e-Law — Meeting No. 4

I. The framework for units 2-4

• The spectrum of structural arrangements for case law publication
• Supreme Court of the United States
• State with a "reporter" who supervises production of a set of "official reports"
• Hypothetical state, heavily reliant on the Thomson/West NRS
• Selective publication versus comprehensive distribution

II. Selective publication - some key variables

• Judicial System Structure (the dominant models with variants)
  
  
• A single appellate court (supreme court) to which there is an appeal of right from decisions of district courts of general jurisdiction (which may themselves have an appellate role in relation to municipal courts and administrative agency adjudications) (e.g., ND, SD, ME, MT, WY)
  
  
• A supreme court (with largely discretionary jurisdiction and very limited appeal of right jurisdiction), an intermediate court of appeals to which there is an appeal of rights from decisions of district courts of general jurisdiction (...) (e.g., IN, MI, OH, WI)
• Court of Appeals is divided into districts, departments, circuits, or divisions
• Court of Appeals has state-wide jurisdiction but renders decisions in panels of __
• Issue in either case is effect of decision by one district or panel on future cases coming before other districts or panels (For one state's answer: Cook v. Cook, 208 Wis. 2d 166, 560 N.W.2d 246 (1997), for another's OK Sup. Ct. Rule 1.200(c)(2))
  
  
• A pair of top appellate courts, one for civil appeals and the other for criminal appeals to which there is an appeal of right in criminal cases, an intermediate court of appeals for civil appeals to which cases are appealed of right from district courts of general jurisdiction (...) or referred by the supreme court (e.g., OK, TX)
  
  
• Other variants:
• Appellate courts of specialized jurisdiction (e.g., Tax Court)
• Existence of a set of case reports that extend to trial courts of general or limited jurisdiction (e.g., NY, NJ, PA, CT)
  
  
• Degree of legal and practical authority of state high court over lower court functioning (contrast NY and ND)
  
  
• Administrative infrastructure (e.g., Washington)
  
  
• Volume or scale
• WY Supreme Court disposes of approximately 300 cases a year, with approximately 200 signed opinions, of which approximately 170 are "published"
• ND Supreme Court disposes of approximately 370 cases a year, with approximately 200 signed opinions, of which all are published
  
  
• WI Supreme Court confronts approximately 50 appeals of right plus 1,200 petitions for review a year, of which it grants and decides approximately 125, publishing all or nearly all of its decisions on the merits; the WI Court of Appeals disposes of approximately 3,500 cases a year, with approximately 200 being "published"
  
  
• NY, CA ?
  
  
• Use of "unreported" or "non-precedential" designation for reasoned decisions (as distinguished from summary dispositions)
  
  
• Existence of a public law reporter

III. Some different behaviors, the issues

• Practice of summary disposition (without reasoned opinion)
• Practice of designating some reasoned opinions "non-precedential"
• Public and professional access to "non-precedential" or "unpublished" decisions and summary dispositions (Are they covered by neutral format citation system?)
• NY
• MN
• MT (in contrast to ND & OK)
• Practice of forbidding citation
• Practice of allowing citation but giving reduced weight to "unpublished" decisions

IV. Next week (compiled codes [statutes, regulations, local ordinances] and the different issues they raise)

• Readings
• Assigned: Svengalis, Arnold-Moore and Clemes
• Suggested background: Patterson & Joyce (re statutory compilations)
• Questions to consider in relation to your jurisdiction (NY, CA, IL, UT, MN) in relation to the: statutory code
• Is there any copyright claim asserted that a for-profit redistributor would have to consider?
• How are amendments and obsolete provisions handled?
• Is there a clear path to not-yet-compiled provisions?
• What is said about the status of the online version vis-a-vis printed versions?
• If combined with an adequate case law source would this be an adequate tool for state legal research?