Opinion

1. In the law of evidence, opinion is an inferenco or conclusion drawn by a witness from facts some of which are known to him and others assumed or drawn from facts which, though lending probability to the inference, do not evolve it by a process of absolutely necessary reasoning. See Lipscomb v. State, 75 Miss. 559, 23 South. 210. An inference necessarily involving certain facts may be stated without the facts, the inference being an equivalent to a specification of the facts ; but, when the facts are not necessarily involved in the inference (e. g., when the inference may be sustained upon either of several distinct phases of fact, neither of which it necessarily involves,) then the facts must be stated. Whart. Ev. § 510.
2. A document prepared by an attorney for his client, embodying his understanding of the law as applicable to a state of facts submitted to him for that purpose.
3. The statement by a judge or court of the decision reached in regard to a cause tried or argued before them, expounding the law as applied to the case, and detailing the reasons upon which the judgment is based. See Craig v. Bennett, 158 Ind. 9, 62 N. E. 273; Coffey v. Gamble, 117 Iowa, 545, 91 N. W. 813 ; Houston v. Williams, 13 Cui. 24, 73 Am. Dec. 565; Sinte v. Ramsburg, 43 Md. 333

— Concurring opinion. An opinion, separate from that which embodies the views and decision of the majority of the court, prepared and filed by a judge who agrees in the general result of the decision, and which either reinforces the majority opinion by the expression of the particular judge's own views or reasoning, or (more commonly) voices his disapproval of the grounds of the decision or the arguments on which it was based, though approving the final result.

— Dissenting opinion. A separate opinion in which a particular judge announces his dissent from the conclusion held by a majority of the court, and expounds his own views.
—Per curiam opinion. One concurred in by the entire court, but expressed as being "per curiam" or "by the court," without disclosing the name of any particular judge as being its author.