ABSTRACT
Facts are thus essential in the common law process and small variations of status or context can make all the difference. In White v Jones,79 for example, the ratio decidendi does not, probably, extend beyond the fact of solicitor and beneficiary. Equally, as we have seen, in Spring v Guardian Assurance plc80 Lord Woolf emphasised that the views which he expressed were confined to the class of case with which he was dealing. And, although he appreciated that these views could be applied to analogous situations, he did not intend to express any opinion as to these situations, preferring to wait until a particular case was to come before the court. Rules, it would seem, remain firmly trapped within particular factual situations.81 Nevertheless, it is important to keep separate fact and law since the traditional distinction between questions of law and questions of fact is an essential and firmly established feature of the legal process in both civil and common law jurisdictions. Legal inquiries differ from factual inquiries because the former are governed by the need to find a decision based on normative (ought) criteria which will transcend the bare fact-finding inquiry.82
