For precedents to be valid, they must: be based on reason and justice, based on argument, and be the solemn decision of the court, and there must be a current decision that gives them binding effect. Chief Justice John Roberts` statement in June Medical Services, LLC v. Russo provides a clear statement about the strong design of stare decisis. In that case, the court upheld its 2016 decision in Whole Woman`s Health v. Hellerstedt, which struck down a similar Texas law that gives doctors performing abortions the right to admit patients to a nearby hospital. Roberts wrote, “The legal doctrine of stare decisis obliges us, in the absence of special circumstances, to treat similar cases on an equal footing.” Roberts provided the fifth vote to uphold the 2016 decision, even though he thought it was wrong. [40] Precedents that stand in the way of the passage of time can be used to establish trends and thus indicate the next logical step in the development of legal interpretation. If, for example, immigration has become increasingly restricted by law, the next court ruling on the issue may serve to restrict it even further. The existence of lost precedents (reasoned opinions not provided by conventional legal research sources) has been identified as a force that can distort the development of the law.
[27] A judge`s usual tools include access to all previous precedent-setting cases and a good English dictionary. Precedent is a legal principle created by a judicial decision that is an example or authority for judges who later decide similar matters. In general, decisions of higher courts (within a particular court system) are binding precedents for lower courts in that system. This means that the principle promulgated by a higher court must be followed in subsequent cases. The lower courts are bound by the precedent set by the higher courts in their region. For example, a federal district court that falls within the geographic boundaries of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (the mid-level court of appeals against decisions of the District Courts of Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and the Virgin Islands) is bound by the judgments of the Court of the Third Circuit. but not by decisions of the Ninth District (Alaska, Arizona, California, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Northern Mariana Islands, Oregon, and Washington), because circuit courts of appeals are geographically regulated. Circuit courts of appeal can interpret the law as they wish, as long as there is no binding precedent from the Supreme Court. One of the most common reasons the Supreme Court grants certiorari (i.e., it agrees to hear a case) is when there is a dispute between district courts over the meaning of a federal law. By the end of the eighteenth century, the common law courts had taken over most of the activities of their non-royal competitors, although there was still internal competition between the various common law courts themselves.
During the nineteenth century, legal reform movements in England and the United States put an end to this situation by merging the various common law courts into a unified judicial system with a formal hierarchical structure. This, coupled with the advent of reliable private stenographers, made it practical to adhere to the doctrine of stare decisis and rapidly developed the practice of binding judges to the decisions of courts of superior or equal status in their jurisdiction. [29] In law, an enforceable precedent (also called binding precedent or binding force) is a precedent that all lower courts in common law legal systems must follow. In English law, it is usually created by the decision of a higher court, such as the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, which assumed the judicial functions of the House of Lords in 2009. In civil law and pluralistic systems, precedents are not binding, but case law is taken into account by the courts. Once a case has been decided, the same plaintiff cannot sue the same defendant again for a claim arising from the same facts. The law requires plaintiffs to ask all questions on the table in a single case and not divide the case. For example, in a car accident, the plaintiff cannot sue first for property damage and then for assault in a separate case. This is called res judicata or claim preclusion (“res judicata” is the traditional name that dates back centuries; the name was changed to “claim preclusion” in the United States at the end of the 20th century). The exclusion of claims applies regardless of whether the plaintiff wins or loses the previous case, even if the last case raises a different legal theory, even the second claim is unknown at the time of the first case.
The exceptions are extremely limited, for example, if the two actions for damages must necessarily be brought in different courts (for example, one action may be brought exclusively at the federal level and the other exclusively at the state level). Stare decisis reduces the number and scope of legal issues that the court must resolve in a dispute. It is therefore a time saver for judges and litigants. Once a court clarifies a particular point of law, it has set a precedent. Thanks to stare decisis, claims can be rejected quickly and efficiently, as disputes can be resolved using rules and principles that have been established previously. Stare decisis can therefore encourage parties to settle cases amicably, thereby increasing the efficiency of the judicial system. [30] “In law, a decision, rule or previous practice which, in the absence of a particular law, has the force and authority that a judge can give it, thus greatly simplifying his task of doing what he wants. Since there are precedents for everything, he only has to ignore those who speak against his interest and emphasize those who are in line with his desire.
The invention of a precedent elevates the trial from the low level of accidental torture to the noble posture of an orientable arbitration. – Ambrose Bierce On many issues, reasonable people can disagree. If two of these people are judges, the tension between two precedents can be resolved as follows. Originalism is an approach to interpreting a legal text in which a dominant weight is given to the intention of the original authors (at least the intention derived by a modern judge). In contrast, a non-originalist examines other indications of meaning, including the current meaning of words, the pattern and trend of other judicial decisions, the changing context and improvement of scientific understanding, observation of practical results and “what works,” contemporary judicial norms, and stare decisis. Both are designed to interpret the text, not to change it – interpretation is the process of dissolving ambiguity and choosing among possible meanings, not changing the text. In general, a common law court system consists of trial courts, interlocutory courts of appeal and a Supreme Court. The lower courts conduct almost all court proceedings. Courts below are required to follow precedents set by the Court of Appeal for their jurisdiction and all precedents of the Supreme Court. A case decided by a panel of several judges could lead to a split decision.
Although only the majority opinion is considered a precedent, a judge who is in a minority may always publish a dissenting opinion. Common patterns of dissent include: The U.S. Supreme Court has final authority over matters of meaning of federal law, including the U.S. Constitution. For example, if the Supreme Court says that the First Amendment applies in a certain way to defamation claims, then each court is bound by that precedent in its interpretation of the First Amendment, as it applies to defamation suits. If a lower court judge disagrees with a precedent in a higher court, which the First Amendment should mean, the lower court judge must rule on the binding precedent. Until the higher court modifies the judgment (or the law itself is changed), binding precedent determines the importance of the law. However, the practice statement was rarely used by the House of Lords, usually only as a last resort. Until 2005, the House of Lords rejected its previous decisions only 20 times.
[42] They were reluctant to use it for fear of introducing uncertainty into the law. In particular, the practice statement indicated that the Lords would be particularly reluctant to reject each other in criminal cases, as this law was important. The first criminal case to be overturned by the practice notice was Anderton v. Ryan (1985), which was lifted two decades after R. v. Shivpuri`s (1986) statement of practice. Remarkably, the repealed precedent was only created a year earlier, but it was criticized by several academic jurists. As a result, Lord Bridge stated that he was “not discouraged by the consideration that Anderton`s decision against Ryan was so new.
The practice statement is an effective task of our claim to infallibility. If a serious error in a decision of this House has distorted the law, the sooner it is corrected, the better. [43] Nevertheless, in some cases, the House of Lords was reluctant to override it; In R. v. Kansal (2002), the majority of members of the House of Representatives agreed that R. v. Lambert had been wrongly decided and agreed to depart from his earlier decision.