LEGAL PRINCIPLE: JUDICIAL PRECEDENT — Stare Decisis — Weight of Concurring Judgment
PRINCIPLE STATEMENT
A concurring judgment has equal weight with or as a leading judgment. It complements, edifies and adds to the leading judgment. In so far as a concurring judgment performs these functions, it has equal force with or as the leading judgment for stare decisis purposes. However, a concurring judgment must be in agreement with the leading judgment; one that does its own thing outside the leading judgment is not a concurring judgment but a dissenting judgment.
RATIO DECIDENDI (SOURCE)
"A concurring judgment, in my humble view, has equal weight with or as a leading judgment. A concurring judgment complements, edifies and adds to the leading judgment. It could at times be an improvement of the leading judgment when the justices add to it certain aspects which the writer of the leading judgment did not remember to deal with. In so far as a concurring judgment performs some or all the above functions, it has equal force with or as the leading judgment in so far as the principles of stare decisis are concerned. However a concurring judgment is not expected to deviate from the leading judgment. A concurring judgment, as the name implies, must be in agreement with the leading judgment. A concurring judgment which does its own thing in its own way outside the leading judgment is not a concurring judgment but a dissenting judgment."
EXPLANATION / SCOPE
This elevates concurring judgments to equal precedential weight with leading judgments for stare decisis purposes. A concurring judgment complements, edifies, and adds to the leading judgment, and may even improve upon it by addressing aspects the leading judgment omitted. However, a true concurring judgment must agree with the leading judgment’s conclusion and reasoning; any deviation makes it a dissent, not a concurrence. This serves: recognizing the collective wisdom of multi-judge panels, giving full effect to all justices’ reasoning, and preventing selective reliance on only the lead judgment. This prevents: dismissing concurring opinions as mere surplusage, treating lead judgment as the sole binding precedent, and ignoring valuable legal analysis in concurrences. The court cannot: disregard a concurring judgment’s reasoning while following the lead judgment, or treat a judgment that disagrees with the lead as a concurrence. Effect: Lower courts may rely on reasoning from any concurring judgment that agrees with the lead judgment, as such concurrences carry equal precedential force.