Close case

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In the law, a close case is generally defined as a ruling that could conceivably be decided in more than one way. [1] Various scholars have attempted to articulate criteria for identifying close cases, [2] and commentators have observed that reliance upon precedent established in close cases leads to the gradual expansion of legal doctrines. [3]

In common law legal systems, precedent is a principle or rule established in a previous legal case that is either binding on or persuasive for a court or other tribunal when deciding subsequent cases with similar issues or facts. Common-law legal systems place great value on deciding cases according to consistent principled rules, so that similar facts will yield similar and predictable outcomes, and observance of precedent is the mechanism by which that goal is attained. The principle by which judges are bound to precedents is known as stare decisis. Common-law precedent is a third kind of law, on equal footing with statutory law and delegated legislation or regulatory law.

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Identifying close cases

Although some scholars have suggested that "a close case is in the eye of the beholder", [4] other scholars have attempted to articulate specific criteria for identifying close cases. [5] Maureen Armoor, for example, defines close cases as "the articulable outer limit of judicial discretion that most closely approximates the phenomenological experience of a sitting judge, in particular the dimension of discretion called into play when a judge is uncertain about an outcome". [6] Ward Farnsworth, dean of the University of Texas School of Law, has suggested that close cases could be defined as either "cases close enough to provoke dissent" or cases that "are flexible enough to comfortably admit of more than one reading". [7] Likewise, a 1980 comment in the Stanford Law Review defined close cases as appellate decisions that generated multiple dissenting opinions. [8]

Ward Farnsworth American legal scholar

Ward Farnsworth is the dean of the University of Texas School of Law and holds the John Jeffers Research Chair in Law. He is the Reporter for the American Law Institute’s Restatement of the Law Third, Torts: Liability for Economic Harm, and the author of books on law, rhetoric, philosophy, and chess.

The University of Texas School of Law is one of the professional graduate schools of the University of Texas at Austin. In 2018 the law school was ranked No. 15 by the U.S. News & World Report, and No. 12 by Above the Law Texas Law is consistently ranked among the top five public law schools in the United States. The school is also ranked No. 1 for the biggest return on investment among law schools in the United States. Every year, Texas Law places a large part of its class into the nation's largest law firms, where base salaries start at over $190,000.

The Stanford Law Review (SLR) is a legal journal produced independently by Stanford Law School students. The journal was established in 1948 with future U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher as its first president. The review produces six issues yearly between January and June and regularly publishes short-form content on the Stanford Law Review Online.

Consequences of close cases

Northwestern University law professor John E. Coons observed that "[u]nder a system of winner-take-all the one-sided result reached upon principle in the close case must continue to trouble the conscience of the law". [9] Judge Guido Calabresi, a former dean of Yale Law School, noted that close cases create a "slippery slope", where the "next close case comes up and the precedent [established in the last close case] is applied: same thing, same thumb on the scale, same decision". [10] Calabresi argued that this process ultimately leads to the ongoing expansion of doctrine that was originally established only on a narrow basis. [11] Additionally, Ward Farnsworth has argued that judges often resolve close cases "according to beliefs the judges bring to the case that don’t owe much to law". [12]

Guido Calabresi American judge

Guido Calabresi is an American legal scholar and Senior United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He is a former Dean of Yale Law School, where he has been a professor since 1959. Calabresi is considered, along with Ronald Coase and Richard Posner, a founder of the field of law and economics.

Yale Law School law school of Yale University

Yale Law School is the law school of Yale University, located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Established in 1824, Yale Law offers the J.D., LL.M., J.S.D., M.S.L., and Ph.D. degrees in law.

A slippery slope argument (SSA), in logic, critical thinking, political rhetoric, and caselaw, is a consequentialist logical device in which a party asserts that a relatively small first step leads to a chain of related events culminating in some significant effect. The core of the slippery slope argument is that a specific decision under debate is likely to result in unintended consequences. The strength of such an argument depends on the warrant, i.e. whether or not one can demonstrate a process that leads to the significant effect. This type of argument is sometimes used as a form of fear mongering, in which the probable consequences of a given action are exaggerated in an attempt to scare the audience. The fallacious sense of "slippery slope" is often used synonymously with continuum fallacy, in that it ignores the possibility of middle ground and assumes a discrete transition from category A to category B. In a non-fallacious sense, including use as a legal principle, a middle-ground possibility is acknowledged, and reasoning is provided for the likelihood of the predicted outcome.

See also

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References

  1. ↑ See, e.g., Maureen Armoor, Rethinking Judicial Discretion: Sanctions and the Conundrum of the Close Case, 50 S.M.U. L. Rev. 493, 496 (1997); Ward Farnsworth, The Role of Law in Close Cases: Some Evidence from the Federal Courts of Appeals , 86 B.U. L. Rev. 1083, 1095 (2006).
  2. ↑ See, e.g., The Selection of Interim Justices in California: An Empirical Study, 32 Stan. L. Rev. 433, 437 (1980).
  3. ↑ Guido Calabresi, The Exclusionary Rule , 26 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 111, 112 (2003) (characterizing this process as a "slippery slope").
  4. ↑ Frank E. Jr. Watkins; Daniel G. Kyle, A Proposal for the Operation of Section 534 with Section 535, 52 Taxes 240, 248 (1974).
  5. ↑ See, e.g., The Selection of Interim Justices in California: An Empirical Study, 32 Stan. L. Rev. 433, 437 (1980); Maureen Armoor, Rethinking Judicial Discretion: Sanctions and the Conundrum of the Close Case, 50 S.M.U. L. Rev. 493, 496 (1997).
  6. ↑ Maureen Armoor, Rethinking Judicial Discretion: Sanctions and the Conundrum of the Close Case, 50 S.M.U. L. Rev. 493, 496 (1997).
  7. ↑ Ward Farnsworth, The Role of Law in Close Cases: Some Evidence from the Federal Courts of Appeals , 86 B.U. L. Rev. 1083, 1088, 1095 (2006).
  8. ↑ The Selection of Interim Justices in California: An Empirical Study, 32 Stan. L. Rev. 433, 437 (1980); see also Stephen R. Barnett; Daniel L. Rubinfeld, The Assignment of Temporary Justices in the California Supreme Court, 17 Pac. L. J. 1045, 1064–67 (1986) (critiquing the methodology of the Stanford study).
  9. ↑ John E. Coons, Approaches to Court Imposed Compromise-The Uses of Doubt and Reason , 58 Nw. U. L. Rev. 750, 751 (1963).
  10. ↑ Guido Calabresi, The Exclusionary Rule , 26 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 111, 112 (2003) (noting that Chief Judge John M. Walker, Jr. of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit described this process as "[t]he hydraulic effect").
  11. ↑ Guido Calabresi, The Exclusionary Rule , 26 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 111, 112 (2003).
  12. ↑ Ward Farnsworth, The Role of Law in Close Cases: Some Evidence from the Federal Courts of Appeals , 86 B.U. L. Rev. 1083, 1095 (2006).
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