  This point brings out an important aspect of the study of precedent. Lawyers are mostly preoccupied with two issues: (1) the question of how to determine what a precedent is authority for, e.g. how to characterise the ruling in the case (beverage? consumable?  article?), or how to deal with cases where there is no single majority judgment in favour of the result, or how to treat cases which give two alternative bases for the decision; and (2) the question of when a court will be willing to overrule its own prior decisions. The most interesting philosophical questions, however, concern how precedents operate when, as is often the case, there is no doubt about what the precedent is authority for, and the later court is not free (or is unwilling) to overrule the earlier decision.