Legal directives range from radically open-ended standards to extraordinarily specific rules

Evidence

By way of contrast to open-ended legal terms like “best interests” and “unreasonable,” consider the specificity of the regulation under the Occupational Safety and Health Act requiring that on all construction sites with “[m]ore than 20” and “fewer than 200” employees there shall be no less than “[o]ne toilet seat and one urinal per 40 employees.” In much the same way, a Securities and Exchange Commission rule promulgated under the Securities Act of 1933 directs registrants to file “three copies of the complete registration statement” on “good quality, unglazed, white paper no larger than 8/ x 11 inches in size.” And Article III of the Constitution mandates that “[n]o Person may be Convicted of treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same Overt — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 342

Categorization

• XREF: Concrete examples mirror the kind of specificity contrast in the earlier noise-law cases about precise decibel limits versus vague nuisance standards. — connects to: Rules allocate decisions to the present while standards hold them open for the future — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 354; Legal rules intentionally incorporate arbitrary detail to maximize certainty and predictability. — HLA Hart, The Concept of Law (Clarendon Law…, 534; Precision and breadth are independent dimensions of any legal rule — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 370

Broader Connections

• Precision and breadth are independent dimensions of any legal rule #expands (0.80) — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 370
• Legal rules intentionally incorporate arbitrary detail to maximize certainty and predictability. #complicates (0.50) — HLA Hart, The Concept of Law (Clarendon Law…, 534