Federal Courts & Case Reporters
The court system has three general levels:
- Trial Court (District Court)
- Appellate Court (Circuit Court)
- Court of Last Resort (Supreme Court)
States have different names for the three levels, but this is the general structure.
Source: Judicial Learning Center, Levels of the Federal Courts, https://judiciallearningcenter.org/levels-of-the-federal-courts/.
As detailed above, the federal courts are primarily comprised of:
- The U.S. Supreme Court: The Supreme Court is the highest court in the United States. U.S. Supreme Court opinions are published in three different reporters:
- United States Reports (U.S.), which is the official reporter;
- Supreme Court Reporter (S. Ct.), published by West; and
- United States Supreme Court Reports, Lawyers' Edition (L. Ed., L. Ed. 2d), published by Lexis.
- 13 Circuit Courts of Appeals: The intermediate federal appellate courts are referred to as the circuit courts. There are twelve regional circuit courts and one for the Federal Circuit. Circuit court opinions are published in the Federal Reporter (F., F.2d, etc.).
- The Federal Appendix is a special reporter for selected unpublished opinions of the federal courts of appeals.
- 94 U.S. District Courts: The federal trial courts are referred to as district courts. Each district court comes within the jurisdiction of one of the circuit courts. The geographic boundaries falling within in circuit court is illustrated below.
- Most published cases are appellate cases, but District Court opinions that are published appear in the Federal Supplement (F. Supp., F. Supp. 2d, etc.).
- For state trial-level reporters, check The Bluebook, Table 1.3.
Source: United States Courts, About Federal Courts, http://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/federal-courts-public/court-website-links.
State and federal court cases that are chosen for official publication will eventually appear in a reporter. The most comprehensive system of state reporters is the National Reporter System published by West.
Source: West's Regional Reporter Map, https://lscontent.westlaw.com/images/content/nationalreporter/west_map_reg_v6/reg_reporters_map.html
- State Reporters: Atlantic (A., A.2d, A.3d); South Eastern (S.E., S.E.2d); Southern (So., So.2d, So.3d); North Eastern (N.E., N.E.2d, N.E.3d); South Western (S.W., S.W.2d, S.W.3d); North Western (N.W., N.W.2d); and Pacific (P., P.2d, P.3d)
- Some states publish their own "official" versions of opinions.
- Other states rely on West's National Reporter System to publish "official" versions.
- You can find the "official" published version of state opinions in The Bluebook Table 1 (T1)
Case citations follow a standard format: volume, name of reporter, page number (court year).
Cases may be published in more than one reporter so the same text in a case will have a different pinpoint cite depending on the reporter you are reading.
- The citations to the same case in multiple reporters are called parallel citations.
- All three legal research systems (Westlaw, Lexis Advance, and Bloomberg Law) and Google Scholar indicate page numbers by making use of star pagination. Each reporter has a set of asterisks assigned to it; the set listed next to a page number then indicates the corresponding reporter. Lexis Advance has an additional “Reporter” feature which allows you to select the reporter you wish to view, then only displays page numbers for that reporter.
- Some cases are unpublished or unreported and are designated as such (if they are available) in online legal research systems. See Published Versus Unpublished Cases to the right.
Published Versus Unpublished Cases
Cases may be "published" or "unpublished." Published cases are those that have been certified for publication, and unpublished cases have not been certified for publication.
Only a small percentage of court opinions are published. While most, if not all, of the opinions of the federal and state supreme courts are published, less than half of intermediate appellate opinions tend to be published. State trial court opinions are never published because state trial decisions are only binding on the parties that participated in teh litigation. Only a tiny fraction of federal trial (district) court opinions are published. In this way, only a small fraction of what we think of as "cases" make it into the law books and legal databases.
Be careful: Just because an opinion makes it online into a legal database does not mean that it is a published opinion. Typically, the context of the case, such as which case reporter is reporting the case and/or introductory language identifying case as published or not, will allow you to determine whether any given case is published or not.
- Citations to "Reporters": Volume-Reporter-Page (date)
- Volume: volume number in a set of reporter books
- Reporter: identifies the set of books
- Page Number: page number, within the volume, where the case opinion begins
- Date: the date the opinion was issued; may also include which court issued the opinion if that information is not clear from the reporter
- Unpublished versus Unreported:
- Unreported cases have no precedential value (court rules govern whether or not you can cite to them) and may be published in the Federal Appendix or they will only be available online.
- Unpublished cases have no precedential value and will only be available online.
Most courts allow citation to published opinions only. However, there are some exceptions. When preparing a document to be submitted to a court, it is always a good idea to check the applicable court rules to confirm whether only published cases can be cited in filings with that court. Court rules may limit (or even prohibit) the citation of unpublished/unreported opinions.
Cases may be published in more than one reporter so the same text in a case will have a different pinpoint cite depending on the reporter you are reading.
- The citations to the same case in multiple reporters are called parallel citations.
