164561955. The Library of Congress control number is no2011007316. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1940, 1969, 1971 and 1958.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Richard Lowell Nygaard” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.