1. Restatements are primarily addressed to courts. They aim at clear formulations of common law and its statutory elements or variations and reflect the law as it presently stands or might appropriately be stated by a court.

a. Nature of a Restatement.Webster’s Third New International Dictionary defines the verb “restate” as “to state again or in a new form” [emphasis added]. This definition neatly captures the central tension between the two impulses at the heart of the Restatement process from the beginning, the impulse to recapitulate the law as it presently exists and the impulse to reformulate it, thereby rendering it clearer and more coherent while subtly transforming it in the process. 

The law of the Restatements is generally common law, the law developed and articulated by judges in the course of deciding specific cases. For the most part Restatements thus assume a body of shared doctrine enabling courts to render their judgments in a consistent and reasonably predictable manner. In the view of the Institute’s founders, however, the underlying principles of the common law had become obscured by the ever-growing mass of decisions in the many different jurisdictions, state and federal, within the United States. The 1923 report suggested that, in contrast, the Restatements were to be at once “analytical, critical and constructive.” In seeing each subject clearly and as a whole, they would discern the underlying principles that gave it coherence and thus restore the unity of the common law as properly apprehended. 

Unlike the episodic occasions for judicial formulations presented by particular cases, however, Restatements scan an entire legal field and render it intelligible by a precise use of legal terms to which a body reasonably representative of the legal profession, The American Law Institute, has ultimately agreed. Restatements—“analytical, critical and constructive”— accordingly resemble codifications more than mere compilations of the pronouncements of judges. The Institute’s founders envisioned a Restatement’s black-letter statement of legal rules as being “made with the care and precision of a well-drawn statute.” They cautioned, however, that “a statutory form might be understood to imply a lack of flexibility in the application of the principle, a result which is not intended.” Although Restatements are expected to aspire toward the precision of statutory language, they are also intended to reflect the flexibility and capacity for development and growth of the common law. They are therefore phrased not in the mandatory terms of a statute but in the descriptive terms of a judge announcing the law to be applied in a given case. 

A Restatement thus assumes the perspective of a common-law court, attentive to and respectful of precedent, but not bound by precedent that is inappropriate or inconsistent with the law as a whole. Faced with such precedent, an Institute Reporter is not compelled to adhere to what Herbert Wechsler called “a preponderating balance of authority” but is instead expected to propose the better rule and provide the rationale for choosing it. A significant contribution of the Restatements has also been anticipation of the direction in which the law is tending and expression of that development in a manner consistent with previously established principles. 

The Restatement process contains four principal elements. The first is to ascertain the nature of the majority rule. If most courts faced with an issue have resolved it in a particular way, that is obviously important to the inquiry. The second step is to ascertain trends in the law. If 30 jurisdictions have gone one way, but the 20 jurisdictions to look at the issue most recently went the other way, or refined their prior adherence to the majority rule, that is obviously important as well. Perhaps the majority rule is now widely regarded as outmoded or undesirable. If Restatements were not to pay attention to trends, the ALI would be a roadblock to change, rather than a “law reform” organization. A third step is to determine what specific rule fits best with the broader body of law and therefore leads to more coherence in the law. And the fourth step is to ascertain the relative desirability of competing rules. Here social-science evidence and empirical analysis can be helpful. 

A Restatement consists of an appropriate mix of these four elements, with the relative weighing of these considerations being art and not science. The Institute, however, needs to be clear about what it is doing. For example, if a Restatement declines to follow the majority rule, it should say so explicitly and explain why. 

An excellent common-law judge is engaged in exactly the same sort of inquiry. In the words of Professor Wechsler, which are quoted on the wall of the conference room in the ALI headquarters in Philadelphia: 

We should feel obliged in our deliberations to give weight to all of the considerations that the courts, under a proper view of the judicial function, deem it right to weigh in theirs. 

But in the quest to determine the best rule, what a Restatement can do that a busy common-law judge, however distinguished, cannot is engage the best minds in the profession over an extended period of time, with access to extensive research, testing rules against disparate fact patterns in many jurisdictions. 

Like a Restatement, the common law is not static. But for both a Restatement and the common law the change is accretional. Wild swings are inconsistent with the work of both a common-law judge and a Restatement. And while views of which competing rules lead to more desirable outcomes should play a role in both inquiries, the choices generally are constrained by the need to find support in sources of law. 

An unelected body like The American Law Institute has limited competence and no special authority to make major innovations in matters of public policy. Its authority derives rather from its competence in drafting precise and internally consistent articulations of law. The goals envisioned for the Restatement process by the Institute’s founders remain pertinent today: 

It will operate to produce agreement on the fundamental principles of the common law, give precision to use of legal terms, and make the law more uniform throughout the country. Such a restatement will also effect changes in the law, which it is proper for an organization of lawyers to promote and which make the law better adapted to the needs of life. [emphasis added]