Opinion ID: 172601
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Thiessen is controlling.

Text: Weyerhaeuser insists that Thiessen 's statements that the pattern-or-practice framework applies to ADEA claims are merely dicta that we need not follow here. It invokes the principle that a panel of this [c]ourt is bound by a holding of a prior panel of this [c]ourt but is not bound by a prior panel's dicta. Bates v. Dep't of Corr., 81 F.3d 1008, 1011 (10th Cir.1996); see also United Food & Commercial Workers Union, Local 1564 v. Albertson's, Inc., 207 F.3d 1193, 1199 (10th Cir.2000) (Questions which merely lurk in the record, neither brought to the attention of the court nor ruled upon, are not to be considered as having been so decided as to constitute precedents.) (internal quotation marks omitted). We disagree. Dicta are `statements and comments in an opinion concerning some rule of law or legal proposition not necessarily involved nor essential to determination of the case in hand.' Rohrbaugh v. Celotex Corp., 53 F.3d 1181, 1184 (10th Cir.1995) (quoting Black's Law Dictionary 454 (6th ed.1990)); see also Michael Abramowicz and Maxwell Stearns, Defining Dicta, 57 Stan. L.Rev. 953, 1065 (2005) (concluding that [a] holding consists of those propositions along the chosen decisional path or paths of reasoning that (1) are actually decided, (2) are based upon the facts of the case, and (3) lead to the judgment. If not a holding, a proposition stated in a case counts as dicta.). Under that definition, Thiessen 's statement that the pattern-or-practice framework applies to ADEA claims is a holding, not a lurking proposition. In particular, that determination was necessarily involved and essential to the determination of the case in hand. Rohrbaugh, 53 F.3d. at 1184 (quoting Black's Law Dictionary 454 (6th ed.1990)). The Thiessen panel concluded that the district court's decertification of the plaintiff class constituted an abuse of discretion because the plaintiffs were proceeding under a pattern or practice framework. Necessarily involved and essential to th[at] determination is the associated conclusion that the pattern-or-practice framework is proper in ADEA cases. Id. Moreover, our review of the parties' briefs in Thiessen indicates that the application of the pattern-or-practice framework to ADEA claims was specifically addressed there. The Thiessen plaintiffs urged the application of the Teamsters pattern-or-practice framework, see Aplt's Br. at 57, Reply Br. at 33, Thiessen (No. 98-3203), while the defendant employer argued that the application of that framework would violate its due process rights, see Aple's Br. at 33-34, Thiessen (No. 98-3203) (contending that the bifurcated trial scheme contemplated by ... Teamsters is constitutionally questionable in the context of a jury trial). Weyerhaeuser observes that neither Thiessen nor Sandia Corp. addressed many of the particular challenges to the application of the pattern-or-practice framework that it seeks to advance here. For example, in its opening brief in this case, Weyerhaeuser invokes parts of the ADEA's legislative history, see Aplt's Br. at 15-22, and there is no discussion of that history in our two earlier cases. That argument is also unavailing. The fact that our earlier decisions do not address particular arguments that Weyerhaeuser now advances does not transform the legal conclusions that we reached in those cases from holdings into dicta. The gist of Weyerhaeuser's arguments is that, in applying the pattern-or-practice framework to ADEA claims, Thiessen and Sandia Corp. were wrongly decided. Absent an intervening Supreme Court or en banc decision justifying such action, we lack the power to overrule our own precedent. United States v. Hernandez-Rodriguez, 352 F.3d 1325, 1333 (10th Cir.2003). In our view, Weyerhaeuser's expansive view of what constitutes dicta is founded upon an untenable theory of stare decisis. As the Eleventh Circuit has observed, [u]nless and until the holding of a prior decision is overruled by the Supreme Court or by the en banc court, that holding is the law of this Circuit regardless of what might have happened had other arguments been made to the panel that decided the issue first. Cohen v. Office Depot, Inc., 204 F.3d 1069, 1076 (11th Cir.2000) (emphasis added).