CHAPTER 3 JUDICIAL OPINIONS
| Jurisdiction | United States |
Chapter 3 Judicial Opinions
A judicial opinion, also called a case, is written by a court to explain its decision in a particular dispute. Recent cases are available online on court websites, free sources like Google Scholar, and commercial sites including Lexis and Westlaw. In print, cases are published in rough chronological order in books called reporters. Even researchers working primarily with online resources must be familiar with reporters because case citation formats and pagination are based on print reporters.
This chapter begins with an overview of the Oregon and federal court systems. Then it explains reporters and online sources used to locate Oregon and federal cases when you have a citation. It concludes by explaining how to read and analyze cases. Chapter 4 explains how to research cases.
The basic court structure includes a trial court, an intermediate court of appeals, and an ultimate appellate court, often called the "supreme" court.1 These courts exist at both the state and federal levels.
A. Oregon Courts
In Oregon, the trial courts are called circuit courts. These courts exist in each of Oregon's thirty-six counties.2 In addition to the circuit courts, the Oregon Tax Court serves as the trial court for all cases in which Oregon tax law is at issue.3 Oregon's intermediate court is called the Court of Appeals.4 Located in Salem, the Court of Appeals is composed of thirteen5 judges who sit in three-judge panels, with the Chief Judge acting as a substitute when needed. The Supreme Court of Oregon, which also sits primarily in Salem, has seven justices.6 The seven justices sit en banc to hear all cases, unless a justice is recused.
The website for the Oregon judiciary is courts.oregon.gov. It contains helpful information, including a map of Oregon's circuit courts, links to courts maintaining websites, an explanation of the jurisdiction of state courts, lists of court personnel, and recent opinions of the appellate courts.
B. Federal Courts
In the federal judicial system, the trial courts are called United States District Courts. There are ninety-four district courts in the federal system, with each district drawn from a particular state. A state with a relatively small population might not be subdivided into smaller geographic regions. The entire state of Oregon, for example, makes up the federal District of Oregon. Even so, district courts are located in three cities: Portland, Eugene, and Medford. States with larger populations and higher caseloads are subdivided into more districts. For example, California has four federal districts: northern, central, southern, and eastern. Washington has two federal districts: eastern and western.
Intermediate appellate courts in the federal system are called United States Courts of Appeals. There are courts of appeals for each of the thirteen federal circuits. Twelve of these circuits are based on geographic jurisdiction. Eleven numbered circuits cover groups of states; the twelfth is the District of Columbia Circuit. The thirteenth federal circuit, called the Federal Circuit, hears appeals from district courts in all other circuits on issues related to patent law and from certain specialized courts and agencies.
Oregon is in the Ninth Circuit, so cases from the United States District Court for the District of Oregon are appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. This circuit encompasses Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington, as well as Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.
The highest court in the federal system is the United States Supreme Court. It decides cases concerning the United States Constitution and federal statutes. This court does not have the final say on matters of purely state law; that authority rests with the highest court of each state. Parties who wish to have the U.S. Supreme Court hear their cases must file a petition for certiorari, as the court has discretion over which cases it hears.
The United States Courts' website contains a map showing the federal circuits and districts, court addresses (with maps), explanations of jurisdiction, and other helpful information. The address is www.uscourts.gov.
C. Courts of Other States
Most states have the three-tier court system of Oregon and the federal judiciary. A few do not have an intermediate appellate court, just as Oregon did not until 1969. Another difference in some court systems is that the "supreme" court is not the highest court. In New York, the trial courts are called supreme courts, and the highest court is the Court of Appeals. Two other states, Massachusetts and Maine, call their highest court the Supreme Judicial Court.
A. Reporters for Oregon Cases
All cases decided by the Oregon Supreme Court are published in Oregon Reports. The abbreviation for this reporter is "Or." The case Stranahan v. Fred Meyer, Inc., 331 Or 38 (2000),7 can be found in volume 331 of the series Oregon Reports, starting on page 38. The case was decided in 2000.
Oregon's intermediate appellate court opinions are published in a separate reporter called Oregon Reports, Court of Appeals. "Or App" is the abbreviation for this reporter. The case State v. Hart, 222 Or App 285 (2008), was published in volume 222 of the reporter series Oregon Reports, Court of Appeals, beginning on page 285. It was decided in 2008. Almost all opinions of the Court of Appeals are published.8
As noted earlier, Oregon has a separate court that addresses matters of taxation. The decisions of the Oregon Tax Court are reported in Oregon Tax Reports, abbreviated "OTR."9
Cases from state trial courts in Oregon are not published; in fact, few states publish opinions at the trial court level. Unpublished opinions may be obtained directly from the court that decided the case, or sometimes online.
Oregon Reports and Oregon Reports, Court of Appeals are the official reporters for Oregon appellate cases. Cases from these courts are also reported in a commercially produced regional reporter called West's Pacific Reporter.10 While the text of the court's opinion is the same in the official and unofficial reporters, the appearance, pagination, and editorial research aids may be different.
B. The Anatomy of a Reported Case
A slip opinion is the actual document produced by the court, with no editorial enhancements. A slip opinion may be available either from the court that decided the case or online at www.publications.ojd.state.or.us. The state website is updated weekly.
For research, most attorneys use not slip opinions but cases printed in a reporter or available through an online service. Each case contains the exact language of the court's opinion. Additionally, the publisher provides supplemental information intended to aid researchers in learning about the case, locating the relevant parts of the case, and finding similar cases. Some of these research aids are gleaned from the court record of the case, while others are written by the publisher's editorial staff.
The following discussion explains the information and enhancements for cases published in Oregon Reports, Court of Appeals. To best understand the discussion, refer to the case excerpt in Figure 3-1. Most reporters—as well as online resources—will include most of this information and similar enhancements, although perhaps in a different order. For comparison, an appendix at the end of this chapter includes the first screen of this case on Lexis and Westlaw.
Dates. Each case in Oregon Reports, Court of Appeals begins with the date the case was argued and submitted to the court, and the date of the court's decision. For citation purposes, only the year a published case was decided is important.
Parties and procedural designations. All of the parties are listed with their procedural designations. In general, if a losing party has a right to appeal, she will be called the appellant and the opposing party will be called the respondent.11 If the losing party must ask the court to review the case, he is the petitioner and the opposing party will be the respondent.
Docket numbers. The number assigned to the case by a court is called a docket number. Each court assigns a different docket number to the case, just as colleges and universities assign each student a different student identification number. Docket numbers are helpful in locating the parties' briefs, a court's orders, or other documents related to that case. Because some of these documents are not published, they can be obtained only from the court that decided the case. To request these documents, you must have the appropriate docket number or, in some instances, the parties' names.
Parallel citations. Cases are often published in multiple reporters or online databases. The citations to these various sources for the same case are parallel citations.
Synopsis. One of the most helpful research aids included by a publisher's editorial staff is a synopsis, sometimes called a "Background" or "Syllabus." This is a short summary of the key facts, procedural posture, legal points, and disposition of the case. Reading a synopsis can quickly show whether a case is on point. You cannot rely exclusively on a synopsis. Moreover, you must never cite the synopsis, even when it gives an excellent summary of the case.
Headnotes. A headnote is a sentence or short paragraph that sets out a single point of law in a case. Most cases will have several headnotes. The text of each headnote often comes directly from the text of the opinion. But because only the opinion itself is authoritative, do not rely on headnotes in doing research and do not cite them in legal documents. At the beginning of each headnote is a number identifying it in sequence with other headnotes. Within the text of the opinion, the same sequence number will appear in bold print12 at the point in the text supporting the headnote. Read and cite that text, not the headnote.
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