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Introduction to Case Law
- Primary law
- The law in context
- Precedent
- Is a previous case always the law?
- Type of opinion
- Sample opinion
- Final decisions
- Case format
Finding Appellate Opinions (case law)
- Searching for cases
- Gather your keywords
- Connectors
- Advanced search symbols
- A search result on Courtroom5
Using Appellate Opinions
- Skim the case
- History of the case
- Status of the case
- Using appellate opinions: Negligence
- Using appellate opinions: Trespassing
- Using appellate opinions: Landlord-tenant
- Using appellate opinions: Breach of contract
Transcript
Hi. I\’m Matt, and this is lesson three, appellate opinions, case law.
In this lesson, the phrases case law and appellate opinions are used interchangeably.
We\’ll start with an introduction to case law, then we\’ll discuss finding case law and using case law.
The two types of primary legal sources are statutes and appellate opinions or case law. Primary sources tell the judge what the law is and provide authority for your written and legal arguments.
If you want to win in court, they are mandatory.
Appellate cases differ from statutes, codes, and rules in that they interpret the law and apply the law in context.
Judges review cases and apply relevant regulations, and legal principles to particular situations, like negligence, trespassing, landlord tenant, breach of contract, and a host of others.
Lower courts rely on appellate court opinions to decide cases.
Stere decisis, Latin for to stand by things decided, is a term you will probably never use, but it\’s good to understand the idea behind it. It means that a past decision on a particular issue or principle of law sets a precedent.
That is, it gives judges in future cases the authority to make the same decision where the facts are similar.
Is the previous case always the law? No. A judge does not always have to rule in the same way as a previous court where the previous court is in a different jurisdiction, is a lower court, or has a set of dissimilar facts or issues, the judge is free to ignore the previous case. At the risk of being overturned, judges find other compelling reasons not to rule on precedent.
When selecting a case, you also want the majority opinion. That is the court\’s actual decision and the rationale for it. There might be a concurring opinion where one of the judges making the decision agrees with the outcome, but for different reasons.
There might also be a dissent in which a judge disagrees with the outcome for one or more reasons.
In some cases, the dissent might be the better opinion. You might say, wow. This judge really supports my position. That doesn\’t matter. The dissent is not the law. The majority opinion is.
In this sample opinion of the famous case Plessy versus Ferguson, the identifying information about the case is at the very top, including who is suing whom, the date, and so on.
The middle sets out the facts, opinion, and rationale.
The middle is usually the longest part of a decision. At the bottom are the dissenting and concurring opinions if there are any. Here, justice Harlan was the lone dissenter in a case that made separate but equal US law. For years, his opinion was not the law. Plessy versus Ferguson was precedent until it was overturned fifty years later.
When reading an appellate decision, make sure you know who the judge ruled in favor of and why. An appellate court can affirm, reverse, modify, or remand a case. In Plessy versus Ferguson, the majority affirmed the lower court\’s ruling. That means it supported Ferguson\’s position. Reversed means to find error in a lower court\’s decision and overturn it. Modified means to make changes in the case based on the majority opinion.
Remand means to send the case back to the lower court for more proceedings.
Let\’s look now at case citing. Here, Sawyer versus Middlefort is the case name, and five ninety five is the volume number.
Volume of what, you ask? Appellate cases are written in what are called reporters. The NW two d is a short name for the reporter that serves Wisconsin.
Volume five ninety five is where the Sawyer case appears in that reporter.
That\’s all you need to know about reporters. The case begins on page four twenty three, and the year is nineteen ninety nine. Copy and paste the information about the case and arrange them as instructed.
You can find case law by searching jurisdiction, case name, case citation, or other criteria like date. To start, gather your keywords. You can get these from the complaint, encyclopedias and dictionaries, or even guess them based on what you already know. If you know the statute, use it as a keyword. You can always update later.
Keywords for a negligence case might be terms like duty and responsibility.
In a trespassing case, they might be adverse possession and property rights. In landlord tenant, tenant\’s rights, and landlord\’s rights, you can use synonyms at any time. In a breach of contract case about poor workmanship, for instance, search the phrase shoddy work. Breach of contract is also a good choice.
Case databases allow you to combine search terms using operators or connectors like and, or, and not between keywords.
And requires all terms to appear in a case.
Or requires only that either term appears in a case. Not excludes cases when one term is needed, but the other is not. The case database at courtroom five puts an invisible and between each search term.
You can also use symbols to conduct an advanced search on courtroom five. These symbols are discussed in more detail in the course handbook.
This is a search at courtroom five for the terms medical and negligence.
You don\’t have to read an entire case to decide whether it\’s relevant. Skim the facts first. Select cases that are similar to your own set of facts. If you\’re looking for cases about negligence of a therapist, you can skip all cases about slip and fall even though they\’re about negligence.
If you find no cases about negligence of a therapist, then you widen your scope and look at other negligence cases. If the facts are relevant, determine how the case turned out. If the person in your position with a similar set of facts won, that\’s a case you want to read more of. You also want to make sure the cases you like haven\’t been overturned.
That means you have to know the other cases that used it and how the ruling went.
Do more recent courts support the opinion of the previous court? If so, keep it. It still appears to be good law.
Plessy versus Ferguson was overturned. How do you know that? You can look it up and see what more recent court decisions say about it.
Keep cases that are still good law. Dump cases that have been overturned.
Let\’s look at some cases to see how they work. Plaintiff Preston sues the defendant, a psychologist, for negligence and emotional distress.
Here, a Wisconsin court clarifies what the law means by medical negligence. Depending on what the rest of the case says, this one may and probably will be used by both parties in the case.
In this opinion, the plaintiff sued the defendant for trespassing after she, unaware that it was not hers, used his property as her own. This appellate case is being used because the plaintiff feels the facts are on par with his position.
Byron sues his landlord, Simone, for treble damages for unlawfully locking him out of his apartment.
Within this appellate case, the plaintiff finds a specific statute that says exactly what he needs it to say in regards to treble damages.
A plaintiff sues a contractor for shoddy work after signing off on the work. A defendant may use the appellate case to prove that if the plaintiff had problems with his work, she should have said something about it sooner.
That\’s what it looks like the law is saying. Finding support for your arguments can be tedious, but ever so often you come across a gem that wins you the case.
Let\’s summarize. In introduction to case law, we covered topics like primary law, the law in context, precedent and case format, finding appellate opinions discussed searching for cases, gathering keywords, operators, and advanced search on courtroom five. The last section, using appellate opinions, discussed the method for skimming a case and finding case history. Then we looked at several cases in context.
Next up, lesson four, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and guides.