Precedent is the legal principle created by a court decision that serves as an authoritative rule for future cases. The process of using past precedents in order to guide similar legal decisions is called stare decisis.
In 1850, California adopted a real property recording system. This system originated from principles found in England’s common law system, including stare decisis (using precedents to determine future case law). Over the next 150 years, it evolved into a comprehensive system tasked with managing and collecting title interests.
There are generally two types of stare decisis, one being horizontal stare decisis while the other is known as vertical stare decisis. Horizontal stare decisis is when a court follows its own precedent. A vertical stare decisis is a court that bases a ruling off of precedent that has come down from a higher court.
When Do Courts Use Stare Decisis
Courts default to stare decisis when a case or issue has been brought to court before and has been ruled on in court. The Supreme Court heavily weighs their decisions on previous rulings regardless of how the soundness of the decision may be perceived. With the U.S. justice system’s lengthy legal process, allowing courts to refer back to past decisions allows for this process to not be slowed down by further debate and reevaluations.
Courts customarily are restricted by the previous decisions that are other superior courts have ruled on. A federal district court is expected to follow a decision that was made in a Second District Circuit Court of Appeals, yet this same court is not required to factor in any other decisions that are made in other districts on the same type of case. Although the facts and details of the case may be convincing, the court is not confined to the precedent set by a court outside of its district or jurisdiction.
Who Uses Stare Decisis
Stare decisis is generally used in common law legal systems, which every state in the nation except Louisiana uses. Civil law legal systems rely on statutes and ordinances for precedent rather than previous cases that could expedite the legal process.
