Monograph Series · Third series › Part III Forming the judgment and procedural legitimacy › III-16 · First edition
Unexpected Legal Rulings: Legal Perspectives and the Opportunity to Be Heard
May a new legal perspective change the judgment without giving the parties an opportunity to respond?
Volume contents
Abstract
This volume asks whether a new legal perspective may change the judgment without giving the parties an opportunity to rebut it. The court's authority to make legal determinations and the parties' opportunity to be heard must operate together. Autonomy in the application of law is not a license for surprise judgments. The path to relief opens where the court has actually given an opportunity to be heard on a legal matter that has evidently been overlooked, and closes where the court has ruled on a legal matter it recognized as evidently overlooked without giving an opportunity to be heard. The six sections address, in turn, overlooked legal perspectives, the boundary with questions of fact, the opportunity to respond, the distinction from forecasting the conclusion, new perspectives and new claims, and the record of unexpected rulings. The strongest counterargument is as follows. If the court must hear the parties again for every new legal perspective, the trial will never end. Competing arguments over favorable and unfavorable precedents and self-representation in general are not addressed in this volume.
Synthetic case
The whole volume follows this invented case. It is not a real matter, and its facts are not legal findings.
Plaintiff A and Defendant B disputed only the performance of the contract, but the court intends to treat a different legal matter, overlooked by both sides, as the basis for its judgment.
6 sections and their questions
- 01Overlooked Legal Perspectives
When must the court give notice of a legal matter that the parties have not raised?
19 min - 02The Boundary with Questions of Fact
Does notice of a legal perspective amount to constructing facts on a party's behalf?
21 min - 03The Opportunity to Respond
Is an opportunity given merely by mentioning the name of a statute once?
19 min - 04The Distinction from Forecasting the Conclusion
Does asking for the parties' views promise a particular outcome of the trial?
20 min - 05New Perspectives and New Claims
Does a new legal perspective permit relief beyond what was sought?
18 min - 06The Record of Unexpected Rulings
What must exist before a deprivation of the opportunity can be argued?
22 min