Cite as: 515 U. S. 200 (1995)
Opinion of O'Connor, J.
lorio, supra, at 439-441, 450-451. And in Continental T. V., Inc. v. GTE Sylvania Inc., 433 U. S. 36 (1977), we overruled United States v. Arnold, Schwinn & Co., 388 U. S. 365 (1967), which was "an abrupt and largely unexplained departure" from precedent, and of which "[t]he great weight of scholarly opinion ha[d] been critical." Continental T. V., supra, at 47- 48, 58. See also, e. g., Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U. S. 808, 830 (1991) (overruling Booth v. Maryland, 482 U. S. 496 (1987), and South Carolina v. Gathers, 490 U. S. 805 (1989)); Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Servs., 436 U. S. 658, 695- 701 (1978) (partially overruling Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S. 167 (1961), because Monroe was a "departure from prior practice" that had not engendered substantial reliance); Swift & Co. v. Wickham, 382 U. S. 111, 128-129 (1965) (overruling Kesler v. Department of Public Safety of Utah, 369 U. S. 153 (1962), to reaffirm "pre-Kesler precedent" and restore the law to the "view . . . which this Court has traditionally taken" in older cases).
It is worth pointing out the difference between the applications of stare decisis in this case and in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833 (1992). Casey explained how considerations of stare decisis inform the decision whether to overrule a long-established precedent that has become integrated into the fabric of the law. Overruling precedent of that kind naturally may have consequences for "the ideal of the rule of law," id., at 854. In addition, such precedent is likely to have engendered substantial reliance, as was true in Casey itself, id., at 856 ("[F]or two decades of economic and social developments, people have organized intimate relationships and made choices that define their views of themselves and their places in society, in reliance on the availability of abortion in the event that contraception should fail"). But in this case, as we have explained, we do not face a precedent of that kind, because Metro Broadcasting itself departed from our prior cases—and did so quite recently. By refusing to follow
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