An Introduction to Judicial Opinions
Transcript of An Introduction to Judicial Opinions
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n
Introduction to
Judicial Opinions
§3 1
he
natomy
of
Opinions
In
an
opinion announcing a court s decision, one might find nine different
kinds of pronouncement:
1 a recitation of procedural events
2 a recitation of pleaded or
evidentiary
events
3. a
statement
of the issue
or
issues to be decided by the
court
4. a summary of the arguments made by
each
side
5
the court s holding on each issue
6. the rule or rules of law the court enforces through each holding
7. the court s reasoning
8. dicta
9. a statement of the relief
granted
or denied
Only infrequently, however, do all nine occur in the same opinion.
Opinions often begin with
1)
a recitation of
procedur l
v nts
inside
the litigation
that
have raised the issue decided by the court. Examples are
motions, hearings, trial, judgment, and appeal. Although the court s descrip
tion of these events may because of unfamiliar terminology - seem
at
first confUSing, you must be able to understand procedural histories because
the manner in which an issue is raised determines the method a
court
will
use to decide it. A court decides a motion for a directed verdict, for example,
very differently from the way t rules on a request for a jury instruction,
even though both might require the
court
to consider the same point of law.
The procedural events add up to
the
case s procedural posture
at the
time
the decision was made.
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Frequently, the court will next
describe (2) thc
pleaded
events or
thc
eVidentiary
events
on which the ruling is based. In litigation, parties plcad
racts and then prove
them. The
court
has
no
other
way of knowing what
transpired between the parties bet ore the lawsuit began. f the procedural
posture involved a motion to dismiss a pleading - before any evidence
could be
submitted
the
decision
will
be
bascd
on
the
allegations in
the
challenged pleading (usually a complaint). Otherwisc, the court s knowledge
of thc facts will come from evidentiary events
such
as testimony and ex
hibits at trial or at a hearing, or perhaps affidavits and exhibits submitted in
connection with a motion.
A court might also
set
out (3) a statement of
the
issue or issues before
the court
for decision and
(4)
a summ ry of
the
rguments
made
by
cach
side, although either
or
both are often only implied. A court will further
state (or at
least imply) (5)
the
holding on
each
of the issues
and
(6)
the
rule
or
rules
of law
the
court
enforccs in
making
each
holding,
together with
(7) the reasoning behind often called the rationale
for -
its decision.
Somewhere in the opinion, the
court
might placc some (8)
dicta.
You will
learn more
about
dicta in the next few months. but for the
moment
think
of it as discussion unnccessary to support a holding and therefore lacking
binding preceden tial authority.)
An opinion usually
ends with (9)
a
st tement
of the relit:f
gr nted
or
denied. If the opinion represents
the
decision of an appellate
court, the
re
lief may be an affirmance, a reversal,
or
a reversal
combined
with a direction
to the trial court to
proceed
in a specified
manner. f
thc opinion is from a
trial
court,
the relief is most
commonly
the granting or denial of a motion.
Exercise I issecting
the
Text of
Meints
v untington
Read Meints v Huntington and determine where If anywhere) each of these
types of pronouncement occurs. Mark up the text generously and be prepared to
discuss
your analysis in
class.
Look up in a legal dictionary every unfamiliar word
and every familiar word that
is
used
In
an unfamiliar way.
MEINTS
v HUNTINGTON
276 F
245
8th
Cir
1921)
LEWIS
District Judge. John Meints. a resident and citizen of South Dakota,
brought this action against O. P Huntington and others, residents and citi
zens
of
Rock
County. Minnesota, to recover damages. on the charge that
they deported him from Minnesota to South Dakota on the night
of
August
19. 1918. and maltreated him on the way. After a lengthy trial, exhibited
here by 1100 pages of testimony. the greater part of which relates to the
loyalty of the defendants and the disloyalty of plaintiff during the late World
War there was verdict and Judgment for defendants.
§.l.l 1.
See
pages 8-9.
