Not so, however, when an advocate or a lower court judge can distinguish the instant case from the precedent case. Although it might be said that a binding precedent from a higher court simply obliges the lower court to follow it, it would be more accurate to say that a binding precedent obliges a lower court to follow it or to distinguish it from the instant case. In practice, a great deal of legal argument involves the attempt by one side to claim that some higher court case controls the result in the instant case, while the other side insists that there is a sufficient distinction between the two that the outcome in the precedent case need not be the outcome in the instant case.

Unknown, Frederick Schauer - Thinkin…, loc. 102