View source for Obiter dictum

{{g}}An [[obiter dictum]] is literally a “statement made in passing”; tossed off, as it were, by a court ''en route'' to a different a legal determination (a “[[ratio decidendi]]”) about something else. 

A chance remark; a passing observation; a ''bon mot'', not entirely on point to the matter at hand but which, if not strictly [[precedent|binding]] on a subsequently-convened lower court, is apt to make it swoon with admiration all the same.

Perhaps the most famous [[obiter dictum]] of all times was that made by a young High Court judge sitting in the [[King’s Bench Division]] by the name of Denning, {{casenote|Central London Property Trust Ltd|High Trees House Ltd}}, which gave rise to the modern law of [[promissory estoppel]].

[[Obiter]] is also the name of the University of Canterbury Law Society Magazine, which had its finest year in 1992, but recently went online.
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*[[Doctrine of precedent]]
*[[Lord Denning]]

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