Mandatory vs Persuasive

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Mandatory authority, something that will cause a court to decide in your favor or, better yet, that will cause your opponent to settle a case in your favor before it gets to court. Authority comes in several versions: primary and secondary, mandatory and persuasive. Primary authority is that coming directly from a governmental entity in the discharge of its official duties. Primary authority includes documents like case decisions, statutes, regulations, administrative agency decisions, executive orders, and treaties. Secondary authority, basically, is everything else: articles, Restatements, treatises, commentary, etc. The most useful authority addresses your legal issue and is close to your factual situation. While decision makers are usually willing to accept guidance from a wide range of sources, only a primary authority can be mandatory in application. Just because an authority is primary, however, does not automatically make its application in a given situation mandatory. Some primary authority is only persuasive. The proper characterization of a primary authority as mandatory or persuasive is crucial to any proceeding; it can make the difference between success and failure for a client's cause. This is true of all primary authority, but this column will address case authority only. The following is a brief explanation of when the decisions of a particular court should be characterized as mandatory or persuasive. It deals only with the decision of the majority of the court; no matter how appealing in content, dicta, concurrences, and dissents will always remain persuasive. When Decisions Are Mandatory Whether a decision of a particular court is mandatory, whether it must be followed by another court, depends on the source of the decision. As a general rule, the decisions of a court will be mandatory authority for any court lower in the hierarchy.
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