Rules necessarily overreach their justifications because of their intrinsic generality

Evidence

The rule includes or encompasses instances that the background justification behind the rule would not cover, as in the Kirby and Church of the Holy Trinity cases, as with the driver driving safely at 70, and as with an ambulance which might fall within the literal scope of the “no vehicles in the park” rule. In such cases the reach of a rule is broader than the reach of its background justification, and so we say that the rule is overinclusive. — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 46

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘overinclusive rule’ with concrete grounding: any general rule sweeps in cases the underlying rationale would exclude.
• XREF: Sets up the mirror concept of underinclusiveness; both trace back to the tradeoff between rule precision and discretion explored in chapter 8 statutory interpretation. — connects to: Rules function as rules only if they tolerate some suboptimal outcomes — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 223; Literal application of legal rules sometimes produces absurd against-purpose outcomes — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 284; Rules that always yield to rule-free optimization cease to function as rules — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 222 (+13 more)

Related

• Rules that always yield to rule-free optimization cease to function as rules (similarity 0.82)
• Obligatory rules grow fewer as their scope widens (similarity 0.82)
• Rules function as rules only if they tolerate some suboptimal outcomes (similarity 0.80)
• Literal application of legal rules sometimes produces absurd against-purpose outcomes (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Rules that always yield to rule-free optimization cease to function as rules #corroborates (0.75) — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 222
• Rules function as rules only if they tolerate some suboptimal outcomes #expands (0.70) — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 223
• Literal application of legal rules sometimes produces absurd against-purpose outcomes #exemplifies (0.65) — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 284
• Yet Professor Schauer argues that this aversion to formalism should be rethought At times language both can and should restrict decisionmakers. Consequently, the term formalistic should not be… #responds-to (0.60)