example citation for the paragraph some judges are also known to rule against precedent on principle a judge or even an interim appeal court may rule against a precedent that is outdated the judge may feel the decision needs to be overturned due to more sophisticated legal reasoning such a judge may wish to help the law evolve by ruling against precedent and thereby indirectly inducing a losing party to appeal the appeal court will then have an opportunity to review the lower court's decision and may adopt the lower court's reasoning thereby overturning previous case law this may also happen several times as the case works its way through intermediate appellate jurisdictions would it be an idea to provide an example a world famous example is the warren court's overturning of plessy v ferguson in brown v board of education