obiter dictum

plural obiter dicta

1. An incidental remark; especially (law) a statement or remark in a court's judgment that is not essential to the disposition of the case.First known use 18th c.

   Casual obiter dicta by men of accepted godliness belonged to a different category from the ecstatic claims to immediate revelation made by obscure persons who thrust themselves into the limelight […].

   1971, Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, Folio Society, published 2012, page 128

   2 more examples

   All I know is that we had a patent suction jack—for of course we daren't use leverage—capable of raising five tons dead weight drawing on a stone weighing something less than five hundredweight and it couldn't budge it a hair. No, sir; do what we might it had us beaten to cold cinders. And if you want my obiter dictum I should say the biggest thing in W.S. enigmas is waiting patiently there for some bright boy to come along and scoop it.

   1927, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], Max Carrados Mysteries

   However, McHugh J noted obiter dicta that if the meaning of the word was construed at that level of abstraction today, ‘it would deny the Parliament of the Commonwealth the power to legislate for same sex marriages[…]’.

   2010, Jack Tsen-Ta Lee, “The Text through Time”, in Statute Law Review