No. of Recommendations: 4
It makes sense that a first tier court would not be the preferred venue to alter or outright reverse prior precedent. Stare decisis and all. I didn't know there were unwritten rules that first tier courts were expected to shy away from being first to establish precedent for new, unseen combinations of facts, however obvious. Seems like a practice that puts the appearance of judicial stability ahead of actual justice. Especially when it delays justice for the ultimate winner, presuming they have the financial means to continue through multiple appeals.
Well, most precedent is established (eventually) by higher courts. And district courts (which are the trial courts of the federal system) never allowed to alter or outright reverse prior precedent from any higher court. So district courts are generally more in the business of following precedent than setting it, while the Circuit Courts (the appellate courts) are generally more in the business of establishing and refining precedent.
If there's a completely novel question of law that is both publicly important and nearly certain to get appealed to a higher court, then it doesn't really matter much what the district court thinks on the issue. The Circuit Court will not assign any weight to the district court's conclusions of law. Justice is not going to be delayed in that context - if they rule in a way that disturbs the status quo, there will certainly be a stay issued pending appeal. So if they side with the status quo, and let the circuit court make the call, it avoids creating that "emergency" situation - with midnight motions for stays and expedited pleading schedules and whatnot - while the decision makes its way up the chain.
In "normal" novel questions of law, the district court won't care much about the above - they'll just rule on the legal issue. Here, where the ruling could precipitate uncertainty in the primary process nationwide, there's a level of prudence in not having the courts decide to disturb the status quo until the case reaches the level of the judiciary where that disturbance might "stick."
