The Legal Philosophy of Future Judges

Introduction:

A computer firm named TechNow is anticipating a major expansion in a highly controversial area of business. The management of TechNow believes that risk is, in the end, always rewarding. However, the one kind of risk they most fear is an unstable legal environment. Through an old college friend who is on the staff at the White House, they obtained a list of the probable appointees to the U.S. Supreme Court over the next four years. They immediately put their best researcher on the task of identifying the legal opinions of each candidate. They know that legal philosophy is the best predictor of future decisions; they focus on the legal reasoning of Juan Oh, the reported first choice of the president for the next position on the court.

Concept Review:

The underlying assumptions that a judge brings to a case play a major role in shaping his or her decisions. The description of legal philosophies in your text provides a thumbnail sketch of the kinds of assumptions about human nature that guide legal reasoning. For example, a judge guided by cost-benefit calculations would attempt to see legal cases as a struggle over the monetary value of risks and harm and business behavior. Your text identifies four Schools of Legal Interpretation: Identification with Vulnerable, Historical School: Tradition, Legal Realism, and Cost-Benefit Analysis.

Case:

Remembering that the best predictor of how a judge will decide future cases is his or her past decisions about legal issues, identify the legal philosophy of Juan Oh by analyzing his most recent decisions contained in the following report.

Judge Oh has a long record of decisions, many of them consistent with his ongoing legal philosophy. Below are just a few of his representative decisions:

1. In Big Elk v. Americo, Judge Oh argued that Americo's contract with Big Elk was invalid because the use of such complicated contracts by Americo with customers who it knew were largely illiterate was unfair on its face and, as such, did not permit a genuine agreement.

2. Judge Oh's dissenting opinion in SafeNSecure v. Nanette Yu challenged the majority's willingness to turn its back on the health needs of the elderly. Citing the increasing costs of medical care for those in nursing facilities, Judge Oh reminded us that we share a destiny, in the sense that we will all be weak and in need of community support eventually.

3. In a significant legal decision, Judge Oh argued that in the current economy, with long bouts of unemployment, the state has the responsibility for the health and welfare of its citizens to extend unemployment benefits. Hence, he found that the legislature had acted within its implied powers when it extended those benefits for three years.

Questions:

1. Judge Oh follows which of the Schools of Legal Interpretation? How would you expect Judge Oh to rule in a case where a toy manufacturer is being sued for producing a toy that led to the death of an infant when the infant swallowed the tiny colored beads that were an important part of the toy? 2. Choose a different School of Legal Interpretation and predict the outcome if Judge Oh followed that different School of Legal Interpretation. Would the outcome of the toy manufacturer case change? 3. The Schools of Legal Interpretation require us to understand that judges, legislatures, and other people making laws are not robots when they make the laws; rather, these people are guided by certain habits of mind and specific beliefs about human nature. Laws are human creations. How does this knowledge impact your view of laws and the legal system?