Judges’ scheduling self-interest can license weaker objections to survive.

Evidence

“I would agree,” replied the judge, “except that I think you invited this kind of thing by pushing for trial when you weren’t ready.” … Judge Skinner, of course, had also been anxious to keep the trial date. Perhaps because of this, the judge seemed willing to tolerate some of Facher’s more frivolous objections. And not all of the objections were frivolous. On the seventh day, just as Drobinski was about to utter his expert opinion on the time of contamination, Facher asserted that there was no proper scientific foundation for this opinion, which was based on nothing more than digging up old beer cans, chopping down a tree, and looking at aerial photos. Maybe those piles of debris and drums had been there for thirty years, Facher allowed, but no one could say with scientific certainty that they had been contaminated with TCE back then. Someone could easily have come onto the property in 1979, after the wells had closed, and dumped TCE onto those piles. — , Harr Jonathan - A Civil Action, 1742

Categorization

• XREF: Conversely, contrasts with the Hall passage on overdetermined conjunctural analysis — here a single judicial incentive explains a stream of rulings. — connects to: Adding judges does not reduce court delays because courts relax enforcement accordingly — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 283; Judges create the rules they apply rather than applying preexisting rules. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 2526; Judges must justify rulings through legal reasoning rather than personal preference or popular will. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 2437 (+13 more)
• QUESTION: Did the judge’s investment in the trial date actually shape his evidentiary rulings? A tempting counterfactual worth checking against the trial record.

Broader Connections

• A judge’s self-interest in avoiding admitted error shapes legal rulings #corroborates (1.00) — Jonathan Harr, A Civil Action, 2732
• Judges’ attitudes and institutional context, not law, drive their rulings. #corroborates (0.95) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 2438
• Common-law policymaking is constrained; judges cannot simply impose their own policy preferences #qualifies (0.90) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 2805
• Judges’ personal attributes and even trivial bodily states can shape decisions #qualifies (0.90)
• Judicial rulings have policy consequences yet judges should not impose their own policy views #corroborates (0.90) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 2688
• Judges create the rules they apply rather than applying preexisting rules. #qualifies (0.85) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 2526
• Judicial restraint philosophy restricts what judges consider and when they overturn precedent #qualifies (0.85) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 2612
• Pragmatic law judges rules by their consequences, not their origins. #corroborates (0.85) — Richard A. Posner, What Has Pragmatism to Offer Law?, 38
• Judges must justify rulings through legal reasoning rather than personal preference or popular will. #complicates (0.75) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 2437
• Judges believe themselves unable to overturn entrenched rules, so the rules persist. #complicates (0.75) — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process, 9
• Common law judges may only decide the case before them #complicates (0.75) — Burton, Steven J, An Introduction to Law and Legal…, 227
• Judicial rulings often fail to secure compliance or resolve conflict #complicates (0.75) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 211
• Fear of retention defeat measurably shifts judges’ rulings toward public opinion #complicates (0.75) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 438
• Judges threaten opinion attacks but rarely damage collegial relationships #complicates (0.75) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1337