Opinion of the court

In law, a majority opinion is a judicial opinion agreed to by more than half of the members of a court. A majority opinion sets forth the decision of the court and an explanation of the rationale behind the court's decision.

Not all cases have a majority opinion. At times, the justices voting for a majority decision (e.g., to affirm or reverse the lower court's decision) may have drastically different reasons for their votes, and cannot agree on the same set of reasons. In that situation, several concurring opinions may be written, none of which is the view of a majority of the members of the court. Therefore, the concurring opinion joined by the greatest number of judges is referred to as the plurality opinion.

Normally, appellate courts (or panels) are staffed with an odd number of judges to avoid a tie. Sometimes and in some jurisdictions, when judicial positions are vacant or a judge has recused himself from the case, the court may be stuck with a tie, in which case the lower court's decision will be affirmed without comment by an equally divided court.

A majority opinion in countries which use the common law system becomes part of the body of case law.

There is a key stylistic difference between the United States on the one hand, and the United Kingdom and other common law countries on the other. In the United States, the disposition of an appeal in a majority opinion is usually drafted in the present tense, so that the disposition is itself a performative utterance. That is, a U.S. court will say that "we affirm (or reverse)" the lower court's decision, or, "the decision of the [lower court] is hereby affirmed (or reversed)." By saying so, the court does so.

In the United Kingdom and many other common law countries, the disposition in a majority opinion is phrased in the future tense as a recommendation. For example, the Justices of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom end a majority opinion by stating that "I would dismiss the appeal" or "I would allow the appeal," while the Justices of the High Court of Australia end a majority opinion by stating that "the appeal should be dismissed" or "the appeal should be allowed."

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