Q20 - Legal rules are expressed

[tamwaiman]

I don't understand what the argument expressed.
And can someone please tell me why (C) is wrong?
Thanks.

[giladedelman]

Thanks for your post.

The first thing to note is that this isn't actually an argument! The question asks us to find the statement that is most supported by the passage; in other words, we need to decide which answer choice is a valid inference. So this is not a matter of evaluating the logic of an argument.

Now, we're told that the decision on whether the facts of a case fall within certain categories, rather than any matter of fact, establishes the legal effect of what happened in a particular case.

(E) is correct, therefore, because if deciding whether the facts fit a category rather than any matter of fact is what counts, then it must be true that this decision is not a matter of fact.

For example, if I said I want to eat carrots rather than any fruit, it must be true that carrots aren't fruit. If I said I want to eat carrots rather than any vegetable, it wouldn't make sense -- I'd be contradicting myself!

(A) is incorrect because we are never told what matters of fact are concerned with. If it just said that legal rules are concerned with classifications of things such as actions, it would be a valid inference.

(B) is incorrect for basically the same reason: we don't know anything about how matters of fact can be expressed.

(C) is tempting, but it's "the decision on whether the facts of that case fall within the categories," specifically, that we know doesn't involve matters of fact. That isn't the same as saying that legal decisions in general don't involve matters of fact; we can't make that inference.

(D) is incorrect because the passage doesn't weigh in on who should apply the rules to cases.

Does that answer your question?

[tzyc]

I'm still confused by the wording(s)...they are kind of abstruct.
("A matter of fact", "any matter of fact", "category" etc...)
Could anyone provide examples of what it says??
Thanks.

[zainrizvi]

(C) is tempting, but it's "the decision on whether the facts of that case fall within the categories," specifically, that we know doesn't involve matters of fact. That isn't the same as saying that legal decisions in general don't involve matters of fact; we can't make that inference.

Would "In some cases, legal decisions do not involve matters of fact" be an appropriate answer? The only reason (C) is wrong is because the generalization from one case not having to involve matters of fact, to legal decisions in general is too big of a leap.

[cobyerez79]

"For example, if I said I want to eat carrots rather than any fruit, it must be true that carrots aren't fruit. If I said I want to eat carrots rather than any vegetable, it wouldn't make sense -- I'd be contradicting myself!"

PLEASE explain!

[schmid215]

The passage seems to suggest that legal decisions do "involve" matters of fact. They do not issue in matters of fact, because the categories are not objective, but they involve considerations of the "facts" before grouping them into a category. They "involve" matters of fact, therefore. (E), the correct answer, follows from the last sentence, the word "rather" being the key.

[cyt5015]

I'm still confused by the wording(s)...they are kind of abstruct.
("A matter of fact", "any matter of fact", "category" etc...)
Could anyone provide examples of what it says??
Thanks.

Let me try to clear things up a little bit.
Take felony case and civil case for example.
Here are two matter of facts: (1) A murdered B, (2) C refuses to return some cash borrowed from D.
First, we need to classify the persons and actions in order to see which legal category the two cases fall in, respectively.
"The application of a rule to a particular case, involves a decision on whether the facts fall within the categories in the rule". Does the fact (1) fall into felony case or civil case? What about the fact (2)?
The last sentence of the stimulus states that: This decision establishes the legal effect of what happened rather than matter of fact.
In this classification step, do we need to establish A really murdered B, or C factually refused to return the cash? No, not in this classification step. Therefore, classification "whether the facts of a case fall into a relevant category" is not itself a matter of fact.

A： wrong, matters of fact does not concern classification of things.
B: wrong, the stimulus does not say that matters of fact can be expressed in general term.
C: wrong, It does involve matters of fact, but does not establish matter of fact.
D. wrong, out of scope, the judge is not mentioned in the stimulus.

[ohthatpatrick]

I'll just quickly add some thoughts here, as this question seems to produce a lot of confusion.

I would think of "matter of fact" as something like:
Tommy knocked over the vase.

Now whether this was an accident or a malicious act of vandalism is not a matter of fact, since it requires someone (a judge, a jury, etc.) to make the decision on whether the facts fall within the category of vandalism.

The way I was understanding (E) was that "whether the facts of a case fall into a relevant category" is a decision. Decisions can go either way. They might be right, wrong, or somewhere confusingly in between. Facts cannot. They are only true. That's what makes them facts.

Only Tommy knows the FACT of whether he knocked over the vase accidentally or intentionally. But the people making the DECISION whether it was an accident or vandalism are interpreting/speculating/evaluating, not just registering the facts.

As to the confusion with (C), I think that "does not involve" is way too strong. In the example of Tommy, the people making a legal decision whether he is clumsy or a vandal are still considering the FACT that he knocked over the vase. So the decision, while not factual in nature, still involves matters of fact.

Hope this helps.

[Mab6q]

Let me just add this to show why some of you, including me, may have been confused and why the LSAT loves playing with word usage.


The last sentence says:

"this decision establishes the legal effect of what happened rather than any matter of fact.

Now, this is saying that the decision tells us the legal effect of what is happening, it (the decision) does not tell us any matter of fact.

However, if we add a comma after "happened", it could be interpreted differently.

"this decision establishes the legal effect of what happened , rather than any matter of fact.

Here, it is telling us that the decision is what establishes the legal effect; it's not the matter of fact that is establishing the legal effect.

It may seem confusing, but I think it is easy to mistake the two and the LSAT purposely made it that vague. If we to interpret it in the later way, C would be more tempting because it would seem that the author is telling us that the facts don't establish the legal effect. However that is not the case.

I'm pointing this out to show how important it is to correctly comprehend the stimulus.

[shmhf666]

This question is really hard and I just found what is really confusing about this question

Of course it's the last sentence and the way it is worded. However, the posts above really fall into two types of understanding of this question. the first is the phrase "rather than any matter of fact" relates to "this desicion" and the second understanding is that "rather than" part relates to "legal effects of what happened" part.

So the first understanding interprete the last sentence to mean: It is only the decision that establishs the legal effect of what happened and it is not any matter of fact that establishs the legal effect of what happened
the second understanding interprete the last sentence to mean: The decision establishs the legal effect of what happened,and doesn't establish any matter of fact(in other words ,what actually happened)

From thecorrect answer choiceE we can say that the writer of this question is using the first understanding and not the second.

Just my thoughts here.

[YajingW401]

I have some other thoughts about (C).

In the passage, it is defined that "The application of a rule to a particular case, therefore, involves a decision on whether the facts of that case fall within the categories mentioned in the rule. This decision establishes the legal effect of what happened rather than any matter of fact."

Clearly, "This decision" in the last sentence is a decision concerning how a rule is applied to certain case, which appearantly does not involve matters of fact, but it cannot be extended to that making any legal decision does not involve any matter of fact.

[AlexM563]

I ended up putting B because I assumed that in order to use legal rules, which are expressed in general terms, and deciding whether facts fall within categories of a legal rule, then shouldn’t some of the facts be able to be expressed in general terms as well? For instance, using the MoF that “Tom broke the vase”, we could reinterpret that MoF as “a guy broke an object”.

I read the previous comments though I am still confused.