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An Aesthetic Defense Of The Non-Precedential Opinion: The Easy Cases Debate In The Wake Of The 2007 Amendments To The Federal Rules Of Appellate Procedure, Caleb E. Mason
Caleb E. Mason
Abstract: In this article I extol the virtues of the short, nonprecedential opinions (NPOs) that make up more than 80% of the output of the courts of appeals. The recent amendment to Fed. R. App. Proc. 32.1(a), requiring that all circuits allow citation to nonprecedential opinions, has provoked considerable debate about how, and whether, to issue opinions in the class of cases currently resolved by NPOs. I defend the issuance of NPOs not as a necessary concession to overwork, but rather as a valuable decisional form that plays a useful if not vital role in inculcating in practitioners the perceptual …