Subsequent Case Treatment

(1) Subsequent Case Treatment defined—What other cases have said about the initial case. Has it been followed? Reversed? Distinguished? Applied in a specific way?

(2) Importance of Subsequent Case Treatment—Will indicate how the same and other courts interpret the initial case.

Task 3. The American Judicial System: A System Based on Advocacy and the Presence of Actual Controversy

The American legal system is adversarial and is based on the premise that a real, live dispute involving parties with a genuine interest in its outcome will allow for the most vigorous legal debate of the issues, and that courts should not have the power to issue decisions unless they are in response to a genuine controversy. Hence, federal courts are prohibited from issuing "advisory" opinions, or opinions that do not involve a live case or controversy.

a) Threshold Issues Designed to Preclude Advisory Opinions Given the prohibition against advisory opinions by the federal courts, there are certain threshold prerequisites which must be satisfied before a federal court will hear a case. Issues surrounding the applicability of these prerequisites may also arise in state courts and on petitions for review of agency orders.

The principal prerequisites to court review are the following:

Standing —The parties must have an actual, cognizable, usually pecuniary or proprietary, interest in the litigation.

Finality —In the case of appeals or agency review, the action by the trial court or administrative body must be final and have a real impact on the Parties.

Exhaustion —The parties must have exhausted any possible avenues for relief available in the trial court or administrative body.

Ripeness —The dispute must present a current controversy which has immediate rather than anticipated or hypothetical effects on the parties.

Mootness— Thedispute must not have been resolved. Nor must the circumstances have changed in any way that renders the dispute no longer subject to controversy.

No Political Questions - Courts will not involve themselves in non-justiciable disputes that are between the other two branches of the federal government and are of a political- nature.

While these prerequisites are well-established, the courts tend to apply them in a pragmatic way and allow exceptions to these requirements when warranted by the facts.

B) Courts Generally Confine Themselves to the Dispute Presented for Resolution

As a jurisdictional matter, courts are supposed to restrict their holdings to

the narrowest terms possible in resolving a dispute.

This limitation relates to the principle of dictum, under which portions of the opinion not required for the resolution of the precise issues before the court on the facts presented by the parties are of diminished precedential value.

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