Judge-made law can only change through actual litigated cases.

Evidence

What Parliament can do in a month’s intensive work, a court can do only over the years. And it can never do it quite so systematically, since the common law only handles actual disputes, actual cases. It cannot deal with hypothetical or future cases. If no one brings up a matter, it never gets into court. It is no answer to say that all important questions will turn into disputes; “disputes” are not litigation, and only actual litigation makes new law. — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 89

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: A written constitution only becomes living law through enforcement. — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law: An Introduction, 921; Courts make law only as a byproduct of their adjudicative function — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process: Basic Problems in…, 15; Common law judges may only decide the case before them — Burton, Steven J, An Introduction to Law and Legal…, 227 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Courts make law only as a byproduct of their adjudicative function #corroborates (0.95) — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process, 15
• Common law judges may only decide the case before them #corroborates (0.92) — Burton, Steven J, An Introduction to Law and Legal…, 227
• Constitutional validity can only be judged against concrete facts in real cases #exemplifies (0.82) — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process, 3493
• Courts cannot decline to make law because every merits judgment necessarily resolves the dispute #expands (0.80) — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process, 1705
• Law changes norms even when it never produces prosecutions #contradicts (0.80) — , The Rod and the Child, 7224
• Judges create and reshape legal rules by reasoning analogically across cases, not by deduction #expands (0.78) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 2542