Appellate Courts have the discretion to limit their decisions to the case of the particular plaintiff or make a broader ruling.chasfm11 wrote:I guess that i don't understand. In Morris v U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the outcome was narrowly applied to the jurisdiction of that court instead of to all USACE land. To fix that short of Federal legislation, someone in each District court would have to file suit and reference the Morris outcome. How then can a case from the 10th District have such a far reaching impact?
The SCOTUS does that as well as the lower courts. Unfortunately, I think that politics plays a major part in that decision.
I don't know all of the particulars of the law, but I believe that if they applied the ruling to all USACE land, then anyone from another jurisdiction could file a lawsuit to appeal that decision.