That’s Ninth Circuit judge Danielle Forrest’s colorful description of how the Ninth Circuit is conspicuously unlike all of the other federal courts of appeals in its odd practice of treating dicta as binding (a practice that I hadn’t been aware of). Judge Forrest offers her compelling views on the matter in a concurring opinion to her own unanimous en banc opinion on Tuesday in Stein v. Kaiser Foundation Health Plan (which holds that the False Claims Act’s first-to-file rule is not jurisdictional).

Forrest’s concurring opinion is eminently readable, and I strongly recommend it to anyone interested in the topic. Forrest powerfully argues that the Ninth Circuit’s position that dicta—or, rather, “well-reasoned” dicta—in a panel opinion constitutes binding circuit precedent “is contrary to our common-law tradition, the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court and all our sister circuits, and our proscribed constitutional role.”

Of the ten other judges on the limited en banc panel, only Judge Patrick Bumatay joined Forrest’s opinion. Perhaps some of the other judges believe that the Ninth Circuit’s practice is sound, or perhaps some of them did not see this case as an apt occasion to revisit the matter, or perhaps some of them generally like the body of precedent that the court has built up over the decades.