Many scholars say there is an important place in Supreme Court jurisprudence for incremental rulings, purposeful ambiguity and the delegation of discretion to lower court judges.
Throughout the litigation, government officials have repeatedly appealed incremental rulings in the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court.
THE Supreme Court decides one case at a time, and its jurisprudence is the sum of incremental and sometimes inconsistent rulings driven by quirky facts and shifting judicial alliances.
Sunstein favors justices like Stephen Breyer and Sandra Day O'Connor, whom he characterizes as minimalists: judges who "believe in narrow, incremental decisions, not broad rulings that the nation may later have cause to regret".
And as an activist committed to the audacious goal of full equality for LGBT Americans, I am celebrating today's rulings as incremental victories toward that not-yet "mission accomplished" goal.
The Supreme Court ruling, KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc essentially ruled that "obvious" patents those incremental or logical ideas that are almost certain to pop up in the natural course of innovation, can't be hoarded.
Most commentators are portraying the ruling as another incremental curb on capital punishment.
"[The ruling] eliminates the incremental, terribly costly and slow-moving approach they have been subjected to," says Michael Gardner, a telecom lawyer in Washington.
While I don't expect any sort of big major consolidation due to these rulings, I would expect incremental consolidation by the largest owners of television stations.
In a country that fears anything other than controlled and incremental change in the interests of the ruling party, we should not hold our breath.
