In the English system of common law, judges have devised a number of mechanisms to allow them to cope with precedent decisions.
[2] In the search for justice and fairness, there is a tension between the needs for, on one hand, predictability and stability, and "up-to date law", on the other.
By contrast, the Court of Appeal is bound by its own decisions, although for a period Lord Denning, MR, acted as though it were not.
A particular example is the broad "neighbour principle", enunciated by Lord Atkin in Donoghue v Stevenson 1932, which has become the basis of the modern law of negligence.
If faced with a binding judicial precedent, a court has a number of ways to respond to it, and may use the following legal devices and mechanisms:[10]