Talk:Precedent

This article is a total mess

This article is a total mess. I propose to clean up the following issues in three or four months or whenever I get around to it:

• Wikipedia is not a textbook. There are too many examples of particular instances of one subtopic or another in the article. The correct approach is to discuss a subject at a high level of generality, with minimal digressions to examples, and cite to sources to enable readers to look up such detail if they really need it. The laundry list of quotations from U.S. Supreme Court cases is wholly inappropriate for WP (or for that matter, any kind of formal English writing for either lawyers or laypersons); it looks like someone copied and pasted part of a law student's outline into WP. There are also many too many lengthy digressions into tangents of minimal relevance to the core topics of precedent and stare decisis, such as statutory interpretation, res judicata, and law of the case (which are all already the proper subjects of their own articles and do not require lengthy discussion here).
• Wikipedia must be verifiable. There are too many unsourced assertions, which is improper for a topic so heavily discussed and debated.
• Wikipedia is not a soapbox. There are too many discussions in body text of cases of questionable notability, such as McIntyre v. Balentine. In such cases, the relevant principle should be summarized (with the case merely cited in a footnote) and notable cases should be used whenever possible to illustrate such principles.
• Excessively long blockquotes. There are too many long quotes, which should be omitted, reduced, or paraphrased.

Any objections? --Coolcaesar (talk) 18:37, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

I only briefly skimmed the article but I agree with everything you noted. This is an absurdly long article with very few inline citations. I'm not familiar enough with the subject to be of much help here, but I think a clean-up by yourself or anyone else interested would be valuable. Rovenrat (talk) 23:48, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

I agree with this also. Statutory interpretation and res judicata content should me merged into the existing articles for those subjects. National laws should be organized into sections and details should be in linked articles. Comparative comments should be sourced. The cases cited should be notable ones. There are a lot of problems. We don't need to delete verifiable content but it doesn't all need to be in one article. Eunomia libri (talk) 21:50, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Introduction should be clearer

I have made the introduction less wooly, but there is much room for improvement.

For example, the generic e-law resources uk gives the following insufficient but much more direct explanation: The doctrine of judicial precedent is based on stare decisis. That is the standing by of previous decisions. Once a point of law has been decided in a particular case, that law must be applied in all future cases containing the same material facts.

I propose moving stare decisis to the very first sentence, with an explanation of the term.

Dan Shearer (talk) 12:27, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

"that law must be applied in all future cases containing the same material facts." Not in criminal law in the UK I believe? Also the troll / legal realist in me thinks "unless they don't like them, can think of a way of trying to distinguish the facts of a case, and are happy enough with the policy implications that they are willing to accept them... or if they can magically "fail to find" the particular precedent. Talpedia (talk) 12:38, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Yes, that explanation is totally insufficient. But it is a useful model of clarity, while the current article is a model of woolosity (tweediness?)

Dan Shearer (talk) 12:50, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, I guess we can accept a little inaccuracy in the lead in exchange for brevity. Talpedia (talk) 12:52, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Article issues

This article might likely need to be started from scratch. On an inquiry should "Precedent" be merged with "Stare Decisis", a supposedly better article (I didn't look), the opposite was done. Then moving the section to the top for prominence. I disagree with that decision and feel this article will continue to be a mess when too broad of a subject is attempted to be melded into one.

Adding to issues is the fact that of the approximately 80 countries that use the Common Law legal system each has developed their own criteria because it follows "their" previous court cases. The same is true of the approximately 150 countries that use the Civil Law legal system. Louisiana certainly has a hybrid system using both. To make matters worse courts, especially the United States Supreme Court, has begun reviewing and overturning cases of established precedent. This muddies any attempted explanations or definitions of the doctrine of Stare Decisis.

When referencing other countries in content or references there needs to be a separation from US perspective or more detailed information.

• There could be a case for possibly separating the issue into something like Precedent (US law).

I saw in the "binding precedent" subsection a note (reference) to binding precedent. These explanatory definitions need to be in an actual Note section and not listed as a reference. There are definitive wording like "must be followed", "is binding on all lower courts", lower courts must apply this decision when presented with similar facts", and "lower courts are thus bound, or required to follow the legal precedent set by the higher court" has unarguable exceptions especially concerning US courts, specifically the US Supreme Court, which has been reviewing and overturning cases long considered established precedent. On reflection the Court has overturned similar cases on their own volition (their own free will) without either party to the case, or the case that triggered the review, involved at all.

Stare decisis is a doctrine with two distinct attributes or principles,

• 1) Vertical Stare Decisis and,
• 2) Horizontal Stare Decisis.

Judge's "rulings" and courts "orders" are often used interchangeably. A ruling of a judge contains a set of criteria (orders) that parties of a case are to adhere to. Related, but not the same.

Stare Decisis is many times (possibly most of the time) referred to (interchangeably) as principle, rule of judicial precedent, or rule of precedent because it enshrines a core value within the Common Law legal system. The two are obviously related but not actually the same.

• There are other issues I will list separately. I seem to be having internet or laptop issues. -- Otr500 (talk) 13:50, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

Lead section

Main pages: Wikipedia:Summary_style § Lead_section, and MOS:LEADLENGTH

Further information: WP:DETAIL

The fourth paragraph needs to be in the body of the article (definition section or subsection) and if important a summary in the lead. These definitions, like those used as references, are unnecessary explanatory definitions. They might have a place but surely rarely and not generally in the lead or presented as references.

Are the words "Generally speaking" original research? It is vague and not (that I saw) in the body of the article. The addition that "a legal precedent may be..." is also unclear. It might be one of the following--- or maybe not.

The presentation of new ideas or uncovered content should only be used as exceptions, sparingly and certainly rarely, in the lead.

There are 10 references in the lead or approximately 16% of the total. There is no policy or guideline concerning references in the lead. It is community-wide and generally accepted that referenced content in the body of the article does not need lead referencing. There are exceptions like things such as controversial content especially concerning BLPs.

Again, there is no mandate on lead referencing but an unsourced fourth paragraph following three well sourced paragraphs looks strange. This is certainly a secondary issue to uncovered dictionary explanations in the lead. -- Otr500 (talk) 16:12, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

Superprecedent

Superprecedent has been dropped from this article. Is it a noteable topic? Tule-hog (talk) 16:27, 8 April 2025 (UTC)