The Prestige of Australian State Supreme Courts Over the 20th Century

In the course of making and justifying decisions, judges on state supreme courts often rely on precedents from other jurisdictions. These judicial references across boundaries constitute at least one means of communication and, in turn, demonstrate a complex web of deference and derogation between and among various courts. I attempt to uncover patterns of citation between the several state supreme courts and to evaluate alternative explanations for these patterns, including distance between courts; similarity of political culture; the prestige, professionalism, legal capital, and caseload of the cited court; the social diversity of the environment; differentials between courts on a number of dimensions; and presence in the same legal reporting region. More globally, I ask: Does the intensity of communications between a pair of courts result from the characteristics of the cited court or from differences and similarities between courts or jurisdictions? The results indicate the importance of legal reporting districts, distance between the courts, cultural linkages between the jurisdictions and, especially, characteristics of the cited court.

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The Transmission of Legal Precedent Across the Australian State Supreme Courts Over the Twentieth Century

Law & Society Review ◽

10.1111/j.1540-5893.2011.00430.x ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 45 (1) ◽

pp. 139-170 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Russell Smyth ◽

Vinod Mishra

Keyword(s):

Twentieth Century ◽

State Supreme Courts ◽

Supreme Courts ◽

Australian State ◽

Legal Precedent

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Malpractice & Negligence: State Supreme Courts Limit Therapists’ Duties to Third Parties

The Journal of Law Medicine & Ethics ◽

10.1017/s1073110500012985 ◽

1999 ◽

Vol 27 (2) ◽

pp. 204-205

Author(s):

Megan Cleary

Keyword(s):

Sexual Abuse ◽

Child Sexual Abuse ◽

Supreme Court ◽

New Hampshire ◽

Third Parties ◽

State Supreme Courts ◽

Recovered Memories ◽

Supreme Courts ◽

Repressed Memory ◽

University Of Colorado

In recent years, the law in the area of recovered memories in child sexual abuse cases has developed rapidly. See J.K. Murray, “Repression, Memory & Suggestibility: A Call for Limitations on the Admissibility of Repressed Memory Testimony in Abuse Trials,” University of Colorado Law Review, 66 (1995): 477-522, at 479. Three cases have defined the scope of liability to third parties. The cases, decided within six months of each other, all involved lawsuits by third parties against therapists, based on treatment in which the patients recovered memories of sexual abuse. The New Hampshire Supreme Court, in Hungerford v. Jones, 722 A.2d 478 (N.H. 1998), allowed such a claim to survive, while the supreme courts in Iowa, in J.A.H. v. Wadle & Associates, 589 N.W.2d 256 (Iowa 1999), and California, in Eear v. Sills, 82 Cal. Rptr. 281 (1991), rejected lawsuits brought by nonpatients for professional liability.

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