- All three legal research systems (Westlaw, Lexis Advance, and Bloomberg Law) and Google Scholar indicate page numbers by making use of star pagination. Each reporter has a set of asterisks assigned to it; the set listed next to a page number then indicates the corresponding reporter. Lexis Advance has an additional “Reporter” feature which allows you to select the reporter you wish to view, then only displays page numbers for that reporter.
Anatomy of a Case Opinion
The heading of a case consists of the following elements:
- Case Name: U.S. v. Jolivet
- Name of the court that heard the case: United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit
- Docket Number assigned by the court: No. 99-2886
- Procedural History: Submitted May 9, 2000. Decided Sept. 22, 2000
- Reporter Citation(s): 224 F.3d 902 | 55 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 670
Case heading on Westlaw.
Case Heading on Lexis.
Case Heading in a print reporter.
The syllabus or synopsis is a summary of the case. The synopsis will provide procedural history - that is, who sued whom and for what, and who appealed - the pertinent facts, a very brief recap of the reasoning, and the holding. You should never cite a synopsis or syllabus as they are prepared by the publisher, not the court.
Westlaw Case Synopsis.
Lexis Case Synopsis.
Federal Reporter Case Synopsis.
Headnotes summarize each significant legal issue discussed in the case opinion. Headnotes are designed to help you make a first cut analysis as to whether or not the case is relevant to your issue.
The headnote number is repeated in the main text where that issue is discussed. In this way, headnotes assist the legal researcher in navigating the opinion, by locating the part of the opinion where the relevant issue is discussed.
Headnotes on Lexis are taken verbatim from the text of the case while headnotes on Westlaw are written by attorney editors. As such, the text of the headnote in Westlaw may vary substantially from the text of the case.
Headnotes on Westlaw include a topic and a key number. West has divided the law into approximately 400 major legal topics for purposes of its digest system and arranges them alphabetically. It then divides and subdivides these topics into smaller and smaller categories that ultimately reduce to individual points of law (approximately 100,000 in total), each identified by its own “key number” (or more accurately, by its own unique topic and key number). This topic and key number system can help you find related cases.
Remember: Headnotes are editorial content and should not be cited or relied upon for legal writing purposes. Headnotes should be limited to their intended uses.
Westlaw Case Headnotes. Notice the Topic and Key Number System.
Lexis Case Headnotes.
Federal Reporter Headnotes. Notice that these headnotes match the headnotes in Westlaw - this is because this reporter, F.3d, is a West publication.
The Opinion is the part of the case that becomes primary law. A written opinion typically consists of three basic parts of primary law:
- Facts: spell out what happened in the case.
- This may not include all the details of what happened, but it will address the facts that give rise to the legal questions that the opinion resolves.
- Holding: the answer to those legal questions
- Reasoning: a discussion of why those answers are what they are.
These three basic parts are all considered to be primary law and as such may be cited for authority.
A fourth part of cases, which is considered to be persuasive authority (not primary law), is “dicta.”
- Dicta results when the court strays off topic.
- Comes from the Latin obiter dictum, which means “something said in passing.”
Westlaw case opinion.
Lexis case opinion.
Federal Reporter case opinion.
There are four different types of appellate opinions:
- Lead-Majority: sometimes called “lead” opinions, especially if they command only a plurality of judges
- Typically, a single judge writes the majority opinion, which includes both the holding and reasoning
- Per Curiam: Latin for “by the court,” and it means that the judicial panel is speaking with one voice (because they all agree)
- Per Curiam opinions do not identify the author.
- Concurring: A judge writes a concurring opinion when the judge agrees with the lead opinion’s holding, but for different reasons
- Concurring opinions are not the law, but can be cited as persuasive authority.
- Sometimes, when reviewing a lower court’s decision, a higher court will adopt the reasoning from a lower court judge’s concurrence.
- Dissenting: If a judge disagrees with the court’s holding, they will write a dissent.
- Dissenting opinions are not the law, but can be cited as persuasive authority.
- Sometimes, when reviewing a lower court’s decision, a higher court will adopt the reasoning from a lower court judge’s dissent.
There may also be partial concurrences, partial dissents, or even opinions that partially concur and partially dissent from other opinions.
Remember: concurring and dissenting opinions are not primary law; as such, they are persuasive authority.
Footnotes in the lead opinion are considered part of the official text and are often cited as precedent.
Example of the importance of footnotes: Michigan Court of Appeals Judge Gillis, in a case called Fisher v. Lowe from 1983, wrote the opinion in the form of a poem, and put the law in the footnote.
Westlaw case footnotes. These appear at the very end of the opinion.
Lexis case footnotes. These appear at the very end of the opinion.
Federal Reporter footnotes. These appear at the bottom of the page where the reference appears, rather than at the very end of the opinion.
Page numbers are necessary for pinpoint cites. Page numbers on electronic versions, known as star pagination, correspond with and match up with page numbers in printed case reporters.
Star Pagination: A symbol, historically an asterisk, indicates the page breaks for a case in different reporters.
An example of star pagination on Westlaw.
An example of star pagination on Lexis.
