三者均有使判決等作廢或失去效力的含義。其中，reverse 為“撤銷”，多指上訴法院作相反判決，撤銷原判的排他性行為(of an appellate court，to nullify the judgment of a lower court in a case on appeal because of some error in the court below [1])。而vacate為“廢止”，其可指上訴法院廢止下級法院的判決，此時它等同“撤銷”原判；但審理法院也可以自己廢止原判決，此時它便與reverse的含義有差異（to nullify a judgment or court order. This may be done by the court that issued the original judgment or order, or by a higher court on appeal [2])。overrule 為“推翻”，常用于法院推翻先例，使其不再具有拘束力（of a court, to overturn or set aside a precedent by expressly deciding that it should no longer be controlling law [3])，如：In Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court overruled Plessy v. Ferguson（在布朗訴教育委員會一案中，聯(lián)邦最高法院推翻了普萊西訴弗格森案之先例）.

[1] Cf. James E. Clapp, Random House Dictionary of the Law, at p. 377, Random House, New York (2000).

[1] Id at p. 451

[1] Cf. Bryan A. Gamer, Black's Law Dictionary, 7th edition, at p. 1131, West Group (1999).

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