A successful litigant complaining of bias Are there any cases (from any jurisdiction) in which a successful litigant complained of bias? As in, even while the decision below was favourable to them, they are still aggrieved that a particular judge did not recuse themselves.
When a judge decides a case there will be An order - e.g. &quot;Smith shall pay Jones £100,000&quot; Reasons for the decision - i.e. a description of the evidence, and the judge's findings of fact and legal reasoning. Sometimes a party, even though they have completely won, is nevertheless aggrieved by some things the judge has said in the Reasons (or in the way the judge has handled the trial - e.g. the judge's interventions). For example the judge may have said that the winning party was not a credible witness but they nevertheless won because of the evidence of other witnesses who were found to be credible. The rule in England and Wales is that you can only appeal orders. So if the order is completely in your favour you cannot appeal just because you don't like the reasons.
Assuming that privilege applies, no Not all communications with your lawyer trigger privilege and if it doesn’t then the lawyer is not your lawyer and is under the same obligation to report as any other member of the public. If privilege does apply then they must keep your secrets. If they are defending you and you confess to the crime then they can: represent you if you plead guilty withdraw unless that would prejudice your defence continue to act providing that they do not: suggest someone else committed the offence set up a defence inconsistent with the confession they can: argue the prosecution has not made their case, that you are not guilty of the offence charged by reason of law, or argue for any other (non prohibited) reason that you should not be convicted.
If 'literally 300' attorneys declined your case on the basis of a phone call, without looking into the details, I can see three options: You are unable to communicate the nature of your case clearly. In this posting, you mentioned complaints against a company, a municipality, and a landlord, plus being evicted. Focus on explaining one case. If you think you 'know for a fact' that you have several big payouts coming, there is the first problem. Nobody knows what a jury will decide. An attorney might hesitate to work for a client who does not understand this. Litigation is always a risk. All your cases actually lack merit, a lawyer sees this and you do not. Not knowing the cases, I cannot tell. (And no, you should not explain them in detail on the web. If they do have merit, posting your strategy hurts the cases.) Your state has a vexatious litigant list and you are on it. That would not prevent an attorney from taking your case, but it might make them hesitate.
Yes, you can appeal Deciding that an issue is moot is a matter of law. Issues of law are apealable. So, from your example, if the evidence showed that the tenant was still at the premises and, for whatever reason, the court misinterpreted or misunderstood that evidence, then there would clearly have been an appealable error of law in deciding that the issue was moot. However, if the evidence showed the tenant had left the premises and the court decided on that basis the case was moot they would have clearly been right and an appeal would fail.
I haven't reviewed the filings, but I can tell you that it's perfectly routine for lawyers to describe the other side's position as &quot;plainly without merit,&quot; with no regard for the actual merits. The lawyer's job is to make his client look good, in court and in public; the existence of this question shows that he's doing a good job at least on the latter half of that equation. But in truth, it's such a generic thing to say that no lawyer who hears it will actually think it means anything. In all likelihood, the filing is like most others, in that it makes a good case on some points and a bad case on others, and the opposing lawyer's job is to argue that all of them are bad. In the rarer case that a filing is actually &quot;plainly without merit,&quot; courts can and sometimes do impose penalties under Rule 11, which allows for sanctions against parties and attorneys who make factual assertions that are not supported by reality or arguments that are not supported by the law.
In brief: In common law systems, are there specific laws? Yes. Are they written down? Yes, here are the laws of Australia and New Zealand. Or are there only previous court rulings? No. Elaboration: Broadly (and rather vaguely) speaking there are 3 sources of law in a common law jurisdiction: Statute law which consists of the Acts passed by the legislature Administrative law which consists of the rules and regulations made by the administrative arm of government under the powers granted them by the constitution or delegated by the legislature Case law which consists of the decisions made by the courts; this can be decisions based on Long-standing precedents whose origins are lost in the mists of time Interpretations of statute and administrative law It is important to remember that the courts only get involved to resolve conflicts (civil or criminal) - they do not unilaterally make decisions on the law. Judges (if they are wise) never give opinions on the law - that is the role of solicitors and barristers who are the paid advocates of the parties. The role of a judge is to decide how the law fits the circumstances of the particular case before them. To do this they interpret the statutes, administrative rules and decisions made by other judges on similar cases. The decision of a superior court is binding on a subordinate court, persuasive on an equivalent court or a court in a parallel jurisdiction and subject to review by a superior court. The overwhelming majority of cases do not make new case law - most of the arguments in court are about why (or why not) the established law applies to the current facts; they are not about what the law is. Occasionally a decision will be made that modifies the previous interpretation or even more rarely represents a paradigm shift - those are the cases that matter!
united-states Procedures differ on such things. The closest I know of to an outcome of "not enough evidence" is the classic "scotch verdict" of "Not Proven. In the US, the prosecutor can wait to proceed with a criminal case while s/he does (or has done) as much investigation as s/he thinks is advisable. But once the trial starts, it normally proceeds to a conclusion. If there is not enough evidence to convict, the result should be "not guilty" and that will bar any future trial of the same person for the same offense under the doctrine of Double Jeopardy. Circumstantial evidence, as described in the question, can be enough to convict, if the jury (or judge in a bench trial) is convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused is guilty. Exactly how much evidence it takes to convince a Jury varies, and there is not a clear standard other than the phrase " beyond a reasonable doubt". The judge, or a later appeals court, can set aside a jury verdict for insufficient evidence, but only by finding that no reasonable jury could have convicted on the evidence pre3sented, taking it in the light most favorable to conviction. Judges are reluctant to set aside jury verdicts unless they appear badly wrong. If further evidence is found during the trial, which tends to show the accused is not guilty, the prosecutor can request that the trial be halted. This may or may not bar a future re-trial of the same defendant, depending on whether the dismissal is 'without prejudice", a decision the Judge makes. But once evidence has been started to be presented, dismissals are usually "with prejudice" meaning that double jeopardy applies. The defense can also request a dismissal, most often at the end of the prosecution case. In rare circumstances the Judge may dismiss without a request from either prosecution or defense. These will most often be "with prejudice" It is possible for the trial to be recessed while new evidence is evaluated or sought, but this is rare and usually only for a short time -- a day or two, perhaps. In general a prosecutor is not supposed to schedule a trial if there is any reasonable chance of additional evidence coming to light. It can and does happen, but the system tries to avoid it, and does not easily accept that it has happened. This answer is US-Specific, and different answers may apply in other places.
The core principle of stare decisis is that the law should not depend on what judge you got; two cases with the same facts should have the same outcome. In the common-law tradition, there weren't really written statutes; there was only "what's been done in the past," and so the only reference you'd have to what the law should be in some situation is past court decisions. If judges didn't have some constraints to rule similarly to before, there really wouldn't be any legal standards (because there was no written law to go back to; in civil-law countries, there always has been a written law, so precedent isn't so important). Stare decisis doesn't actually directly stop a judge from entering a decision that goes against binding precedent. However, judges are expected to obey precedent, and for the most part do what they're supposed to do. If they don't, the case will likely be reversed on appeal. Binding precedent only applies within the area a court serves; a court doesn't have to listen to precedent from a different court that has nothing to do with the case. The rule is that precedent from any court up the appeals chain is binding; federal district courts are bound by their circuit court and SCOTUS, state courts are bound by higher state courts and SCOTUS (but not other federal courts, as the case can't be appealed to them). A court can sometimes overrule its own precedent, but the cases where it can do that are rare (and so applying a higher court's precedent can also be viewed as "if you appeal to them they'll say X, so we're saying X.")