medium · LSAT Reading Comprehension
A passage examines 'distinguishing cases'—the practice by which a court avoids an inconvenient precedent by declaring that the matter before it differs in some relevant detail from the earlier one. The passage observes that although this device lets courts sidestep precedents without formally overruling them, it tends to spawn ever finer and more strained distinctions, producing tangled reasoning that erodes the very predictability that following precedent is supposed to secure.
Which one of the following best describes the passage's primary criticism of distinguishing cases as a means of correcting precedent?
- It is inherently slanted toward keeping discriminatory doctrines in force rather than dismantling them.
- Courts seldom employ it because doing so demands approval from a higher tribunal.
- It breeds tangled, hairsplitting reasoning that undercuts the very predictability the law is meant to furnish.
- It blocks legislatures from enacting statutes that might clarify how courts read the law.
- It is the single greatest obstacle to any reform of an unjust legal system.
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