  It should be noted that the modern Common Law endorses a particularly strong version of stare decisis, one that requires later courts to follow earlier decisions even if those cases were wrongly decided according to the pre-existing law. It is often assumed by Common Lawyers that a doctrine of stare decisis necessarily requires that later courts be bound by such erroneous decisions. This follows from the following line of thought. If later courts were not bound to follow erroneous decisions, then they would only be ‘bound’ by earlier, correct judgments. But an earlier correct judgment simply reaches the conclusion that the law already supported when it was delivered. So to direct courts to follow cases that were not erroneous would simply be to direct them to do what they are legally bound to do anyway (i.e., apply the law), thereby rendering the doctrine of precedent redundant. The flaw in this argument lies in the assumption that in every case there must be a single legally correct outcome, with other outcomes being wrong. This overlooks the possibility of cases in which the merits of the dispute are legally indeterminate, so that there is more than one possible outcome that would not be wrong.  To say that a case is ‘legally indeterminate’ covers a range of situations, such as the merits of the opposing arguments being, in law, equal, or where the conflicting considerations cannot be rationally ranked against each other. In cases such as these the decision alters the law without making any error. The Common Law, then, might have limited its doctrine of stare decisis by holding that later courts were not bound by earlier decisions that were wrongly  decided.[2]   Instead it developed a different practice—that of ‘overruling’, whereby some courts were given a limited power to deprive earlier decisions of their binding status on the basis that they were wrongly decided. So the Common Law's version of the doctrine of precedent does not inevitably flow from the fact that precedents have practical authority. Nonetheless the idea of being bound to follow even erroneous decisions is a common feature of many institutions decision-making, and will be the focus of this entry.