Mandatory Authority

Mandatory authority refers to authority that a court must follow. Another way to state this is that the authority is binding. An example is a case of a higher weight value in a lower court in the same jurisdiction. If a lower lever trial court hears a case about negligence, it is bound by a rule about negligence from a decision from a higher level court within this jurisdiction. The idea behind this is to keep consistency on the rules that govern a specific jurisdiction.