Brandeis Rules Law and Legal Definition
Brandeis rules are a set of seven principles put forward by Justice Brandeis's in Ashwander v. TVA, 297 U.S. 288 (U.S. 1936). These rules provide an outline of the U.S. Supreme Court's policy of deciding constitutional questions. The rules include the policy that the court should not decide a constitutional question in a friendly suit, should not anticipate a question of constitutional law, should not create a rule of constitutional law that is broader than that called for by the facts of the case, should not decide a constitutional issue if the case can be decided on another ground, should not rule on the constitutionality of a statute unless the plaintiff is harmed by the statute or if the plaintiff has accepted the benefits of the statute, and should not rule on the constitutionality of an act of Congress without first analyzing whether the act can be fairly construed in a way that would avoid the constitutional question.