Roughly ninety percent of cases are decided one way by settled law.

Evidence

Does the deductive model accurately depict how judges decide cases? The answer is both yes and no. The more settled the legal rule, the more likely it is that judicial decision making will resemble the deductive model. In many cases, judges can resolve the dispute straightforwardly on the basis of settled law. Indeed, Justice Benjamin Cardozo estimated that 90 percent of all cases are “pre-destined” in that they could be decided in only one way.’ — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 2518

Categorization

• XREF: Cardozo’s estimate ties to the legal-realist claim that only hard cases reveal genuine judicial choice.
• SHARE: A tidy datapoint — Cardozo’s 90 percent — for anyone who studies law and assumes every case is contested.