Are inferior courts bound by a decision of a minority of the Supreme Court judges? Say the Supreme Court of 5 judges (in New Zealand) makes a judgment. Two of the judges (minority, though one of them is the Chief Justice) express a separate opinion on a question of law. Are the inferior courts bound by that interpretation? Please also post answers for other jurisdictions (the principles would likely be very similar).
No Only the ratio decidendi of a case sets binding precedent. By definition, that has to be in the decision of the court’s majority because that’s what decided the case. If a minority decision disagrees with the majority on ratio, then the majority is the binding precedent. If the point is obiter, then it’s merely persuasive, not binding, irrespective of where it is.
A judge can ask any question of anyone in their courtroom. A judge can make any comments they like in their courtroom. They're a judge! What they can't do is exhibit bias or the apprehension of bias or take irrelevant matters into account in making judicial decisions. The judge may have a wide and deep knowledge of driving conditions in India, however, that is irrelevant to an alleged speeding offence in the United States. If it appears that the judge took this into account in their decision then there are grounds for an appeal. Similarly, if it appears that the fact that you are Indian and the judge displays bias against (or towards) Indians then that is also grounds for an appeal. An appeal court will look at the entire circumstances of the case to determine if the decision should be overturned including what was said, what the judge decided and the reasons for the decision in the written judgement (if any).
When the US Supreme Court "overturns" a precedent, it does not usually mean that every case which previously cited the older holding instantly vanishes or is upset. Indeed, often the older case is not truly overturned, but "distinguished", meaning the circumstances of the new case are different enough that the old rule does not apply. But, at least in theory, a case exactly similar to the old one would still follow the old rule. Sometimes such "distinguishing" cases pile up until nothing is left of the old rule. Even when one case overturns an earlier one more dramatically, it may not be instantly total. For example, West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish (1937) directly overturned Adkins v. Children's Hospital (1923) and by implication Lochner v. New York (1905) But the tide had started to turn against Lochner some years earlier in Nebbia v. New York (1934), and Lochner continued to be cited favorably in some cases until United States v. Carolene Products Co. (1938). In Lincoln Federal Labor Union v. Northwestern Iron &amp; Metal Co (1949) Justice Black (appointed 1937) wrote that the Lochner line of cases had been "repudiated". A more dramatic case of an overturned precedent was West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943) (the 2nd flag salute case) which directly ruled the exact opposite of Minersville School District v. Gobitis, 310 U.S. 586 (1940). The membership of the court was largely the same, and the time lapse quite short. The Court essentially changed its collective mind, largely adopting the view of the dissent in the earlier case. Another example of an extreme reversal is Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), which denied that any black could be a US citizen. This was overturned by the outcome of the US Civil War, and the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. In general when an earlier case is overruled, the change is not retroactive. Old cases are not undone. But new cases will be less likely to cite the overturned case (except possibly as a bad example), and it will no longer be considered good law to mandate a decision in a lower court. This is particularly true if several new cases, over a period of time, follow the new rule or principle.
This practice varies depending on the court and/or judge's own style preferences and is often a judgment call based on what the author is trying to communicate with a citation. I'll give a few reasons why a judgment might provide multiple layers of citations: because the &quot;deeper&quot; source is a well-used precedent for a particular point, so it is meaningful for readers to know that the shallower source cited the well-accepted leading case on an issue to show that a particular proposition has been long-accepted in a jurisdiction (your example might show that whatever proposition that is being cited has been used in this district over a 25-year period) to show that a decision from a lower-level court is consistent with historical jurisprudence or with higher-level jurisprudence One example: [12] It is common ground between the parties that reasonableness is the applicable standard of review for the Independent Chairperson’s decision. I agree (Perron v Canada (Attorney General), 2020 FC 741 (&quot;Perron&quot;) at para 45, citing Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65 (&quot;Vavilov&quot;) at para 23; see also Schmit v Canada (Attorney General), 2016 FC 1293 at paras 19-20, and the cases cited therein). Here, the author is trying to say this point is well settled. What is the standard of review for decisions of the Independent Chairperson? It is &quot;reasonableness.&quot; This was stated in Perron, which itself cited Vavilov, Canada's leading case (since 2019) on how to select the standard of review. It is important to know that Perron relied on Vavilov rather than an obsolete framework for selecting the standard of review. In your particular example, it seems that Albert E. Price, Inc. v. Metzner is or was a leading case in the 3rd Circuit on what constitues irreparable harm when seeking a preliminary injunction in copyright infringment cases (based on my very brief skim of how other judgments tend to use it). By noting that a judgment cited Metzner, this is a form of shorthand that is quite meaningful to practitioners in this area of law.
Generally speaking, courts take whatever time they need to write their decision and then release it close to immediately. In cases where a judge believes she has the information she needs, she may rule "from the bench," announcing a decision and entering an order for the parties to comply, and then follow up with a written order later. The research process is fairly open-ended, but legal research databases are pretty advanced, and a good researcher can generally get his hands on the vast majority of what he'll need in very short order. But practically speaking, there are few limits on how long that process takes. A litigant who was growing impatient could seek a writ of procedendo to force a court to move faster, but my experience indicates that most attorneys wouldn't attempt that move unless a decision had been pending for at least a year with no action, which would be unusual.
If this judge is truly biased, won't the litigants be all the more glad to have a jury of their peers? You are proposing to abandon your duty to others. At trial you serve the community, not the judge. Back on scope for Law SE: If you refuse to serve on a jury, that could be a separate offense or general criminal contempt, for which you (this all depends on your jurisdiction) could get 30-90 days in jail. Edit: like several others have pointed out, I would not expect much trouble if you politely told the court that you felt you would be biased b/c of past connections. Even if the judge doesn't dismiss you, one of the litigants is likely to strike you. P.S. In most states, no one except a prosecutor (sometimes another state employee) can "take someone" to a criminal court. Individuals can only take someone to civil trial, where one cannot be sentenced, only ordered to pay a judgement.
If the Supreme Court is the final authority The Supreme court is not the final authority. The Supreme Court is the court of last resort, but that does not prevent its case law from possibly being superseded or invalidated by constitutional amendments or the enactment of legislation. Wouldn't past and future courts be of equal authority No. Whether in the form of statutes or court decisions, laws are supposed to preserve ordered liberty. That entails the need to keep up-to-date with the state or evolution of civilization. If the Supreme Court case law --aka authorities-- were deemed inexorably perpetual, the entire judicial system would become imminently useless due to its inability to respond to new challenges [in the civilization] which are (1) encompassed by prior SC authorities, and yet (2) not properly assessed therein.
The interpretation of state rules of civil procedure is a matter purely for state courts. Whether a state procedural rule (or even substantive approaches to jurisdiction) violates federal law, including the U.S. Constitution, is a question of federal law, but state courts are still competent to answer such questions that arise in the process of state litigation, subject only to precedent from the Supreme Court of the United States. I may be starting to just repeat things now, but even if the legal issue you're interested in (the extent to which trial courts are divested of jurisdiction during non-frivilous interlocutory appeals in matters controlled by the FAA) is substantive or jurisdictional rather than procedural, Federal circuits do not bind state courts. However, the Supreme Court of the United States can provide binding prcedent on federal law that state courts must apply. I could see the reasons in Coinbase being written broadly enough to apply to both state and federal proceedings.