Justice Elena Kagan has been a strong defender of precedent on the Supreme Court, and her opinions often emphasize the importance of stare decisis, the principle that courts should generally not overturn their earlier rulings unless there is a very good reason to do so.
In a 2022 appearance at the University of Pennsylvania, Kagan cited her 2015 opinion in Kimble v. Marvel Entertainment, LLC as one she had “thought about a lot over the years.” The case was a relatively obscure one, arising from a dispute over royalties from a Spider-Man toy patent, but Kagan’s opinion for the majority is notable for its discussion of stare decisis.
Kagan called stare decisis “a foundation stone of the rule of law” and concluded that “what we can decide, we can undecide. But stare decisis teaches that we should exercise that authority sparingly.”
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Kagan has dissented in cases where the court has overturned precedent, including Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, in which the court overruled the 1977 decision in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education. Kagan wrote that “Rarely, if ever has the Court overruled a decision—let alone one of this import—with so little regard for the usual principles of stare decisis.”
Kagan has also dissented in Knick v. Township of Scott, in which the court overturned its 1985 decision in Williamson County Regional Planning Commission v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson County. She emphasized that in Franchise Tax Board of California v. Hyatt, another recent decision reversing the court’s prior precedent, Breyer’s dissent had “concluded: ‘Today’s decision can only cause one to wonder which cases the Court will overrule next.’ Well,” Kagan said, “that didn’t take long. Now one may wonder yet again.”
Kagan joined a dissent by Chief Justice John Roberts in South Dakota v. Wayfair, in which the court overruled its 1992 decision in Quill Corp. v. North Dakota. Roberts wrote that Congress, rather than the courts, should make any changes “with the potential to disrupt the development of such a critical segment of the economy.”
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In her 2022 appearance at the University of Pennsylvania, Kagan outlined why she believes stare decisis is so important. She argued that judges should be humble and recognize that other judges have come before them, and that the law develops best when it develops slowly and incrementally.
Regardless of her motivation, however, it is clear that she has made adherence to precedent a bedrock of her jurisprudence.
The outcome of future cases is uncertain.
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