easy · LSAT Reading Comprehension
When a court declines to follow an unfavorable precedent, it often "distinguishes" the earlier case, declaring that some factual difference makes the prior ruling inapplicable. A commentator on the legal system observes that, although distinguishing lets courts avoid harsh outcomes, the technique tends to spawn ever finer and more strained factual divisions. As these distinctions accumulate, the body of law governing an area becomes harder for ordinary citizens and even lawyers to follow.
According to the commentator, the practice of distinguishing cases can be problematic because it:
- permanently strips higher courts of any power to overturn the rulings handed down by courts beneath them.
- generates a tangle of fine factual distinctions that makes the governing law increasingly difficult to follow.
- can be invoked only after a dispute has climbed all the way to an appellate court, a path few litigants can afford.
- locks the legal system into a rigidity that leaves it unable to keep pace with shifting social attitudes.
- encourages judges to substitute their personal moral views for the plain meaning of the governing statutes.
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