Equitable Principles and Existing Policies in Judicial Decisions

But the court as well as found that it was unreasonable "to suppose that it was the legislative intention in the general faithfulnesss passed for orderly peaceable, and just devolution of property" that they would break in favor of a legatee who murdered his ancestor to complicate his legacy (Riggs v. Palmer, 1889).

Legal philosopher Ronald W. D becomein is plausibly best known for his work researching the problems which arise when arbiters try to resolve securely topics. sticky cases include those in which reasonable decides may discord or disagree on which law of nature or commandment to apply as well as on what the correct should be "whatever theory of jurisprudence they hold (Mackie, 1977, p. 6). most(prenominal) lawyers are familiar with the maxim hard cases make distressing law. But Dworkin took that maxim a step further when he attempted to explain why cases may be hard to decide. Dworkin wrote that some cases raise novel problems and, thus, a judge may not be able to apply any lively rule or reinterpret an existing statute which pass on justify a particular wakeless result (Dworkin, 1975). In situations where no single law, statute, or case precedent is distinctly applicable to the case a judge is deciding, Dworkin believed that a judge should rely on arguments of principle, even if doing so results in a political decision, especially where a decision based on principle will protect some individual or group right (Dworkin). The thrust of Dworkin's article, Hard Cases, is that in hard civil cases such as the S

Dworkin's famous example is that of the Spartan Steel case. The plaintiffs factory was closed in(p) down when the defendant's employees accidentally cut an electrical cable that supplied origin to the plaintiff. The plaintiff sued to recover the economic loss resulting from the shutdown. Under a policy argument, judges might ask whether it was economically able to distribute liability for accidents in a fashion coveted by the plaintiff. However, under a principle argument, judges would probably ask whether the plaintiff had a right to recovery.

An article by Andrew Altman, Legal Reasoning, Critical Legal Studies, and Dworkin, examined Dworkin's theories about how hard cases should be decided (Altman, 1986, pp. 205-236).

That article stated that judges who are face with hard cases may have trouble deciding scarcely which legal principles they should mean binding (p. 209). Dworkin's answer was that judges should fill those principles which "belong to the soundest theory of the settled law (p. 209). Lawyers and judges consider settled law to be that body of case law which incorporates all of the legal doctrines and rules which are generally accepted as authoritative by the consensus of the legal community. Similarly, judges should look to the soundest legal theory when making decisions, and the soundest legal theory is usually sight of in the legal community as that "which is the most honourable and political . . . [and] which coheres with and justifies [accepted] legal rules and doctrines (p. 209). According to Dworkin, the theory which a judge intends to apply does not have to fit perfectly to the case at hand but rather can " condition some rules and legal outcomes as mistakes" (p. 209), but should also be the theory which most accurately fits with previously settled areas of law and the most generally accepted judicial opinions.

Hart, H. L. A. (1984). The concept of law. capital of the United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.

In the hard cases which Dworkin envi
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