Concurring opinion

In law, a concurring opinion is a written opinion issued by one or more judges of a court that agrees with the outcome reached by the majority of the court but sets out different or additional reasoning for reaching that result. When no single line of reasoning can command an absolute majority of the court, the decision may instead rest on several concurring opinions, and the one joined by the largest number of judges is called the plurality opinion. Because a concurring opinion has not secured a majority of the court's votes, it is not binding precedent and cannot be cited as such, though it can sometimes be cited as persuasive authority where no binding precedent already covers the point. The contrast between a majority opinion and a concurring opinion can help lawyers understand the exact scope of the reasoning in the majority opinion, and a concurring opinion is occasionally used by a judge to signal openness to a future test case that could shift the law, a use that can make the concurrence more influential, or more remembered, than the majority opinion it accompanied, as with Escola v. Coca-Cola Bottling Co. in 1944.