Binding Legal Precedent

A precedent is a principle or rule established in a previous legal case that is either binding or persuasive, without a court or tribunal being brought before a court when deciding on subsequent cases involving similar issues or facts. [1] [2] [3] Common law systems attach great importance to adjudicating cases according to uniform principles, so that similar facts lead to similar and predictable results, and compliance with precedents is the mechanism by which this objective is achieved. The principle by which judges are bound by precedents is known as stare decisis (a Latin expression with the literal meaning of “to stand in things that have been decided”). Common law jurisprudence is a third type of law, on an equal footing with legal law (i.e., laws and codes adopted by legislative bodies) and subordinate laws (i.e. regulations adopted by executive agencies in the form of delegated legislation) – in British language – or regulatory law (in American language). The second principle, which refers to convincing precedents, reflects the general guidelines on precedents on which a court can rely in all its decisions. [5] In the federal legal systems of several common law countries, particularly in the United States, it is relatively common for the various lower-level judicial systems (e.g., state courts in the United States and Australia, provincial courts in Canada) to view decisions of other jurisdictions in the same country as a persuasive precedent. In the United States in particular, the adoption of a legal doctrine by a large number of other state judicial bodies is seen as very convincing evidence that such a doctrine is preferable. A good example is the comparative negligence hypothesis in Tennessee (which replaces contributory negligence as a complete obstacle to recovery) with McIntyre v. Balentine (at the time, all U.S. jurisdictions except Tennessee, five other states, and the District of Columbia had implemented systems of comparative negligence). In addition, the Erie Doctrine in U.S. law requires that federal courts sitting in diversity lawsuits apply the substantive law of the state, but in a manner consistent with how the court believes the state`s highest court would rule in this case.

Since such decisions are not binding on state courts, but are often very well reasoned and useful, state courts quite often cite federal interpretations of state law as a persuasive precedent, although it is also quite common for a state supreme court to reject a federal court`s interpretation of its jurisdiction. Such a precedent exists in common law jurisdictions that recognize the law made by the courts. In general, binding precedents follow the doctrine of stare decisis, which means: “To stick to the decision”. Most U.S. states follow a common law system. There are disadvantages and advantages to binding precedents, as scientists and lawyers have noted. As Colin Starger pointed out, the contemporary rule of stare decisis, descended from Brandeis` revolutionary dissent in Burnet, then split into strong and weak notions, following the disagreement between Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall in Payne v. Tennessee (1991). [39] The strong conception requires a “special justification” to prevail over the contested precedent, which goes beyond the fact that the precedent was “poorly decided,” while the weak conception states that a precedent can be overturned if it suffers from “bad reasoning.” [39] A lower court cannot rule against a binding precedent, even if it considers that the precedent is unjust; The lower court can only express the hope that a higher court or the legislator will reform the regulation in question. If the court finds that the evolution or trends in legal reasoning do not render the precedent useful and wants to circumvent it and further develop the law, it may either declare that the precedent is inconsistent with subsequent authority, or that the precedent “should be distinguished by a substantial difference between the facts of the cases. If this decision is appealed, the Court of Appeal will have the opportunity to consider both the precedent and the impugned case, and perhaps to override previous jurisprudence by creating a new precedent of higher authority. This can happen several times as the case progresses through successive calls.

Lord Denning, first of the High Court of Justice and then of the Court of Appeal, provided a famous example of this evolving process in his development of the concept of confiscation, beginning with High Trees: Central London Property Trust Ltd v. High Trees House Ltd [1947] K.B. 130. Stare decisis is generally not a doctrine used in civil law systems, because it violates the normative positivist principle that only the legislator can legislate. Instead, the civil law system relies on the doctrine of settled case-law, according to which, where a court has decided a coherent series of cases that result in the same participations with sound argumentation, previous decisions are very convincing, but do not control in legal matters. This doctrine is similar to stare decisis in that it states that a court`s decision must tolerate a consistent and predictable outcome. Theoretically, lower courts are generally not bound by the precedents of higher courts. In practice, the need for predictability means that lower courts generally bow to the precedent of higher courts. Consequently, the precedent is recognized by the courts of last instance, such as the French Court of Cassation and the Council of State, as de facto binding on the lower courts.

In the case of a jurisdiction provision, a court is “required” to follow a precedent of jurisdiction only if it applies directly. In the strongest sense, “getting straight to the point” means that: (1) the question resolved in the previous one is the same as the question to be resolved in the pending case, (2) the resolution of that question was necessary for the decision of the previous one; (3) The essential facts of the precedent are also presented in the pending case and (4) in the pending case, no additional facts appear to be considered relevant. [15] A binding precedent is an existing precedent or law that the courts must comply with. For example, a lower court is required to follow an applicable position of a higher court in the same jurisdiction. These precedents are also called authoritative or binding precedents. The lower courts are bound by the precedent set by the higher courts in their region. Thus, a district federal court that runs within the geographic boundaries of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals (the Intermediate Court of Appeals hears appeals against decisions of the district courts of Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and the Virgin Islands) is bound by decisions of the Third Circuit Court, but not by the decisions of the Ninth Circuit Court (Alaska, Arizona, California, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Northern Mariana Islands, Oregon and Washington), since the appellate courts have jurisdiction by geography. Courts of appeal can interpret the law as they wish, as long as there is no binding precedent before the Supreme Court. One of the most common reasons why the Supreme Court grants certiorari (i.e., it agrees to hear a case) is when there is a conflict between district courts over the meaning of a federal law.

Stare decisis is the court`s policy of sticking to precedents; The term is just an abbreviation of stare decisis and non quieta movere – “to stand and stick to decisions and not to disturb what is regulated”. Consider the word “decisis.” The word means, literally and legally, the decision. According to the doctrine of stare decisis, a case is important only for what it decides – for the “what”, not for the “why” and not for the “how”. For the previous ones, the stare decisis is important only for the decision, for the detailed legal consequence after a detailed fact. [26] A precedent is “persuasive” if it has been set by a superior court that is not higher in the hierarchy of courts. This means that the precedent needs to be seriously examined, but there is no need to follow it. For example, a precedent set by the Supreme Court of New South Wales is persuasive but not binding on the Supreme Court of Victoria, as these courts are not in the same hierarchy and authority. The decisions of high-level foreign courts, particularly the higher courts of the United Kingdom, set convincing precedents in Australia. In exceptional circumstances, a higher court may overturn or overturn compelling precedents, but will often attempt to distinguish the precedent before it is overturned, limiting the scope of the precedent. Normal assistance from a judge includes access to all previous cases where a precedent has been set and a good English dictionary.

Several rules may lead to a decision being considered a narrow “precedent” to exclude the future legal positions of the specific parties to a case, even if a decision is not unprecedented compared to all other parties. Once a case is finally decided, all issues decided in the previous case may bind the party who lost the problem in subsequent cases, even in cases involving other parties. If, for example, in a first case it is decided that a party acted negligently, the other claimants may rely on that earlier decision in subsequent cases and do not have to dismiss the issue of negligence. Another example: if a patent turns out to be invalid in proceedings against an accused infringer, the same patent is invalid against all other accused infringers – the invalidity does not need to be refuted. Here, too, there are limits and exceptions to this principle. The principle is called collateral estoppel or emission exclusion. However, the practice statement has rarely been used by the House of Lords, usually only as a last resort.