On 18 Apr 2008, kristinvandoran@yahoo.com wrote:
I read this in a law book about distinguishing cases:
"If the pending case contains a fact that is essential
in its determination, that is not in the first case,
but which, if present, would have modified or
changed the judgement of the first case, then the
first case can be distinguished and is not precedent".
This is a more or less fair way to summarize one of the mental
processes that lawyers and judges and law students use as part of
their "legal reasoning" re. some of the factors to be considered in
deciding whether a trial or appellate court ruling in some case
can/ought be relied on as precedent applicable to a pending case.
Ok, so the way I read that is like this:
(1) the pending case must have an essential fact
that is not in the first case.
(2) that fact would have to change or modify
the judgement of the first case and only if these
two requirements are met then the first case can
be distinguished?
Your reading is only partly correct because you do not appear to be
taking into account what may be other factors apart from or in
addition to those you summarize here that warrant distinguishing an
earlier decided case and a pending case.
It also is not sufficiently clear from what you say/ask here (even if
considered without regard to other questions you've been posting to
newsgroups about a particular La. federal court criminal prosecution)
that you adequately understand the fundamentally intellectual/abstract
and so basically hypothetical (that is, rhetorically "as if" approach)
your above quotation illustrates bearing in mind that it also can be
(and, depending on all the relevant/operative facts as, fairly stated,
each of the adverse parties claims those facts to be, it very commonly
is the case) that law-knowledgeable and otherwise reasonable persons
might agree/disagree (among other potential matters that may be
law-appropriately pertinent to the disposition of a pending case)
- about the weight to be accorded the ruling in the previously
decided case depending, e.g., on whether (regardless how
intellectually persuasive its reasoning otherwise is may be) it is
that of a lower trial court judge or an intermediate and more or less
generally respected (or disrespected) appellate court or by a high
level appellate court but one that is not "authoritative" because it
is in another jurisdiction than the pending case, etc., and
- about what is/isn't a "fact" (as compared, e.g., with a
"mixed issue of law and of fact" the "law" portion of which may differ
from one jurisdiction to another) which (even if a "fact") is/isn't
"essential" to the disposition of either case.
Recall, after all that . . . well, the "after all" Thing is important,
since it is not always non-controversial what "would have" resulted in
a ruling different than that rendered in an already decided case
especially if the deciding court (as was so for the appellate rulings
to which you've referred in other recent postings) was that of a panel
of judges who had reached a consensus (including about what the
"facts" of the case were) which might be more result oriented in/for
the decided case than might otherwise appear (and, indeed, what is and
actually "essential" fact might not be apparent only from a decision
itself as distinguished from a careful reading of the full record).
(A recent dramatic example of the latter sort of consideration is
illustrated by how the partly divide panel of the U.S. court of
appeals for the Third Circuit purported to deal with what they claimed
were "facts" that were/weren't essential, including some real-world
facts that were essential but which they pretended were not.)
But, Yes - what you first summarize above is largely correct (as far
as it goes).
