Checklist

Case Materials Checklist

Federal Case Materials Checklist

COURT STRUCTURE

Federal courts are arranged in three-tiers. United States District Courts are the trial level courts. The intermediate appellate courts are the United States Courts of Appeals (formerly called Circuit Courts) which are arranged into 13 judicial circuits. The highest court is the United States Supreme Court. Links to all federal courts as well as information about the U.S. court system can be found also at uscourts.gov.

PUBLICATION OF FEDERAL DECISIONS

Slip opinions

Courts first issue decisions in ###”http://lawi.us/slip-opinions/”>individual pamphlets known as slip opinions. Slip
opinions are not copyrighted and may be re-published in a variety of sources (such as electronic databases and loose-leaf services). Issuance of a case decision in slip opinion format does not constitute publication.

CRITERIA FOR PUBLICATION

All opinions issued by the U.S. Supreme Court are published. However, this is not true of all lower federal courts decisions. Each circuit establishes criteria for publication of appellate opinions as well as criteria indicating whether unpublished decisions may be cited and what
precedential value should be accorded them. Generally, publication criteria are found in each circuit’s rules of court. Historically, approximately 35% of Court of Appeals decisions and 20% of Federal District Court decisions are published. ###”http://cases.lawi.us/unpublished-opinions/”>Unpublished cases can sometimes be located on Lexis or Westlaw or West’s Federal Appendix or in topical loose-leaf services. Even when published, U.S. District Court cases are not considered precedential, but merely persuasive (though, of course, binding on the parties to the case).

STATUS WHEN REVIEW IS PENDING

Unlike in California, where a grant of rehearing automatically vacates the lower court opinion (see our research entry about ###”http://lawi.us/depublication/”>Depublication of California Court of Appeal Decisions), lower federal court opinions are not automatically vacated when reviewed by a higher court. Until the higher court renders a decision, the lower court opinion remains in effect unless the higher court specifically orders the lower court decision vacated. However, the subsequent
history of a case should be included when citing to the lower court decision as authority. Subsequent history information is noted in Shepard’s and KeyCite.

FINDING THE TEXT OF FEDERAL CASES

Supreme Court decisions are published in three reporter sets: United States Reports (official), West’s Supreme Court Reporter, and United States Supreme Court Reports, Lawyer’s Edition. There are no official reporter sets for the U.S. Courts of Appeals or for the U.S. District Courts. West’s Federal Reporter and Federal Supplement are the recognized sets for lower court cases.

FINDING THE TEXT OF UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT

SLIP OPINIONS

Text of United States Supreme Court decisions in individual pamphlet form.
Traditional Lag time: 2 – 3 months

SUPREME COURT REPORTERS – OFFICIAL

United States Reports (U.S.). Text of all U.S. Supreme Court cases. Each volume includes Table of Cases Reported and subject index for that volume. Traditional Lag time: Approximately 2 years

SUPREME COURT REPORTERS – UNOFFICIAL

  • Supreme Court Reporter, West Publishing Co.(S.Ct.): Begins with Volume 106 (1882) of the official set (U.S. Reports). Bound volumes include Table of Cases Reported, Words & Phrases, Statutes & Rule Tables, Table of Dispositions, and Key Number Digest. Advance Sheets include all of these, plus Cumulative Key Number Digest and Cumulative Table of Dispositions. Advance Sheets may include text of new court rules. Traditional Lag time: 4 – 6 weeks.
  • United States Supreme Court Reports, Lawyers’ Edition, Lexis, (L.Ed. (1 U.S. – 349 U.S.); L.Ed. 2d (350 U.S. to present)): Appendix includes summaries of attorneys briefs submitted to the Court and annotations written by publishers’ editorial staff for selected important cases. Bound volumes also include Table of Cases, Table of Parallel References, Table of Statutes,
    Rules and Regulations Construed, annotations and index. Same pagination for advance
    sheets and bound volumes, but advance sheets do not contain annotations.
  • United States Law Week, Bureau of National Affairs or BNA (U.S.L.W.): Volume 1 (Supreme Court) contains full-text Supreme Court opinions in loose-leaf format. Also includes Cases Docketed, Summary of Cases Recently Filed, summaries of arguments before the Court, Table of Cases and Case Status Report, and Topical Index. Traditional Lag time: 3 – 4 weeks.
  • Los Angeles Daily Journal Daily Appellate Report, L.A. Daily Journal (D.A.R.): Publishes full opinions of U.S. Supreme Court Cases (along with 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Cases and California cases). Earliest print version of these cases. Check daily issues within a week of date the case was decided, as indexing is fairly slow. Traditional Lag time: 1 – 4 days

