Case Brief

Name and Citation of Case:

Decision:

Describes the final action of the court (e.g., reversed, remanded, affirmed, vacated, etc.)

How the Vote Decided: Majority Opinion, Concurring, Dissenting:

Fact Summary and Legal History:

Facts are exactly that – the record of the dispute established in the courts below. Why is there a controversy?

Major Question (s) or Issue(s) Presented by the Case:

All judicial opinions are framed around what the court believes to be the core questions presented by the case before it. Each decision, thus, focuses on and authoritatively answers the issues treated by the court.

Summary of the Court’s Reasoning in Reaching the Answer:

Each decision focuses on and authoritatively answers the questions and issues raised by the court. The disposition of these matters is largely the basis of stare decisis – the doctrine of precedent. This doctrine holds that similar cases should be treated similarly. This gives the law a measure of continuity and certainty. Precedent also limits the discretion of judges.

In this section of the brief, you reconstruct and summarize in your own words the central reasoning (or argument) used by the court to answer the issues it addresses. Much of the written opinion will not be directly germane in that it will deal with subsidiary points – points not directly relevant to the core issue at hand. This subsidiary discussion is called obiter dicta, and has a number of interesting uses. However it is irrelevant to the disposition of the issue at hand in the specific case before the court.

Summary of Significant Concurring and Dissenting Opinions:

The reasoning in all concurring opinions should be summarized in this section of the brief. Justices can concur in the majority of position in one of two ways, and precisely how they concur is very important. First they can concur in the opinion of the court. This means that they agree with the reasoning used in the majority in settling the issue in the case. Second, they can concur in the judgment of the court. This means that they agree with the result of the majority’s disposition of the case (e.g., reverse, affirm, etc.), but for reasons different from those offered by the majority. Because of this disagreement with the reasoning of the majority, the votes of these justices do not count as an endorsement of the result reached by that opinion. Traditionally, the establishment of a controlling doctrine requires that at least five members of the court agree to the reasoning offered by the majority.

You will find that, over time, not only do written concurrences increase, but that their centrality to the meaning in of any given court decision (e.g., Does it establish a precedent binding on lower state and federal courts?) grows more important as well. They are als significant indicators of the decision-making dynamics on the court (e.g., coalitions, voting behaviors, tensions over the substance and direction of the doctrinal development). As such, you want to track these opinions very closely.

Sometimes there are justices who do not agree with either the reasoning used or result reached by the majority. These justices write to express the basis of their disagreement with the majority. The reasoning in all dissenting opinions should be summarized in this section of the brief.

Significance: What Does This Opinion Mean for the Law?

This section of the brief discusses why the case is important. For example, it can not significant deviations from past doctrine or the extensions of previous doctrine.

Given the focus of the class, it is also useful to note in your brief who writes which opinions, and who joins which blocs. Shifts in judicial alignments will often influence the outcome of a given case or string of cases.

Personal Interpretation and Substance?

This section of the brief permits you to offer your own personal opinions which should bet be reflected in the balance of the brief.

Reference(s):

The case and supporting materials/matter you utilized in completing this brief. All references listed here, as well as citations utilized to support/document your work above must be in APA format based on the 6th edition of the APA manual.

The text that appears below the above line should not be included in your submitted work.

This template was developed from Krislov’s Judicial Process and Constitutional Law (1972).

Krislov, S. (1972) Judicial process and constitutional law. Boston, MA: Little Brown & Co.