A match is a starting point
A close match can tempt you to copy an earlier decision. The hidden assumption is that similar descriptions imply the same decisive facts.
A bookmark helps you locate a passage, but it cannot establish whether the passage governs today’s problem. A retrieved precedent serves that locating function. Its usefulness depends on the rule, evidence and exceptions behind the recorded outcome.
One difference changes the answer
Consider an illustrative equipment grant rule: fund replacement when a machine is irreparable; exclude damage covered by insurance. An earlier application received funding for an irreparable, uninsured pump. A new application concerns the same pump model and repair estimate, but an insurer covers the damage. Copying the approval would bypass the exclusion. The precedent may help identify the relevant questions, yet it does not establish eligibility. One decisive difference outweighs several matching details.
Check what actually mattered
Before reusing a decision, write its operative rule as conditions and exceptions. Check which policy version governed it and whether that version applies now. For each decisive condition, record the corresponding fact in the new case and the evidence supporting it. Label missing facts as unknown. Then ask: would changing this fact reverse the outcome under the rule? Here, changing insurance coverage would. That practical check reveals why a similarity score alone cannot justify approval.
An unexplained outcome supplies too little reasoning to transfer.
Hypothetical boundary: delayed payment
An insurer has accepted the claim, but payment is delayed beyond the equipment replacement deadline. Financial urgency does not itself cancel the exclusion. Decision rule: if the current policy expressly permits temporary funding pending insurance payment, assess those additional conditions; if it excludes all insured damage, do not transfer the earlier approval.
If the wording or coverage status is unresolved, seek clarification before deciding. ABOLTUS is in development. These examples are illustrative reasoning exercises, not reported test results.