Case of first impression
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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A case of first impression (known as primae impressionis in Latin) is a legal case in which there is no binding authority on the matter presented. A case of first impression may be a case of first impression in only a particular jurisdiction. In that situation, courts will look to holdings of other jurisdictions for persuasive authority.
Where no persuasive authority exists, a judge will look to legal analogies, legal commentary, legal briefs of the parties, and his or her own legal logic.
In some situations, a case of first impression may exist in a jurisdiction until a reported appellate court decision is rendered.
For example, when e-mail came to be used in business settings, if some party was sued by another, at some point someone would use the contents of some of the e-mails as evidence in their case. The other side may challenge the use of e-mail in such a case, questioning the validity of the material in question (e-mail, like any electronic document, can be easily fabricated; in fact, absent the use of cryptographic techniques such as digital signatures, it is far easier to forge e-mail than paper documents). Now, the first court to be asked whether e-mail is valid as evidence would be seeing the question as one of first impression.
