Memorandum in re Corpus juris contradictions would be brought into contrast, inconsistencies exposed and the distinction be tween settled law and debatable questions forced upon the attention. “The current legal language, as used, is as clumsy and burdensome as are the plows and barrows of two centuries ago compared to the implements of today. . . . "Conciseness is the great detector of fallacies.”
That unreasonable and fallacious doc trines have been engrafted upon Anglo
Saxon law through the centuries of its growth no true lover of the profession can deny. More than a score of years ago
that earnest student of our Common Law, Oliver Wendell Holmes, ]r.,‘ now Mr.
Justice Holmes of the Supreme Court of the United States, with prophetic vision asserted:— "We are only at the beginning of a philo sophical reaction and of a reconsideration of the worth of doctrines which, for the most
part, still are taken for granted without any deliberate, conscious and systematic questioning of their grounds."
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decision can never be an authoritative
precedent except upon a point in issue before the Court.
Austin Abbott has forcefully called attention to the further fact that through
the last century “ by an almost imper ceptible process " our point of view concerning precedents has been changed, ——indeed, as he puts it, “ reversed." He says: — “Time was when the earliest precedent was of paramount authority; later decisions were tested by the earlier, and disregarded when found to depart from the earlier. By an almost imperceptible process this rule has been reversed. It is now the latest decision of the Court of last resort, which is regarded as the highest evidence of the law; and earlier deci
sions are valued chiefly as they throw light upon the intent and effect of the latter. It is, therefore, actual law which is now of the first importance, and historic law owes its main value to the better understanding it gives us of the law of today."
2. It follows that not only condensa While some things have been remedied the process has by no means been as rapid as it should, owing mainly to the hundreds of thousands of reported ad judicated cases constituting a mass un manageably large, and lacking, except as to a few subjects, scientific arrange, ment and classification. What the law
tion, clearness and precision are essen
tial in a statement of the Corpus juris, but that the overwhelming mass of au thorities must be analyzed and all of im portance marshalled. The authorities fall naturally into three general classes, to wit:
(a)
Ruling Cases, which establish
actually is can be ascertained only from a philosophical study of the decisions of the Courts after they have been
overrule or modify leading cases;
logically classified. “By actual law," it has been well said, “ we mean the law
original reasons for rules and are valu able aids in the interpretation and
in force today; the law now applicable to transactions, and now controlling procedure.” In the last analysis, pre cedents which are sound in law and logic must necessarily control, yet it is essential in the efiort to ascertain the
application of principles; and (c) Illustrative Cases, which when
rules, show the actual law and frequently (b) Leading Cases, which indicate the
properly classified show the application of rules to different subjects and in different situations.
This has been clearly indicated by
actual law to avoid being misled by the
Dr. James DeWitt Andrews, who de
enormous percentage of ill-considered
clares that an ideal system of citation
obiter dicta in the opinions of Judges
embraces “ (a) all the leading cases, (b) all the ruling cases, and (c) illustrative
and never to lose sight of the fact that a
