Stare Decisis

What is stare decisis? Definition and two directions

Stare decisis comes from the Latin phrase stare decisis et non quieta movere, roughly "stand by things decided and don't disturb settled matters." In practice it means a court deciding a legal question looks first at how that question was answered before and follows the answer unless there's a strong reason not to.

Vertical stare decisis is close to absolute: a federal district judge can't ignore a Supreme Court ruling because she thinks it's wrong. Horizontal stare decisis is softer. The Supreme Court has said many times that stare decisis "is not an inexorable command" (Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U.S. 808 (1991)).

Here's how the vertical chain works in the federal system. A decision of a federal court of appeals binds the district courts in its circuit, but not courts in other circuits. When two circuits answer the same federal question differently, lawyers call it a circuit split, and splits are one of the main reasons the Supreme Court agrees to hear a case. State courts follow their own state supreme court on state law and the U.S. Supreme Court on federal law. Because the Supreme Court also has the final word through judicial review, its precedents sit at the top of the whole structure.

Why follow precedent at all?

Justice Louis Brandeis put the classic argument this way in 1932: "in most matters it is more important that the applicable rule of law be settled than that it be settled right" (Burnet v. Coronado Oil & Gas Co., 285 U.S. 393, dissenting). People plan their lives, contracts, and businesses around the law. If the rules flipped every time judges changed, nobody could rely on them.

• Predictability: lawyers can tell clients what the law probably is.
• Equality: like cases are treated alike.
• Efficiency: courts don't relitigate every question from scratch.
• Legitimacy: it signals that decisions rest on law, not on who is on the bench. That links stare decisis to the rule of law.

Precedent is a strange kind of promise. Judges who never met each other agree to be bound by decisions made decades apart. That chain of promises is a big part of what makes courts look like courts and not legislatures.

When does the Supreme Court overrule a precedent?

The Court has developed factors for deciding whether a past decision should go. In Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), the plurality asked about workability, reliance, doctrinal change, and changed facts. In Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, 597 U.S. 215 (2022), the majority listed five: the nature of the error, the quality of the reasoning, workability, the effect on other areas of law, and reliance interests.

Statutory precedents get extra protection. In Kimble v. Marvel Entertainment, 576 U.S. 446 (2015), Justice Kagan explained that when the Court interprets a statute, Congress can always fix it, so the Court should be slower to change course. She closed with a Spider-Man line: "with great power there must also come—great responsibility."

Famous overrulings: from Plessy to Chevron

1. 2003: Lawrence v. Texas overrules Bowers v. Hardwick (1986).
2. 2018: Janus v. AFSCME overrules Abood (1977) on public-sector union fees.
3. 2022: Dobbs overrules Roe v. Wade (1973) and Casey (1992).
4. 2024: Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo overrules Chevron (1984) on deference to agencies.

Some overrulings are now celebrated, like Brown v. Board of Education. Others remain bitterly contested, like Dobbs. That's exactly why people argue about how strong stare decisis should be: the same doctrine that would have preserved Plessy also protected Roe.

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Criticism: too rigid or too weak?

One critique says stare decisis locks in mistakes. If a decision misreads the Constitution, following it means the Court keeps applying something other than the Constitution. Justice Clarence Thomas has argued that the Court should not follow "demonstrably erroneous" precedents (concurring in Gamble v. United States, 2019).

The opposite critique says stare decisis has become too weak. If a new majority can overrule whatever it dislikes, precedent offers no stability and the Court looks political. Dissenters in Dobbs made this argument directly.

A middle view treats precedent as a strong presumption that can be overcome only by serious error plus low reliance costs. Most judges claim to hold some version of it; the fights are about applying it.

Every overruling is a small confession that the Court was wrong once. How often a court is willing to make that confession tells you a lot about how it sees its own authority.

U.S. vs. Korea: precedent in a civil law system

Korea follows the civil law tradition, where codes and statutes are the main source of law. There's no general statute making precedents binding on later cases. The Court Organization Act (법원조직법) Article 8 says a higher court's judgment binds lower courts only in that same case. Still, lower courts follow Supreme Court precedents in practice, and changing a Supreme Court precedent requires the full bench (전원합의체) under Article 7. Decisions of the Constitutional Court striking down a law bind courts and the state (Constitutional Court Act Article 47).

Don't confuse stare decisis with res judicata. Res judicata (기판력) stops the same parties from relitigating the same claim; stare decisis guides how courts decide other cases. The Korean side of res judicata is covered in Collection Suits and the Subjective Scope of Res Judicata in Korea: Comparison with Creditor Subrogation Suits.

What does stare decisis mean in simple terms?

It means courts follow earlier decisions on the same legal question, so similar cases get similar answers.

Can the Supreme Court overrule its own precedent?

Yes. It has done so many times, from Brown v. Board of Education to Dobbs and Loper Bright, but it says it needs a special justification.

Is stare decisis the same as res judicata?

No. Res judicata binds the parties in a decided case; stare decisis is about following precedent in future cases.

Do Korean courts follow precedent?

In practice, yes, but there's no general legal binding force, and the Supreme Court can change precedent through its full bench.

For a short comparison of precedent in common law and civil law, see Key Features of the Common Law System Compared with Civil Law: Precedent, Rule of Law, Jury Trials and Judicial Appointments.

References and official sources

1. Stare decisis, Wex. Cornell LII
2. Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, 597 U.S. 215 (2022). Supreme Court
3. Kimble v. Marvel Entertainment, LLC, 576 U.S. 446 (2015). Justia
4. Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U.S. 808 (1991). Justia
5. 법원조직법. 국가법령정보센터
6. Burnet v. Coronado Oil & Gas Co., 285 U.S. 393 (1932) (Brandeis, J., dissenting); Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 603 U.S. 369 (2024).