ONLINE SOURCES OF SUPREME COURT CASES

These Internet resources may include:

  • U.S. Supreme Court: supremecourtus.gov (2001 term – Present)
  • Legal Information Institute (LII): supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/index.html. 1990 – Present; selected historic decisions
  • ###”http://lawi.us/case-law/”>Case Law in the American Legal Encyclopedia, which includes Federal Law; U.S. Supreme Court Reports from 1899 to present; Recent U.S. Supreme Court Developments; Federal Circuits—U.S. Court of Appeals cases and more.
  • ###”http://cases.lawi.us/federal-cases-by-court/”>Federal Cases by Court in the American Legal Encyclopedia. Include an examination or references to top U.S. Supreme Court Landmark Cases, including Warren Bridge (dissent); Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge; Cherokee Indian cases; etc.

FINDING THE TEXT OF UNITED STATES COURTS OF APPEALS

REPORTERS (ALL UNOFFICIAL)

  • Federal Cases, West Publishing Co. (F. Cas.): Reported all available lower federal court decisions up to 1882. Provides access through names of parties.
  • Federal Reporter, West (F. (1880 – 1924), F.2d (1924 –1993 ), F.3d (1993 –Present)): Reports selected decisions of the Federal Circuit Courts of Appeal from 1880. Includes standard features of West’s reporting services. Traditional Lag time: 6 – 8 weeks.
  • Federal Appendix, West Publishing Co. (F. App’x): Reports unpublished opinions from 2001 forward. Opinions are from all circuits except for the 5th and 11th, as these circuits do not provide their unpublished decisions to any publishers. Includes standard features of West’s reporting services. Traditional Lag time: 6 – 8 weeks.
  • Los Angeles Daily Journal Daily Appellate Report, L.A. Daily Journal (D.A.R.): Publishes full opinions of 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Cases, (along with U.S. Supreme Court Cases and California cases). Earliest print version of these cases. Check daily issues close to decision date, as indexing is fairly slow.

ONLINE SOURCES OF COURTS OF APPEALS CASES

Former databases of vendors were:

  • LexisNexis: GENFED; USAPP (1789 – ) and individual files for the circuits (1912 – ), e.g. 1CIR, 2CIR, etc.
  • Westlaw used several databases for individual circuits, e.g. CTA1, CTA2, etc. (coverage varies by database)

FINDING THE TEXT OF UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURTS

REPORTERS (ALL UNOFFICIAL):

  • Federal Cases, West Publishing Co. (F. Cas.): Reported all available lower federal court decisions up to 1882. Provides access through names of parties.
  • Federal Supplement, West (F. Supp. (1932 – 1998), F.Supp.2d (1998 – Present)): Reports selected federal district court cases. Advance sheets and bound volumes have same pagination. Includes the standard features of West’s reporting services. Traditional Lag time: 6 – 8 weeks

ONLINE SOURCES OF DISTRICT COURTS CASES

Some resources include the following:

  • ###”http://kansas.lawi.us/district-courts/”>District Courts in the Kansas Encyclopedia of Law. The District Court Record search provides you with an easy way to search court records from a majority of the counties in the state of Kansas.
  • ###”http://lawi.us/district-court/”>District Court entry in the American Legal EncyclopediaDistrict courts are the primary federal courts of original jurisdiction, disposing of about 300,000 cases per year.
  • ###”http://lawi.us/district-courts/”>District Courts in the American Legal EncyclopediaDistrict court trials are presided over by individual judges, who are responsible for controlling every aspect of the cases assigned to them.

DIGESTS

Digests provide access to cases by subject and by case name. All West digests are part of the National Reporter System.

  • West’s Supreme Court Digest, 1882 – present
  • Supreme Court Digest, Lawyer’s Edition, 1789 – present
  • West’s Federal Digest, federal cases through 1939
  • Modern Federal Practice Digest, federal cases 1939 – 1961
  • Federal Practice Digest 2nd, 1961 -1975; 3rd, 1975 – 1988; 4th 1989 – present