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Montana senator proposes bill to clarify courts should treat legislative changes as controlling over prior case law
Summary
Sen. Daniel Emmerich told the House Judiciary Committee that Senate Bill 286 would instruct courts to give effect to subsequent legislative changes when litigating statutes previously interpreted by case law. Opponents raised separation-of-powers concerns and asked for citations showing the problem the bill would address.
Sen. Daniel Emmerich, R-Great Falls, told the House Judiciary Committee that Senate Bill 286 would clarify that when the Legislature later amends an interpreted statutory provision, courts should treat that legislative change as controlling for purposes of litigation over the statute.
The measure, Emmerich said, adds a new section on “case law applicability” instructing courts that the “precedential value of court decisions interpreting a statute yield to the subsequent legislative action on the interpreted statutory provisions.” He said the aim is to make clear that courts should relitigate the statute as written after a legislative change rather than relying primarily on earlier precedents when…
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