What Does the Legal Term Obiter Dicta Mean
obiter dictum, Latin for “what is said in passing,” a flippant statement. In particular, in the law, it refers to a passage of a judicial opinion that is not necessary for the resolution of the dispute pending before the court. Such statements have no precedent, but can still be important. Similar to obiter is the concept of semble (French Norman for “it seems”). In Simpkins v Pays (1955),[18][19] a grandmother, granddaughter and tenant participated in weekly contests in the Sunday Empire News. Each week, the three women made a prognosis together and contributed to the cost of admission; But it was the grandmother`s name that was on the right one. The grandmother received £750 in prizes and refused to share it with the other two. The subtenant successfully sued for one-third of the price; but Judge Sellers added that the granddaughter was also to receive £250, although she was not involved in the action. The obiter dicta of the U.S. Supreme Court can have an influence.
[10] [11] [3] [12] [13] An example in Supreme Court history is Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co. in 1886. A flippant remark by Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite, recorded by the court reporter before the hearing, now forms the basis of the doctrine that corporations are entitled to protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. Whether or not Chief Justice Waite`s remark sets a binding precedent is debatable, but subsequent judgments treat it as such. According to the doctrine of stare decisis, statements constituting obiter dicta are not binding, although they can be very convincing in some jurisdictions such as England and Wales. For example, in High Trees [5], Justice Denning not only granted the landlord`s application, but added that if the landlord had tried to recover the retroactive rent from the war years, the courts would have prevented him from doing so. Since the landlord did not want to recover the subsequent rent, Denning`s addition was clearly incidental, but this statement became the basis for the modern revival of the forfeiture of promissory notes. Similarly, in Hedley Byrne & Co Ltd v. Heller & Partners Ltd,[6] the House of Lords held that negligent misrepresentation could give rise to a claim for purely economic loss, even if an exclusion of liability on the basis of the facts was effective in dismissing any claim. Similarly, in Scruttons Ltd v.
Midland Silicones Ltd,[7] Lord Reid suggested that, although the doctrine of contract secrecy in this case prevented longshoremen from benefiting from the protection of an opt-out clause, such protection could be effective in the future if four directives (which he listed below) were all complied with. In Carlill v. Carbolic Smoke Ball Company[8][9] (a case where a woman who had used a smoked ball as prescribed could claim the advertised reward after a flu), Bowen told LJ: In college, we investigated an interesting case in which obiter dicta played a role. In Hammer v. Dagenhart in 1918, the Supreme Court ruled that manufacturing was not a form of interstate commerce, so Congress could not regulate it. About 20 years later, in United States v. Darby Lumber Co., the court cited Dagenhart`s dissenting opinion to rule that the earlier decision was erroneous. Since a company could not know where its products would end up, production was part of interstate trade. Thus, “incidentally” in one case led to a decision in another. Scientists Teresa Reid-Rambo and Leanne Pflaum of the University of Florida explain the process by which obiter dicta can become binding. You write this: A comment, suggestion or observation by a judge in an opinion that is not necessary for the resolution of the case, and as such, is not legally binding on other courts, but can always be cited as a persuasive authority in future litigation.
Also known as dictum, dicta and dicta judiciaire. A dissenting opinion is generally considered an obiter dictum. And msturner, didn`t we just know that someone would find a way to put production under the umbrella of interstate commerce? But your point is excellent; Obiter dicta cannot be ignored as irrelevant. Another way of saying obiter dicta is “by the way”. When a written opinion of the court is issued, it contains two elements: (1) ratio decidendi and (2) obiter dicta. Ratio decidendi is the Latin term meaning “the reason for the decision” and refers to statements about critical facts and the law of the case. These are crucial to the decision of the court itself. Obiter dicta are additional observations, remarks and opinions on other matters of the judge. These often explain the reasons for the court`s decision and, while they may provide guidance in similar cases in the future, they are not binding.
Our editors will review what you have submitted and decide if the article needs to be revised. If a court has several members and a dissent is expressed, the dissent itself also has the status of obiter dicta, since it is a statement by the court that has no official legal value. Although they have no legal weight in themselves, obiter dicta are sometimes cited in subsequent opinions and decisions, whether or not they are labelled as such. Obiter dicta are observations made by the panel of the judge or in writing by a judge, which may form part of an opinion or judgment, but which are not legally relevant in themselves; That is, the judgment or opinion in which they are contained would be autonomous without them. The term itself is Latin, the plural of obiter dictum, and is usually translated as “something said in passing”. These remarks, which are found in all but the shortest judicial declarations, are an integral part of global jurisprudence. Acme denied its request, stating that it had not responded with a message indicating that it had accepted the company`s terms and conditions for warranty services and was therefore not eligible. Julia filed a civil lawsuit to hold the company accountable for compliance with the warranty. In other cases, the obiter dicta may propose an interpretation of the law which has no bearing on the present case, but which could be useful in future cases.
[2] The most notable example of such an event is the story of the famous footnote 4 of United States v. Carolene Products Co. (1938), which, while opposing the use of the due process clause to block most laws, suggested that the clause could be used to remove laws dealing with “fundamental rights” issues. It is generally believed that this obiter dictum led to the doctrine of rigorous examination (and subsequently intermediate examination) in cases of racial, religious and sexual discrimination, first enunciated in Korematsu v. the United States (1944). Korematsu v. The United States itself was condemned by the same court in obiter dictum in Trump v. Hawaii (2018).
In this case, it is a defective device and its warranty, not a dog. The court`s analogy is obiter dicta, because it is not decisive for the court`s decision, but is given only as an explanation. If the dog analogy had been omitted, the court`s decision would be exactly the same. The arguments and reasoning of a dissenting judgment (as used in the United Kingdom[14] and Australia[15]) or a dissenting opinion (a term used by courts in the United States) are also obiter dicta. However, these could also be invoked if a court finds that its earlier decision was erroneous, as when the U.S. Supreme Court cited the dissent of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. in Hammer v. Dagenhart, when he overthrew Hammer in United States v. Darby Lumber Co.
Although they have no official legal weight, obiter dicta can have influence. For example, when imposing sentencing, a judge may point to certain elements of the crime or the convicted person`s background that warrant a harsh or lenient sentence. These statements are generally not necessary for sentencing and therefore constitute obiter dicta, but will be thoroughly examined in the future by prosecutors and defence lawyers who will present cases before this judge. Another example of the importance of obiter dicta is when the courts refuse to accept a case for lack of jurisdiction. After refusing to rule on the merits, the courts sometimes rule on the merits of the case. These remarks have no official status, but are nonetheless significant as official statements by the Court. If a court decides that it does not have jurisdiction to hear a case (or dismisses the case on the basis of a formality) but nevertheless issues opinions on the merits, these opinions may constitute obiter dicta. Other cases of obiter dicta may arise when a judge raises an obiter issue to provide context for the public or undertakes a thorough investigation into a relevant area of law. If a judge provides a hypothetical example as a clarification, it would be obiter, even if it were relevant, because it would not go into the facts of the case, as in the case of Carlill (below).
