1. To rule against; to reject (the judge overruled all of the defendant’s objections).
2. (Of a court) to overturn or set aside (a precedent) by expressly deciding that it should no longer be controlling law (in Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court overruled Plessy v. Ferguson). Cf. VACATE(1). [Cases: Courts 100(1). C.J.S. Courts §§ 147–148.]
“If a decision is not a recent one, and especially if it seems to be very poor, it should not be relied upon without ascertaining whether it may not have been expressly or impliedly overruled by some subsequent one; that is, whether the court may not have laid down a contrary principle in a later case.” Frank Hall Childs, Where and How to Find the Law 94 (1922).
“Overruling is an act of superior jurisdiction. A precedent overruled is definitely and formally deprived of all authority. It becomes null and void, like a repealed statute, and a new principle is authoritatively substituted for the old.” John Salmond, Jurisprudence 189 (Glanville L. Williams ed., 10th ed. 1947).
