Quote:
Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
That is some scary-ass shit you're coming up with. ...
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You may be reading more into what I wrote than I intended; at the same time, I do think that judges have been aware of the precedential value of their decisions since precedents first were recorded (and quite possible before). By referring to precedents being narrowed, amended, overturned, etc., I am referring to exactly the process where, by application in new circumstances and to different facts, broad principles are either developed or modified or exceptions are carved out.
Where I think you're not quite accurate is in ignoring the need to have broader rules developed at common law coming out of decisions. Regardless of individual facts, a pronouncement that, for example, it is permissible to apply concepts of comparative negligence, or the establishment of a judicial test refining the question of when someone is an agent of another, are certainly well within any English-tradition's court's traditional (holding a meaning that goes back long before the constitution) role.
