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> Therefore each verdict could potentially mean that new law is created. Not potentially - each new verdict is law. All lower courts are bound by law to follow
by joatmon-snoo 9y ago
> Therefore each verdict could potentially mean that new law is created.
Not potentially - each new verdict is law. All lower courts are bound by law to follow the precedent established by higher courts; in other words, this now applies to all public-camera-bla-bla-bla cases in the 8th circuit.
There is clear and established precedent for how courts can issue rulings that affect only a single case. Evidently that's not the case here.
Disclaimer, IANAL.
- bjourne 9y agoInteresting. That appears to be a difference between common law and civil law. For example, here there is a legal uncertainty what the law says regarding snow-covered speed signs. Some people have been ticketed for not following speed limits they reasonably could not have seen without stopping the car and wiping the speed sign clean. Others have been acquitted in almost identical situations. Each court makes a new and independent reading of the law and isn't as affected by what other courts have found. The upside is that new laws aren't created by courts, the downside that legal uncertainties can remain forever.