You Holding, Man?

Don't forget that every proposition of fact or law necessary to the disposition of a case is part of the holding—even if the proposition is never discussed or addressed. You can cite in support cases that never say what you are citing them for.

Wait, what???

That's right. “[A] court's holding encompasses more than this judgment; it includes the court's?ratio decidendi?—the chain of reasoning necessary to tie the facts of the case to the decision reached.”?United States v. Buster, 26 F.4th 627, 640 (4th Cir. 2022). It “includes,?besides the facts and the outcome, the reasoning essential to that outcome.” Tate v. Showboat Marina Casino P’ship,?431 F.3d 580, 582 (7th Cir. 2005). But “only the propositions that are necessarily decided to support the judgment based on the facts of that case.”?Preterm-Cleveland v. McCloud, 994 F.3d 512, 542 (6th Cir. 2021), overruled on other grounds, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 142 S. Ct. 2228, 2274 (2022). In Hart v. Massanari, 266 F.3d 1155, 1170 (9th Cir.?2001), the Ninth Circuit pointed out that, to determine whether it is bound by a precedent, it must consider “not only the rule announced, but also the facts giving rise to the dispute, other rules considered and rejected and the views expressed in response to any dissent or concurrence.”

But say that an undiscussed proposition is a holding of a case does not settle its precedential force. An undiscussed proposition necessary to the disposition of a case before a higher court might still not be treated as binding precedent by most judges (even if the case was published). Propositions that a court declined to discuss expressly in a published case might be little different from the express reasoning in cases the court declined to publish. In both instances, the court declined to publish its reasoning, so in both cases the reasoning is no more persuasive authority.

Often when you are sitting on the leading edge of legal developments a picture is worth a 1,000 words. If the only articulation of the rule is dicta, dispositions turning on the rule—even without explanation—are powerful confirmation that dicta is valid.

Don't limit your argument to the cases you can quote. Look also to those cases that can only be explained by the proposition you advocate.