COURT OPINION

A statement that is prepared by a judge or court announcing the decision after a case is tried; includes a summary of the facts, a recitation of the applicable law and how it relates to the facts, the rationale supporting the decision, and a judgment; and is usually presented in writing, though occasionally an oral opinion is rendered.
Court opinions are the pronouncements of
judges on the legal controversies that come
before them. In a common-law system, court
opinions constitute the law by which all contro-
versies are settled. Attorneys analyze prior opin-
ions on similar legal issues, attempting to draw
parallels between their case and favorable court
opinions and to distinguish unfavorable opin-
ions. Judges study relevant opinions in render-
ing their decisions.

The majority of court opinions are not
released for publication. Those that are released
by the courts are collected in law books called
reporters. Each state has at least one reporter
that contains the opinions of its courts, and the
nation has several reporters that contain the
opinions of the federal courts.

All published opinions are similar in format.
At the top of each reporter page appears the
name of the reporter preceded by the volume
number. In the upper outside corner of the page
is the page number. The volume, reporter name,
and page number constitute the citation, which
is used to locate the opinion or to refer to it. This
citation may be abbreviated; for example, the
citation “100 Cal. Rptr. 600” is a shorthand reference
to the opinion that appears in volume
100 of the California Reporter at page 600.Many
opinions are published in more than one
reporter. In that situation, the additional citations
are called parallel citations.
The first segment of the court opinion itself
is the title of the action. It identifies the parties
to the case and their roles in the action, such as
plaintiff or defendant. If the opinion is from an
appellate court, the party who appealed the
lower court’s decision is identified as appellant,
and the party who is defending the lower court’s
decision is identified as respondent. In a criminal
case, the plaintiff is usually the state prosecuting
the crime—or the United States, if the
federal government is prosecuting. After the
title, a docket or calendar number assigned by
the court appears, followed by the name of the
court delivering the opinion and the date of the
decision.
After this identifying information, most
reporters insert a summary of the facts and the
decision. In addition, some reporters classify the
points of law applied by the court into individual
paragraphs, called headnotes, that help the
reader extract and analyze each legal concept
discussed. The summary and headnotes are
written by the publisher of the reporter for the
convenience of the reader and are not part of the
court’s opinion.
The court’s discussion of the case is often
preceded by a syllabus, written by the court
reporter, which briefly summarizes the case.
After the syllabus, the court identifies the attorneys
representing the parties.
Finally, the text of the opinion is presented.
It usually opens with the name of the judge who
wrote it. If the words per curiam or by the court
appear at this point, they mean that the court
chose not to identify any individual judge as the
author. If the opinion is designated a memorandum
opinion, it is usually a concise opinion of
the entire court.
At the beginning of the opinion, the court
briefly recounts the facts and issues involved in
the case. Then, it delineates the applicable RULES
OF LAW and explains how they relate to the facts
of the case. In determining what the applicable
law is, the court first looks for any relevant
statutes. If no statute governs the action, the
court relies on past decisions in similar cases, or
precedent. If it is a case of first impression—that
is, no existing statute or precedent governs the
case—the court bases its opinion on similar
decisions and on its own reasoning.
A court opinion may be as brief as a few sentences
or as long as several hundred pages. In its
course, the judge or the court may make observations
or express convictions that do not contribute
to the final holding in the case. These
statements are called dicta and have no binding or precedential force.After the discussion of the facts
and the applicable law, the opinion announces the
holding, which is the legal principle or principles
derived from the opinion. Only the holding is
binding precedent in subsequent cases.
Each reported decision may comprise one
opinion written by one judge on behalf of the
entire court, or several opinions written by individuals
or groups of judges. Not all the opinions
in a case have the same legal force. The most significant
is a majority opinion, in which a majority
of the members of the court agree both with
the reasoning and with the holding. A majority
opinion has the most conclusive precedential
value of any opinion. An opinion agreed upon
by the largest number of judges but fewer than a
majority of those on the court is a plurality
opinion. A plurality may occur where, for example,
four of nine justices join one opinion, two
others write concurrences, and three write dissents.
A plurality opinion constitutes the holding
of the court, since it is joined by the largest
number of justices, but it carries less precedential
value than a majority opinion because it is
not agreed upon by a majority of the court. If a
judge or judges agree with the outcome of the
case but not with the majority’s reasoning, they
may write a separate concurring opinion. Conversely,
a dissenting opinion may be written by a
judge or judges who disagree with the decision
of the court.Neither a concurrence nor a dissent
has precedential value.
The last segment of a majority or plurality
opinion sets forth the judgment of the court.
The judgment is the official decision of the court
on the rights and claims of the parties and
resolves the controversy between them. It may
be a final determination, or it may remand the
case (send it back) to a lower court for further
action. A judgment may be completely in favor
of one party, or partly in favor of one and partly
in favor of another. It may be a straightforward
affirmance or reversal of a lower court’s decision,
or it may affirm on some questions, reverse
on others, and remand on still others.

FURTHER READINGS
Ochs, Linnea L. 1983. Legal Word Finder. Englewood Cliffs,
N.J.: Prentice-Hall.
Statsky, William P. 2003. Introduction to Paralegalism: Perspectives,
Problems, and Skills. 6th ed. Clifton Park, N.J.:
Thomson/Delmar Learning.
Wren, Christopher G., and Jill R. Wren. 1999. The Legal
Research Manual: A Game Plan for Legal Research and
Analysis. Madison,Wis.: Legal Education.

CROSS-REFERENCES
Canons of Construction; Stare Decisis.