I think it just means appealing to the opinion of an authority. It's not necessarily a bad thing. Citing the Supreme Court is both factual proof of legality and appealing to the opinion of an authority.
> Although that doesn't fix the issue of whether or not Scotus is correct or not, but I'm not an expert of the law to make those types of distinction.
The Supreme Court is always correct, until a subsequent majority Supreme Court opinion says otherwise.
Edit: My explanation of appeal to authority was the source of controversy.
From Wikipedia:
> For example, a 2012 guidebook on philosophical logic describes appeals to authority not merely as arguments from unqualified or unreliable authority, but as arguments from authority in general. In addition to appeals lacking evidence of the authority's reliability, the book states that arguments from authority are fallacious if there is a lack of "good evidence" that the authorities appealed to possess "adequate justification for their views."
Citing this logic guide published by McGraw-Hill.
Especially when expert opinion is split, appealing to the opinions of only some experts is a no-no.