In Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift satirized stare decisis in the following language:

Swift was deriding the strict version of stare decisis; a version which binds judges to follow precedent. The United States Supreme Court has always used a more liberal version. According to this version, the justices have a prima facie duty to conform to the precedents of the Court, but that obligation can be overridden if they offer a cogent reason for so doing. What constitutes a “cogent” reason in this context is uncertain; one certainly would exist if it could be shown that the law in the prior case is no longer workable or never was.

Before we explore stare decisis, it is necessary to define it. “Stare decisis” is a shortened form of the Latin phrase “stare decisis et non quieta movere,” which Black's Law Dictionary defines as “To adhere to precedents, and not to unsettle things which are established.” It takes two forms: vertical stare decisis and horizontal stare decisis. The former refers to the obligation of lower court judges to adhere to the precedents of higher courts within the same jurisdiction. Horizontal stare decisis concerns the duty of a court to conform to its own precedents or that of a sister court, if any.