Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
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Cite as: 524 U. S. 236 (1998)

259

Scalia, J., dissenting

ness of overruling House, regardless of its virtue as an origi-
“[T]he burden borne by the party advocating
nal matter.
abandonment of an established precedent is greater where
the Court is asked to overrule a point of statutory construc-
tion.” Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U. S. 164,
172–173 (1989); see also Illinois Brick Co. v. Illinois, 431
U. S. 720, 736 (1977); Burnet v. Coronado Oil & Gas Co., 285
U. S. 393, 406 (1932) (Brandeis, J., dissenting). The Court
acknowledges this principle, but invokes cases of ours that
say that stare decisis concerns are “ ‘somewhat reduced’ ” in
the case of a procedural rule. Ante, at 251. The basis for
that principle, of course, is that procedural rules do not ordi-
narily engender detrimental reliance—and in this case, as I
shall discuss, detrimental reliance by the Congress of the
United States is self-evident.
In any event, even those
cases cited by the Court as applying the “somewhat reduced”
standard to procedural holdings still felt the need to set forth
special factors justifying the overruling. United States v.
Gaudin, 515 U. S. 506, 521 (1995), concluded that “the deci-
sion in question had been proved manifestly erroneous, and
its underpinnings eroded, by subsequent decisions of this
Court”; and Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U. S. 808, 828–830
(1991), noted that the overruled cases had been “decided by
the narrowest of margins, over spirited dissents challeng-
ing [their] basic underpinnings,” had been “questioned by
Members of the Court in later decisions,” and had “deﬁed
consistent application by the lower courts.”

The Court’s next excuse is that House was decided without
full brieﬁng or argument. The sole precedent it cites for the
proposition that this makes a difference is Gray v. Missis-
sippi, 481 U. S. 648, 651, n. 1 (1987). Gray, however, did not
deny stare decisis effect to an opinion rendered without full
brieﬁng and argument—it accorded stare decisis effect.
Id.,
at 666–667. What the Court relies upon is the mere dictum,
rendered in the course of this opinion (and dictum in a foot-
note, at that), that “summary action here does not have the