The supreme court of the United States has overruled its own precedents in some in stances, notably on the question of the ex tent of admiralty jurisdiction and in the legal tender cases.
It has been said that the judgment of an equally divided court has no weight as a precedent; Bridge v. Johnson, 5 Wend. (N. Y.) 372; Kalamazoo v. Crawford, 154 Mich. 58, 117 N. W. 572, 16 Ann. Cas. 110; Ilani fen v. Armitage, 117 Fed. 846 ; see cases in 7 Am. & Engl. Encycl. of Pr. 44; so held of a judgment of the supreme court ; Kinney v. Conant, 166 Fed. 720, 92 C. C. A. 410; and does not even settle the question of law ; Bridge v. Johnson, 5 Wend. (N. Y.) 372; but a judgment affirmed by a divided court in the house of lords is a binding precedent ; 9 H. L. Cas. 338.
Instances of a lower court disregarding the decision of a higher court will be found in L. R. 2 Eq. 335, where a case formerly decided by Lord Westbury was disregarded because he had decided it in ignorance of a statute, and in L. R. 3 Ch. 420, where the lord chancellor made a ruling as to the abate ment of legacies, which was nothing more than a blunder, and was subsequently disre garded by the vice-chancellors.
It is the duty of the court to reconcile de cisions and, in order to enforce the correct doctrine, to determine which rest upon the right principle and to overrule or qualify those conflicting therewith; White, C. J., in Ex parte Harding, 219 U. S. 363, 31 Sup. Ct. 324, 55 L. Ed. 252, 37 L. R. A. (N. S.) 392. • "General expressions in any opinion are to be taken in connection with the case in which those expressions are used. If they go beyond the case, they may be respected, but ought not to control the judgment in a subsequent suit where the very point is pre sented for decision." Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. (U. S.) 399, 5 L. Ed. 257. Per Marshall, C. J., quoted In U. S. v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U. S. 679, 18 Sup. Ct. 456, 42 L. Ed. 890; Harriman v. Securities Co., 197 U. S. 291, 25 Sup. Ct. 493, 49 L. Ed. 739.
A judicial decision is an authority only in connection with the facts of the cause, and not for a position referred to by way of il lustration of what is not decided because not involved in the case; Jones-L. Co. v. R. Co.,
148 N. C. 580, 62 S. E. 101.
The opinion must be read as a whole in view of the facts on which it is based. The facts are the foundation of the entire struc ture, which cannot with safety be used with out reference to the facts; U. S. v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U. S. 649, 679, 18 Sup. Ct. 456, 42 L. Ed. 890.
" . . There are two observations of a general character which I wish to make, and one is to repeat what I have often said before, that every judgment must be read as applicable to the particular facts proved, or assumed to be proved; since the generali ty of the expressions which may be found there are not intended to be expositions of the whole law, but governed and qualified by the particular facts of the case in which Such expressions are to be found. The other is that a case is only an authority for what it actually decides. I entirely deny that it can be quoted for a proposition that may seem to follow logically from it. Such a mode of reasoning assumes that the law is necessarily a logical code, whereas every lawyer must acknowledge that the law is not always logical at all." Per Lord Hals bury, L. C., in [1901] A. C. 506.
"A proposition assumed or decided by the court to be true, and which must be so as sumed or decided in order to establish an other proposition which expresses the con clusion of the court, is as effectually passed upon and settled in that court as the very matter directly decided." Trustees of School Dist. No. 28 v. Stocker, 42 N. J. L. 115.
"It is a mistaken opinion that nothing is decided in a case except the result arrived at. All the propositions assumed by the court to be within the case, and all the ques tions presented and considered, and deliber ately decided by the court, leading up to the final conclusion reached are as effectually passed upon as the ultimate questions solv ed." Brown v. R. Co., 102 Wis. 137, 77 N.