per curiam

American  

[per kyoor-ee-am] / pər ˈkjʊər iˌæm /

adverb

Law.

1. (of an opinion or decision) by the court as a whole rather than in the name of a particular judge.

   a judgment rendered per curiam.

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Etymology

Origin of per curiam

< Medieval Latin: literally, through the court

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

per curiam

And as Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson warned in her solo dissenting opinion from the per curiam order, the real issue is not that the court punted a decision on the merits here.

From Slate ● Aug. 26, 2026

The opinion is per curiam, meaning all three judges on the panel joined it and none was singled out as the author.

From Seattle Times ● Feb. 8, 2024

The court issued a two-part per curiam opinion on the case.

From Textbooks ● Jul. 28, 2021

The per curiam decision said that Arkansas’s justices had failed to properly apply the court’s landmark decision that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry, Obergefell v.

From Washington Post ● Jul. 16, 2017

Martin was decided in a unanimous per curiam opinion.

From The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation Annotations of Cases Decided by the Supreme Court of the United States to June 30, 1952 by Edward Samuel Corwin