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Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Category:Landmark cases

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The following discussion comes from Wikipedia:Categories for deletion. This is an archive of the discussion only; please do not edit this page. -Kbdank71 14:01, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

EDITOR SHOULD CONSIDER INCLUDING THE FOLLOWING CASES IN THIS SECTION: Henningsen v. Boomfield Motors (NJ, held implied warranty of fitness from defect); Baker v. Carr (TN Fed, one man one vote case, democratized state legislatures); Vandermark v. Ford and Greenman v. Yuba Power Co. (CA 1960s, first US Strict Liability Cases)

  • POV grouping of what are supposedly the most important court decisions. I can't fathom any clear criteria for inclusion/exclusion. Articles on court decisions are already properly categorized by the court and the subject matter and/or area of law; this adds nothing to that system. Postdlf 16:18, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Summary after 2 weeks — no consensus reached => move to /unresolved - further view added 22 Jun

  • 5 Delete: Jmabel; ZZyzx11; JamesMLane; Toytoy(1); cutler
  • 1 Keep: Gene Nygaard
  • 4 Move: Grutness; SchmuckyTheCat; Courtland; Toytoy(2)


  • Concur. And the decisions across different countries would be particularly impossible. Who is going to decide which Moldovan court decisions constitute landmark cases? Delete. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:47, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. This seems to be an inheritly POV grouping. What NPOV criteria are we going to use to judge what is a landmark? Zzyzx11 22:58, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Rename as Category:Legal precedents and populate accordingly. Grutness|hello? 00:24, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Rename iawtc Grutness. SchmuckyTheCat 03:26, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • 'Rename like Grutness.
    • Every case is a legal precedent unless it is reversed or overruled. Postdlf 01:22, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep To me, I'd expect "Landmark cases" to be a narrower category than the more vague and inclusive "Legal precedents." Gene Nygaard 18:56, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • Let me expand upon this idea a little bit. We can have a case which is "legal precedent" for the interpretation of some obscure section of the Internal Revenue Code. In other words, it is terminology that is generally used with regards to its applicability to a particular issue in a particular case. However, at least in North American English, the term "landmark case" implies some principle of more general applicability. If that term isn't understood outside North America, point that out and suggest any better alternative you might think of. Gene Nygaard 19:04, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
      • Hm. Interesting. That (surprise!) means that US English is the opposite of International/British English, where a Legal precedent is one which is a sspecific kind of landmark case relied upon for further judgements, whereas a landmark case is one which catches the attention of either the legal prfession (in that it sets a precedent) or the public (in that it is a cause celebre). Landmark case is by far the wider and more subjective category - Legal precedents are specific, well-defined cases. Grutness|hello? 02:46, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. Apparently the intention is to identify court decisions that are especially well-known, or especially important in the development of the law, but both of these alternatives are too subjective to be useful. That's particularly true in light of the problem of comparing decisions across multiple legal systems. JamesMLane 20:30, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Rename = Keep in agreement with User:Grutness above. I agree that a legal precedent in one country might likely be inapplicable to other countries' legal systems, but that should not stand in the way of highlighting cases within particular legal systems, as long as the scope of the precedence is included as part of the case article. Courtland 14:46, 2005 Mar 26 (UTC)
  • Delete or Rename to Landmark decisions in line with Landmark decision (which I was convinced to vote to keep instead of delete). Once again, all court decisions not reversed or overruled are legal precedents. "Legal precedents" is simply an awful name for the category. Postdlf 04:57, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete or Rename. I think the article Landmark decision is worthy to keep but this category is possibly not. You may selectively list several undisputed cases as examples of landmark decisions. It's another business to assign other marginal cases this attribute.In the end, it can be too POV. -- Toytoy 00:04, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)
  • Weak delete - cases should only have articles if notable so what is the difference between notable and landmark? Certainly, what is in there looks arbitrary. Entick v. Carrington is special but surely not Fagan. A possible criterion would be that a landmark article would have to have a section on significance that would have to embrace material of broader, not just legal, interest. On balance, I don't think that this can be made clear enough. Cutler 19:09, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)