A federal appellate court in Richmond, Va., on Thursday threw out a pair of cases challenging the constitutionality of President Obama’s 2010 health care law, ruling for varying reasons that the plaintiffs did not have legal standing to sue.

In the process, however, two of the three judges on the panel volunteered that they would have upheld the law, known as the Affordable Care Act, if they had been able to rule on the substance of the cases.

The rulings, by the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, vacated lower court decisions — one for and one against the law.

In late June, a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati ruled 2-to-1 in favor of the law’s requirement that, starting in 2014, most Americans must obtain health insurance. In August, the Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta ruled against that provision, known as the individual mandate, also by 2-to-1.