In law, a majority opinion is a judicial opinion agreed to by more than half of the members of a court. A majority opinion sets forth the decision of the court and an explanation of the rationale behind the court's decision.
Not all cases have a majority opinion. At times, the justices voting for a majority decision (e.g., to affirm or reverse the lower court's decision) may have drastically different reasons for their votes, and cannot agree on the same set of reasons. Some judges may disagree and will write a separate opinion offering a different approach. Those opinions are called ‘concurring opinions’ or ‘dissenting opinions’, and they appear after the majority opinion.
A ‘concurring opinion’ (sometimes just called a ‘concurrence’) explains a vote in favour of the winning side but based on a different legal rationale. A ‘dissenting opinion’ (sometimes just called a ‘dissent’) explains a vote in favour of the losing side.
NOTE
When you read a legal opinion, you’ll come across a lot of foreign-sounding words to describe the court system. You need to learn all of these words eventually; you should read cases with a legal dictionary nearby and should look up every word you don’t know.
