ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on adherence to precedent in the state court system of one particular American state, New York. In New York, the word 'precedent' is used in a variety of ways, but when used most strictly, precedent means binding decisions of higher courts of the same jurisdiction as well as decisions of the same appellate court. In the United States, the role of precedent-based law varies among the different branches of law. There is no legislation in New York requiring or forbidding the use of precedent or otherwise regulating its formal bindingness or other normative bearing. The New York Court of Appeals sometimes cites cases from another state as support for a decision in a case of first impression or when overruling or modifying a precedent. The power of common law courts in New York to create and follow precedents necessarily dates from earliest times and itself was a creature of necessity.
