1. To note a significant factual, procedural, or legal difference in (an earlier case), usu. to minimize the case’s precedential effect or to show that it is inapplicable (the lawyer distinguished the cited case from the case at bar).
“In practice, courts do not concede to their predecessors the power of laying down very wide rules; they reserve to themselves the power to narrow such rules by introducing into them particular facts of the precedent case that were treated by the earlier court as irrelevant. This process is known as ‘distinguishing.’ ” John Salmond, Jurisprudence 192 (Glanville L. Williams ed., 10th ed. 1947).
2. To make a distinction (the court distinguished between willful and reckless conduct). — distinction, n.
