Distinguishing

<h2 id="wide-and-narrow-distinguishment">Wide and narrow distinguishment</h2>
<p>Where a wide new class of distinguished cases is made, such as distinguishing all cases on <a href="/facts/Privity_(law)/geBHbfck">privity of contract law</a> in the establishment of the court-made <a href="/facts/Tort/nUgUN8zN">tort</a> of <a href="/facts/Negligence/0GMNBaIr">negligence</a> or a case turns on too narrow a set of variations in facts ("turns on its own facts") compared to the routinely applicable precedent(s), such decisions are at high risk of being successfully overruled (by higher courts) on the bases respectively that:
</p>
<ol><li>The lower court has invented the law<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:3" href="#fn:3"><sup>3</sup></a></li>
<li>The lower court has failed to follow a binding precedent</li></ol>
<h2 id="examples">Examples</h2>
<p><i><a href="/facts/Balfour_v_Balfour/tRBpfJSp">Balfour v Balfour</a></i> (1919) and <i><a href="/facts/Merritt_v_Merritt/nXpVbbme">Merritt v Merritt</a></i> (1970) were cases involving the enforceability of maintenance agreements. In each case a wife sued her husband, alleging <a href="/facts/Breach_of_contract/KnlrmdBQ">breach of contract</a>.  The judge in <i>Balfour</i> held the claim could not be sustained without evidence of intention to create legal regulations, so there was no legally binding contract. By contrast, in <i>Merritt v Merritt</i>, the judge distinguished <i>Balfour v Balfour</i>, deciding that the facts were materially different in that: (i) the husband and wife were separated and no longer "in amity"; and (ii) the agreement was made after they had separated, and in writing.
</p><p>In <i>Read v Lyons</i> (1947),<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:4" href="#fn:4"><sup>4</sup></a> (where a munitions worker was injured in a factory explosion), the court distinguished <i><a href="/facts/Rylands_v_Fletcher/6d5YKMaI">Rylands v Fletcher</a></i> (1868) because in the present case, even though the defendant factory kept "dangerous things on the land for a non-natural user", there was "no escape".
</p>
<h2 id="obiter-followed">Obiter followed</h2>
<p>Where an <i><a href="/facts/Obiter_dictum/rC4LXI0T">obiter dictum</a></i> (a non-binding statement based on hypothetical facts) is subsequent followed and adopted, then the later case is said to "approve" that <i>obiter</i>, and the earlier case may be marked "approved",  "followed", or "obiter followed".
</p>
<h2 id="see-also">See also</h2>
<ul><li><a href="/facts/Case_law/2xMz9eeA">Case law</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/Opinion/7Y89Bt0g">Opinion</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/Precedent/2tdUu2Bw">Precedent</a>
<ul><li><a href="/facts/Persuasive_authority/2tdUu2Bw">Persuasive authority</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/Binding_authority/2tdUu2Bw">Binding authority</a></li></ul></li></ul>

<h2 id="references">References</h2>

<ol>
<li id="fn:1"><p>Malleson, Kate and Moules, Richard. The Legal System. Oxford University Press. 2010. p.69 <a href="/wiki/Oxford_University_Press" target="_blank">/wiki/Oxford_University_Press</a> <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:2"><p>Lamond, Grant. "Precedent and Analogy in Legal Reasoning: 2.1 Precedents as laying down rules: 2.1.2 The practice of distinguishing". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford University. 2006-06-20. <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/legal-reas-prec/index.html#PreLayDowRul" target="_blank">http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/legal-reas-prec/index.html#PreLayDowRul</a> <a href="#fnref:2" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:3"><p>See: "Example of the Development of Court Made Law" (PDF). Law School. University of Western Australia. Development of the Law of Negligence in Australia, following Scottish specifically in the UK supreme court (House of Lords) which distinguished all cases on privity of contract, which apparently applied to most earlier observers before the new law in 1932 was fully formulated. <a href="http://www.law.uwa.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/1838186/Example_Development-of-law-negligence.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.law.uwa.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/1838186/Example_Development-of-law-negligence.pdf</a> <a href="#fnref:3" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:4"><p>Read v J Lyons & Co Ltd [1946] UKHL 2, [1947] AC 156 (18 October 1946) [1] <a href="https://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKHL/1946/2.html" target="_blank">https://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKHL/1946/2.html</a> <a href="#fnref:4" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
</ol>

Distinguishing open-in-new

Distinguishing