Common law judges may only decide the case before them

Evidence

A basic principle of common law adjudication is that a judge is empowered to decide the case before the court and only the case before the court. A judge has no authority at common law to enact an authoritative general rule to govern parties and situations that were not before the court. Thus, the judge in Case 1 could not decide the outcome in Case 3, however broadly she may craft a rule to explain the decision in Case 1. — Burton, Steven J, An Introduction to Law and Legal…, 227

Categorization

• XREF: This is the doctrinal backbone distinguishing common law from statutory/regulatory law — relevant to any U.S. constitutional-law reading. — connects to: Courts must decide only the case before them, not hypothetical future cases — Ruggero J. Aldisert, Agatha D. Aldisert, Logic for Lawyers- A Guide to Clear…, 1008; Courts sometimes reach wrong outcomes to avoid bad future rules — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 548; Litigated cases self-select to those where both sides have plausible legal arguments — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 253 (+9 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Burton, Steven J, An Introduction to Law and Legal…, 227

Broader Connections

• Courts sometimes reach wrong outcomes to avoid bad future rules #qualifies (0.60) — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 548
• Litigated cases self-select to those where both sides have plausible legal arguments #expands (0.55) — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 253