The bursts of discussion in the N Y Law Journal recently about the value of dissenting opinions and any appellate jurist’s right or passion to issue them seems to miss an essential consideration – institutional purpose. Their common theme and tenor concentrate on and elevate the tail to the greater importance of the dog. By that metaphor, I mean that the focus is skewed away from the tribunal’s majority ruling itself and the objective to chart and settle the law through a guiding precedent of the court, not through diffusion of multiple individual voices. None of the recent expressions pay sufficient heed and respect to that key contextual foundation stone, to wit, the raison d’etre of the particular appellate tribunal.

The latter consideration, I respectfully submit, should be front and center as a consideration to the discussion of the value of dissenting opinions. A threshold question to be internally posed is: would a particular additional opinion serve the development of the jurisprudence and how do different kinds and levels of dissenting opinions fit that higher purpose of appellate courts?