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Article: Precedent
- Article from:
- West's Encyclopedia of American Law
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PRECEDENT
A court decision that is cited as an example or analogy to resolve similar
questions of law
in later cases.
The Anglo-American common-law tradition is built on the doctrine of stare decisis ("stand by decided matters"), which directs a court to look to past decisions for guidance on how to decide a case before it. This means that the legal rules applied to a prior case with facts similar to those of the case now before a court should be applied to resolve the legal dispute.
The use of precedent has been justified as providing predictability, stability, fairness, and efficiency in the law. Reliance upon precedent contributes predictability to the law because it provides notice ...