In this task, you will be shown a prompt from a judicial decision and multiple holding statements derived from citations following text in a legal decision.  Holdings represent the governing legal rule when the law is applied to a particular set of facts. There are five answer choices for each citing text. The correct answer is the holding statement that corresponds to the citing text. The four incorrect answers are other holding statements. You should find the correct option. There is a <HOLDING> token in the position of the citing text prompt where the holding statement was extracted.

Ex Input:
expenses related to the children’s needs at the time of the hearing. The trial court made numerous, in-depth findings regarding the children’s accustomed standard of living, the needs of the children, and the variance between the expenses incurred by defendant on behalf of the children and expenses incurred by plaintiff on behalf of the children. These findings are sufficient to support the trial court’s conclusion that the Pataky presumption was rebutted. Although in most cases, the custodial parent obtains an increase in child support, a court has discretionary authority to enter an order establishing child support in an amount less than the amount established by a separation or child support agreement. See Bottomley v. Bottomley, 82 N.C. App. 231, 234-35, 346 S.E.2d 317, 320 (1986) (<HOLDING>). We hold the trial court did not abuse its 
 Holding statements: (A) holding provision in contempt order void because it punished relator for violating order that trial court lacked authority to enter (B) holding that it was error for the trial court to determine the issue of child support without a child support guidelines worksheet (C) holding trial court had discretionary authority to enter order setting child support amount as less than that provided for in the parties separation agreement (D) holding the court has the inherent authority to enter an order of confidentiality (E) holding that an order that determines only the right to attorneys fees without setting the amount is a nonappealable nonfinal order

Ex Output:
(C)


Ex Input:
Legislative acts are those which involve policy-making decision of a general scope or, to put it another way, legislation involves line-drawing. Where the decision affects a small number or a single individual, the legislative power is not implicated, and the act takes on the nature of administration. In addition, the act must be “procedurally” legislative, that is, passed by means of established legislative procedures. This principle requires that constitutionally accepted procedures of enacting the legislation must be followed in order to assure that the act is a legitimate, reasoned decision representing the will of the people which the governing body has been chosen to serve. E.g., Immigration & Naturalization Service v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919, 103 S.Ct. 2764, 77 L.Ed.2d 317 (1983) (<HOLDING>). Thus, the procedure the legislature follows 
 Holding statements: (A) holding on the merits that the existence of an unexercised legislative veto provision in a statute would render invalid actions taken under the statute unless the legislative veto provisions were severable from the portion of the statute pursuant to which the challenged actions were taken (B) holding that legislative consent to suit must be by clear and unambiguous language in either a statute or by other express legislative permission (C) holding onehouse legislative veto unconstitutional (D) holding that determining legislative intent is a question of law (E) holding acts of voting to be quintessentially legislative and the introduction of a budget to be formally legislative

Ex Output:
(C)


Ex Input:
Perkins’ testimony were not prejudicial in these circumstances. D. Downward Departures Kornegay claims that the district court erroneously denied him a downward departure on either of two bases. Both departure arguments relate to the 14-month state drug conviction sentence which Kornegay served after the drug deal at issue in this case but before he was indicted. The first ground for departure was premised on the government’s delay in prosecuting Kornegay in order to protect Chaney from being detected as an informant. Kornegay argued that this delay foreclosed the possibility of his federal sentence running concurrently with his state sentence and that a departure should be granted so that he would not be prejudiced. See United States v. Saldana, 109 F.3d 100, 104 (1st Cir.1997) (<HOLDING>). The district court declined to grant the 
 Holding statements: (A) holding that although the defendant was paroled rather than released unconditionally his state sentence was discharged for purposes of deciding whether the federal judge could impose a concurrent sentence (B) holding that prosecutorial delay that was extreme or sinister could support a departure if the defendant was required to serve a state sentence which could have been concurrent with the federal sentence had the federal prosecution proceeded sooner (C) holding that a federal sentence commences when the attorney general receives the convicted defendant into custody for service of that sentence (D) holding that the defendant was entitled to counsel when the offense for which he was tried could result in the imposition of a jail sentence (E) holding that federal and state courts have concurrent jurisdiction over  1983 claims

Ex Output:

(B)