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Editor: L. Cindy Dabney
Profession: Student

Category: Book Research--Case Law

So today I thought we'd talk about what you are actually looking at when you look at a case. There are many different sections of a case, and to properly use it, both when you are researching and when you are actually in court, you should know what everything is saying, and who wrote it. Knowing the different parts will help you research, knowing who wrote what will help you use the case.

I'm afraid that I will have to generalize a bit, as each reporter looks a little different, with some parts of a case missing, or out of place, but I hope that this will be a good guide as to what you are looking for.

First in any case is the title, i.e. Smith v. Jones. The first name there is usually the plaintiff, or the person who brought the lawsuit. The second name is that of the defendant, or the person against whom the lawsuit has been brought. There will often be cases with multiple plaintiffs or defendants, only one name will be used in the official title of the case. This name is picked in several different ways--sometimes it is the person most primary to the case, sometimes it can be done alphabetically. Smith v. Jones may actually be Steve Smith v. Jason Jones, Andy Anderson, and the National Art Gallery, et al. All this will appear when you actually look at the case, but the important names will be in capitol letters--Steve SMITH v. Jason JONES, Andy Anderson, and the National Art Gallery, et al. On a side note, you can tell a little about the case from the title--specifically what kind of case it is, usually. Different jurisdictions have different names for criminal cases, but they are usually recognizable--People v. Smith, State v. Jones, etc. When you see these you know you are looking at a criminal case, when you see two names, you are usually looking at a civil case.

Following the name will be the citation to the case, which we have already mentioned a little--it's the volume number, the name of the book, and the page number. If there is a string citation it will all appear there. This is not always true, sometimes the citation appears, sometimes not, sometimes it is listed on the page heading, the same place you would find the title of the book or the author if you were reading a novel. However, you should know by now how to piece together your own rudimentary citation. Sometimes instead of the citation, there will be the docket number. The docket is essentially a court calendar--it tells you when the court heard the case. It is not terribly interesting in research, however. We care what a docket number is when we go to court, but after the fact, it is not terribly useful.

Then, or often times before the name of the case, comes the name of the court, the 11th Circuit, the New Mexico Court of Appeals. Sometimes there will even be a little case history tucked into there--'On appeal from the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals."

Then there is usually the date, sometimes of both the hearing and of the decision, sometimes only one date. Possibly there will be more case history--"Argued Dec. 19, 1947. Decided March 29, 1948. Rehearing Denied May 3, 1948."

Following the citation you will start to get to the meat of the case. There should next be a synopsis of the case. These are very useful in research, you can usually tell after reading only that paragraph whether you are interested in that case or not, however, it should not be cited in court. This is because synopses are almost exclusively written by the editors of a case, rather than the judge, whether it's West editors, Lexis editors, government editors, etc. For the most part, though there are exceptions, precedent is only binding if it is written by the court itself. Anything written by editors, professors, lawyers, etc, while it may be very helpful, should not be brought into court as law. There are some small exceptions, like restatements, but we will get to those later.

Usually following the synopsis, or at the end of the synopsis, there is the holding of the court in one line. It can be as simple as 'affirmed' or a little more complex, like 'affirmed except as to issues specifically reversed.'

You might then find a small table of contents for the case. Not by page number, but it may say that the opinion comes first, followed by a concurrence by such and such a judge, and a dissent by another.

From there we go into the headnotes, which I have mentioned above. Depending on the book there will be differing degrees of specificity as to where in the digest this headnote goes. Often it will just tell you the most general of topics and key numbers for each headnote. As I mentioned before, the number of headnotes will depend on the length and complexity of the case, they are bullet points of each point of law that is found in the case. They are very useful for researching, but again, they should not be used as precedent. Either they were written by editors, in which case they are clearly not precedent, or they are the court's language taken from the case, in which case you should cite to the case itself, rather than the headnote. Headnotes are numbered, and usually you can find where the court talks about your headnote in the text of the case with those numbers. In the paragraph in which the court talks about headnote three, there is usually a [3] preceding the paragraph. This can be very useful for finding exactly the topic that you are looking for in a case.

Following the headnotes may be more case history, then comes the names of all the attorneys and whom they are appearing for, and finally the name of the judge who is actually writing the opinion.

Then the opinion itself, and this is organized in different ways depending on the author. Often the facts of the case come first, followed by a discussion of the law, application of the facts to the law, and the holding. Every judge writes differently, though, so there is no guarantee of what the body of the case will look like. Following the body will be the holding again, 'affirmed,' or 'reversed,' or something similar.

Then will come the actions of other judges, if they agreed wholeheartedly with the decision they will simple join the writer in the opinion. If they concur or dissent, their opinion will follow, though it is not binding as the majority opinion is. (For reference, courts at the appellate level usually have more than one judge, three is about a minimum. The Supreme Court, as we all know, has nine, though that number has changed a bit throughout out history. A case is decided by a majority vote, and then the majority writes the opinion, which is the binding part of the case. A concurrence may be written by a judge who agrees with the outcome, but things that the reasoning for the case should be different and wants to get their version out there. A dissent is written by a judge or judges who disagree with the majority as to the outcome. The latter two are citable for their ideas, but are not binding precedent.)

Finally at the tail end of a case there may be a restatement of all sorts of information--the court, the year, the title, or the citation.

These are the basics of a case, a little convoluted, and very lengthy I know and apologize. When searching online little details like the docket number can become more useful, but I wanted to lay the groundwork for more in depth treatment.