  The main challenge for this account of precedent lies in explaining when a later court is bound to follow a precedent which it regards as having been incorrectly decided. In the case of the trust property, the later court may think the precedent court mistaken to have concluded that the recipient must return the property to the beneficiary. May a later court avoid the result of the precedent by pointing to any general factual difference between the cases (e.g. this is real property rather than personal property, this is an implied rather than an express trust), and distinguish the precedent by stating a narrower ratio?  After all, the balance of reasons never supported the precedent in the first place, so shouldn't it be confined to the narrowest possible statement of its facts?  In which case precedents seem to have very little binding force indeed.