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Page Number: 57

10 

LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO 

GORSUCH, J., concurring 

richer than what can be found in any single judge or panel 
of judges.”  Precedent 9. 

Doubtless,  past  judicial  decisions  may,  as  they  always
have, command “greater or less authority as precedents, ac-
cording to circumstances.”  Lincoln Speech 401.  But, like 
English judges before us, we have long turned to familiar 
considerations to guide our assessment of the weight due a
past decision.  So, for example, as this Court has put it, the 
weight  due  a  precedent  may  depend  on  the  quality  of  its 
reasoning, its consistency with related decisions, its worka-
bility,  and  reliance  interests  that  have  formed  around  it. 
See  Ramos,  590  U. S.,  at  106.    The  first  factor  recognizes
that the primary power of any precedent lies in its power to 
persuade—and poorly reasoned decisions may not provide 
reliable evidence of the law’s meaning.  The second factor 
reflects the fact that a precedent is more likely to be correct
and worthy of respect when it reflects the time-tested wis-
dom of generations than when it sits “unmoored” from sur-
rounding law.  Ibid.  The remaining factors, like workability 
and  reliance,  do  not  often  supply  reason  enough  on  their 
own to abide a flawed decision, for almost any past decision
is likely to benefit some group eager to keep things as they 
are and content with how things work.  See, e.g., id., at 108. 
But these factors can sometimes serve functions similar to 
the others, by pointing to clues that may suggest a past de-
cision is right in ways not immediately obvious to the indi-
vidual judge.

When  asking  whether  to  follow  or  depart  from  a  prece-
dent, some judges deploy adverbs.  They speak of whether 
or  not  a  precedent  qualifies  as  “demonstrably  erroneous,” 
Gamble  v.  United  States,  587  U. S.  678,  711  (2019) 
(THOMAS, J.,  concurring),  or  “egregiously  wrong,”  Ramos, 
590 U. S., at 121 (KAVANAUGH, J., concurring in part).  But 
the emphasis the adverb imparts is not meant for dramatic
effect.  It  seeks  to  serve  instead  as  a  reminder  of  a  more 
substantive lesson.  The lesson that, in assessing the weight