Jurisprudence constante is a legal doctrine

Legal doctrine

A legal doctrine is a framework, set of rules, procedural steps, or test, often established through precedent in the common law, through which judgments can be determined in a given legal case. A doctrine comes about when a judge makes a ruling where a process is outlined and applied, and allows...

 according to which a long series of previous decisions applying a particular rule of law

Law

Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...

 is very important and may be determinative in subsequent cases

Legal case

A legal case is a dispute between opposing parties resolved by a court, or by some equivalent legal process. A legal case may be either civil or criminal...

. This doctrine is recognized in most civil law

Civil law (legal system)

Civil law is a legal system inspired by Roman law and whose primary feature is that laws are codified into collections, as compared to common law systems that gives great precedential weight to common law on the principle that it is unfair to treat similar facts differently on different...

 jurisdiction

Jurisdiction

Jurisdiction is the practical authority granted to a formally constituted legal body or to a political leader to deal with and make pronouncements on legal matters and, by implication, to administer justice within a defined area of responsibility...

s, in the civil law of Louisiana

Louisiana law

Law in the State of Louisiana is based in part on civil law. Louisiana is unique among the 50 U.S. states in having a legal system partially based on French and Spanish codes and ultimately Roman law, as opposed to English common law...

, for example.

The rule of law applied in the Jurisprudence constante directly compares with stare decisis

Stare decisis

Stare decisis is a legal principle by which judges are obliged to respect the precedents established by prior decisions...

. But the Louisiana Supreme Court

Louisiana Supreme Court

The Supreme Court of Louisiana is the highest court and court of last resort in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The modern Supreme Court, composed of seven justices, meets in the French Quarter of New Orleans....

 notes the principal difference between the two legal doctrines: a single court decision

Legal opinion

In law, an opinion is usually a written explanation by a judge or group of judges that accompanies an order or ruling in a case, laying out the rationale and legal principles for the ruling....

 can provide sufficient foundation for stare decisis, however, "a
series of adjudicated cases

Case law

In law, case law is the set of reported judicial decisions of selected appellate courts and other courts of first instance which make new interpretations of the law and, therefore, can be cited as precedents in a process known as stare decisis...

, all in accord, form the basis for jurisprudence constante." Moreover, the Louisiana Court of Appeals has explicitly noted that jurisprudence constante is merely a secondary source of law, which cannot be authoritative and does not rise to the level of stare decisis.