Assumption or Decision?

Kadhim v Brent London Borough Council (CA TLR 27 March)

Even where a decision of a point of law in a particular sense was essential to an earlier decision of a superior court, but that superior court merely assumed the correctness of the law on a particular issue, a judge in a later case is not bound to hold that the law is decided in that sense. Exceptions to and modifications of the strict rule of precedent have to be applied only in the most obvious cases and limited with great care. The proposition in question must have been assumed by the previous court and not decided by it.