24.  For those of us whose role is to apply the law as laid down by the Supreme Court, the practical significance of all this is that the court has not, in any majority judgment, endorsed the views expressed in the third edition but, rather, has rejected them although without mentioning the work.

25.  This rather confus­ing debate as to which academic pro­nouncement should be taken as stating the law may illustrate the wisdom of the rule, enforced with few exceptions in our courts until 20 or so years ago but now largely forgotten, that no refer­ence is to be made to the works of living authors.  By discouraging counsel from relying on textbooks and articles, the court may on occasion have deprived itself of an illuminat­ing opinion or analysis.  But the rule did bring home to all con­cerned that the law is to be found in the statute or in the cases ─ not in the opinions of authors or editors of textbooks or articles.

 

28.  I would not wish my somewhat critical treatment of [author's] work to be understood as suggesting that it is not a valuable contribution to the literature.  It is clearly a work of scholarship ─ one which can be of benefit to any of us who must struggle with the difficulties of statu­tory construction.  As such, it is much more a work of opinion and is much more controversial than we have been accustomed to in this area. ...  On the other hand, we could all benefit from reading the work in its entirety.

The judge writing the passage suggests that it was not until the 1970s that the "don't cite the living" rule was finally interred. I've heard (maybe apocryphal stories) of senior, older, judges asking about the health of the author of some work into the late 1970s.