Between the 25th-26th of April, 2025, Seung Mann (Kevin) BAE, a year 1 PhD student of HKU Law, presented his working paper, titled “The Nature of Plurality Decisions: A Theoretical Reassessment,” at the 11th Annual Junior Scholars Conference (2025 Junior Scholars Conference). The Conference, hosted by the University of Michigan Law School, offers junior scholars (PhD/SJD/JSD students and candidates, postdoctoral fellows, assistant professors, and associate professors) from institutions around the world a platform to present and discuss their work with peers and receive feedback from faculty members of Michigan Law. In this year of the Conference, Kevin presented alongside scholars from the US, the UK, Canada, and Switzerland. The paper Kevin presented is part of his broader PhD research on the dynamics of agreement and disagreement in judicial decision-making, and it specifically focused on plurality decisions, or what he alternatively refers to as the phenomenon of multiple majority opinion judgments, as an instance of extreme judicial dissensus. The paper itself sought to conduct an original reassessment of the current law in the US regarding the interpretation of plurality decisions as laid down by the Supreme Court decision of Marks v United States 430 U.S. 188 (1977). Kevin argues against the incumbent doctrinal understanding of plurality decisions to be structurally impossible and fictitious when accounting for the genuine fractious dynamics of multiple majority opinion judgments. Instead, he reconciles the substance of such decisions as a matter of super-dicta to explain its normative force upon subsequent courts and address its Rule of Law concerns.
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