Precedence

Courts frequently have to interpret how the law is supposed to be applied to various situations. When a ruling is made, these interpretations can’t be undone. This provides clarity for future rulings and a basis for future decisions.

What if a judge is wrong? Future rulings will be based off of the past ruling (precedence). This means that any mistakes by a judge can be built upon. Sometimes, these aren’t big mistakes, but they can be compounded.

Some mistakes have allowed for the rise of frivolous lawsuits. We have established that failure to address any theoretical opportunity for a third party to prevent a major incident is punishable. Never mind that most of these incidents are the results of irresponsibility and/or lack of common sense from the supposed victim. This is why a lot of devices have so many warnings that nobody reads them.

Here in Washington, we have to cope with the McCleary decision. This was a ruling by the state Supreme Court ruling that our state does not properly fund education as required by the state constitution and must find more money to funnel into the process. Our schools were built around anti-educational values, and it was never established that a proper education required more funding than what the schools already receive. If teachers wanted to, they can now exploit this ruling to bankrupt the state. After all, they are not going to be able to properly educate children within the schools for any amount of money.

I’m not saying precedence is pointless. It can help to know what the law really means. What I’m saying is that we need to find ways to go back and correct mistakes.