Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Legal doctrine evolves as past factual precedents accumulate and transform into binding rules.
In plain terms
Past legal decisions become rules over time.
What can you take from it?
Law evolves through the accumulation of precedent.

Where it applies

  • understanding legal evolution
  • studying common law

Putting it to work

  • legal research
  • policy analysis

Questions to consider

  • How does fact become doctrine?
  • What limits legal precedent?

Another view

Precedent can be overturned.

More from Junius

  1. The liberty of the press is the palladium of all the civil, political, and religious rights of an Englishman.

    Permalink to quote #2
  2. The submission of free people to the executive authority of government, is no more than a compliance with laws which they themselves have enacted.

    Permalink to quote #3
  3. Loyalty, in the heart and understanding of an englishman, is a rational attachment to the guardian of the laws.

    Permalink to quote #4

Related quotes

  1. Time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.

    William BlackstoneWilliam Blackstone quote #6
  2. A precedent embalms a principle.

    Benjamin DisraeliBenjamin Disraeli quote #15
  3. It is possible that the Supreme Court itself may overturn its abortion rulings. We need only recall that in Brown v. Board of Education the court reversed its …

    Ronald ReaganRonald Reagan quote #76