Legal Reasoning: Applying Principles to Facts
What Legal Reasoning tests
CLAT legal reasoning presents a principle, a legal rule, and a factual situation; you must apply the rule, not moral opinion. Topics include constitutional law, contracts, torts, criminal law, family law, property, and intellectual property. Some questions test legal maxims or the scope of a statute.
Method
- Break the principle into elements. For negligence: duty, breach, causation, and damage.
- Match each fact to an element; missing elements usually defeat the claim.
- Distinguish ratio, the rule necessary to the decision, from obiter, a side observation.
- Read exceptions and defences as part of the rule.
- If the principle is given, decide only on those facts; do not add outside law.
Worked example
Principle: "An occupier of premises owes a lawful visitor a duty to take reasonable care to prevent foreseeable injury." Facts: A customer enters a shop; the floor is wet from cleaning; no warning sign is placed; the customer slips and breaks a wrist. Question: Is the shop liable? Reasoning: The customer is a lawful visitor. Cleaning creates a foreseeable slip risk. A reasonable occupier would warn or dry the floor; no warning means breach. The fall and fracture are the damage. All elements are met, so liability is likely. If the floor was wet from a hidden leak despite prompt cleaning, breach would be harder to show.
Traps
Do not decide from sympathy. Do not confuse criminal and civil consequences. Do not ignore a stated exception. Watch quantifiers: "must", "may", and "reasonable" change the standard. An answer that is legally true but unrelated to the facts is wrong.