Stare decisis scope depends on whether Congress legislates general ideas or specific applications.

Evidence

Notice, carefully, the relationship between the Court’s interpretive fallacy and its stare decisis fallacy. If you think of Congress as legislating in terms of specific applications, it is easy to think of a decision about one such application as dealing only with that application. But if you think of Congress as legislating in terms of general ideas - about the relationship of activity to interstate commerce, for example, - then you canese more readily that a decision about a particular application, if it is to stand, has to be lined up with some tenable general idea that can be attributed to the statute. — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process, 3093

Categorization

• XREF: Ties directly to earlier chapters on attributing purpose to statutes (ch10) and the interpretive theory governing statutory meaning. — connects to: Stare decisis, unlike repose doctrines, wrongly perpetuates future inequality. — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process: Basic Problems in…, 3113; A settled statutory interpretation binds later courts like law, not dictum. — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process: Basic Problems in…, 3173; Stare decisis binds only when judges would rather not follow precedent — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 2502 (+1 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The pairing of the interpretive fallacy (specific vs. general legislation) with the stare decisis fallacy is a genuinely elegant two-fallacy diagnosis of how courts can rationalize unequal treatment of like cases.
• SEED: A usable essay angle: how the ‘specific applications vs. general ideas’ frame of Congress’s intent predicts whether precedent correctly confines itself to ‘covered’ situations or must extend by principle.

Broader Connections

• Stare decisis binds only when judges would rather not follow precedent #complicates (0.75) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 2502
• Stare decisis requires treating prior decisions as binding regardless of perceived correctness. #qualifies (0.75) — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 106