By Kevin E. Noonan — Most judicial outcomes, particularly on appeal, are broadly based on varying combinations of process and outcome. The law is replete with process-based decisions (standing, jurisdiction, waiver, to name a few) and of course even more frequently perhaps coming to the “correct” outcome is a major decisive factor in a court’s opinions. Rarely are these two features of judicial consideration juxtaposed in opposition (albeit not so rarely that the aphorism that “hard cases make bad law” is not appreciated in practice) but such a case is illustrated in the Federal Circuit’s latest (and second) decision in…
