Talk:Primary authority

Is obiter dictum a primary source?

This article first says that “A primary authority is a term used in legal research to refer to statements of law that are binding upon the courts, government, and individuals.” So if it is a statement that is binding then those portions of a court opinion that are not binding (for example, obiter dictum including dissents and concurrences) are not primary authority, right? But then why does footnote 1 say (without a reference) that “the texts of court opinions are primary authority…” apparently including all the text?

Case_law is defined as “a set of past rulings by tribunals that meet their respective jurisdictions' rules to be cited as precedent.” Doesn’t this exclude obiter dictum, which cannot be cited as precedent?

A Virginia Law Review article defined obiter dictum as a secondary source: “But there is a large and constantly increasing mass of so-called authority, avouched as evidence of the unwritten law, which we may designate as secondary authority. This class includes all extra-judicial efforts at legal exposition-such as text-books, encyclopedias, editorial annotations, obiter dicta of the courts, digests, etc.”

So why does this article call obiter dictum a primary source? Swood100 (talk) 22:16, 11 February 2019 (UTC)