A court decision is a legal determination of rights and obligations reached by the court in a case. Decisions can be written or oral. They can deal with a wide variety of issues and are based on the law of the land and specific facts of a particular case. Decisions are one of the most important sources of law in our system, along with statutes and regulatory enactments. Court decisions, or “rulings”, establish the law in a manner that is consistent and predictable. They create and build upon rulings, or “holdings”, made in other cases which are known as precedent.
A Supreme Court case involves the specific facts and law of a particular situation. The outcome of the case determines a number of things including how the law should be applied in future cases. This is referred to as the “rule of law.”
Justices will often write an opinion that sets out their reasoning on a particular case. The majority or principal opinion is usually published together with any concurring or dissenting opinions. The Court may also write “per curiam” opinions that do not identify the authors. These are most commonly issued to resolve cases that have not been argued or to dispose of an application for relief by a party, such as an appeal or rehearing petition.
The decisions of the Court are prefaced by a brief document called a syllabus prepared by the Reporter of Decisions. The syllabus provides a summary of the background facts of the case, outlines the conclusions of the Court’s decision and some of its reasoning. It also lists the opinions in the case, noting the Justices who wrote each. Sometimes a decision will be written by less than five Justices, which means it is a plurality opinion.
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