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The plaintiff was born In Illinois, went to Rock County, Minnesota, and
resided there
in
the town of Luverne for sixteen or seventeen years prior to
the summer of 19 8
In
the spnng of that year he was suspected of being
interested in or of having contributed to the support of a Non-Partisan
League newspaper printed and published in that town; on account
of
that,
and also because it was claimed that he was disloyal, a large body of men,
including some of the defendants, went to his house about midnight of
June 9th, woke him up, compelled him to dress and come
out
and some
of them
In
automobiles took him across the State line into Iowa, a distance
of about fifteen miles, told him
not
to return and left him there He then
went
to St. Paul and reported the occurrence
to
a U Government agent
in
the Department of Justice, That agent sent two men to
Rock
County to
make an investigation, and on their report Mr Campbell of that Depart
ment advised plaintiff to return to Rock County but to
go
to the home of
his two sons some twelve miles out from Luverne, and remain
there He
did return
the
latter part of July and went to his sons home, On the night
of August 3rd men in eight or nine automobiles
went out to
the sons
house, Among them were the defendants Huntington, Connell, Ihlan,
Miner, Turnbull and Kimmerling, They tried to enter the house by unlocking
the doors With keys which they had, but were
not
able
to
do so and finally
obtained entrance by going through the cellar They were hunting for plain
tiff, but could
not
find him,
In
the late afternoon
of
August 9th some
v-
enty-five to eighty men in about twenty-five automobiles, most of them
from
Luverne
met at a church about four miles from the sons house, and
proceeded from there in a
body
arriVing at the sons house about dusk he
plaintiff and
his
sons saw them coming,
went
into the house and fastened
the
screen
door on the Inner
side
he married son s wife and children were
also in the house and shortly became greatly excited and alarmed, as their
outcries demonstrated, Huntington and others
went
to the door and de
manded to know where the plaintiff was, and that they be permitted to
enter
he
son
who
stood inside the door refused to open it and declined
to admit them The defendant Long at once forced the door open and a
number of men immediately entered, including Long and Huntington, he
son
testified that he was assaulted by them and thrown out of the house,
They
denied
that
and testified that his bloody
face
was caused by
his own
struggles while they held him to prevent violence on
his
part, he plaintiff
stood at the head
of
the stairway
with
a gun and a fork handle, At
first
he
refused to come
down
or to permit anyone to come up, he other son was
induced by some of the defendants, or others
with
them, to go up and tell
hiS father that they did not intend Violence, he plaintiff sent back word by
his son that the defendant Long might come up and he would talk
with
him, He then came down
with
Long and was taken in Huntington s au
tomobile to Luverne Huntington drove, and som of the other defendants
were in the
car
with him and the plaintiff, Most of the crowd went with
them, but a few turned west toward the South Dakota line before Luverne
was reached, Plaintiff was held at Luverne until about eleven o clock, and
while there was refused permission to see
hiS
wife or to talk
with
her over
the telephone, About that hour he was again put
n
Huntington s
car
De
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fendants Huntington, Long, Michaelson and Smith also got in and they
started for the South Dakota line, some fifteen miles away. accompanied by
another auto in which were defendants Turnbull, Connell, Kimmerling and
McDermott. They reached the State line about midnight. and were stopped
there by armed men whose faces were masked. They took Meints from
Huntington's
car
assaulted him, whipped him, threatened to shoot him,
besmeared his body with tar and feathers, and told him to cross the line
into South Dakota, and that if he ever returned t Minnesota he would be
hanged
On the foregOing facts there
can
be no doubt that from the time the
crowd reached the sons' house and on up to the time Meints
crossed
the
State line, he was coerced and compelled by a show of force to submit
himself t the will of others that he was unlawfully restrained of his liberty,
falsely imprisoned for the time being, and that this was done to drive
him from the
State
of
Minnesota. And
so
we
say
at once that the trial court
erred in refusing to instruct a verdict for the plaintiff and against all defen
dants
who
took parr; for it cannot
be
maintained that because Meints may
have been,
in
their opinion, disloyal, and was interested
in
and gave sup
port to the Non-Partisan League Newspaper, that that
would
put him at
the mercy
of
defendants and invest them With the right and power to ad
judge and inflict punishment, nor would the fact that the defendants were
loyal men have the slightest tendency to excuse or ustify in the
eyes
of
the law the acts charged against them. , .. Mr. Cooley in his work on Torts
says
[that] n
•
any restraint put by
fear
or force upon the actions of another
is unlawful and constitutes a
false
imprisonment, unless a showing
of jus-
tification makes it a true or legal imprisonment.
The court yielded to the contention of the defendants that the plaintiff
could not recover for anything that was done prior to the assaults made
upon him, when the State line was reached, on the claim that he had
consented to everything that had happened before that, and so instructed
the jury over the objection of the plaintiff. This was prejudicial error. Can it
be seriously Hlought that it was the wish
of
plaintiff to leave
Rock
County?
His home was in Luverne, his wife was there, he had lived there for many
years all of his family and all of his interests were
in
Rock County; he had,
to the knowledge
of
some,
if not
all
of
the defendants but recently returned
to remain there. He evidently knew the purpose
of
these men
when
he
saw them coming, some of them had been hunting for him in the night
time a few days before. He armed himself to resist them, but they came in
such numbers and invaded the home in such a ruthless and high-handed
manner that resistance was obviously futile. He knew. and every rational
thought convinces, that
if
he had not submitted he
would
have been more
severely treated.
Who would
have the temerity
to
argue that they
would
have permitted him to remain, or after starring, to have alighted from Hun
tington's auto and return? While they held him for two or three hours in
Luverne he was refused permission
to
s
his wife or to talk with her over
the 'phone. He was in a large room with a crowd about him who jeered
him and
asked
him questions so thickly that there was no opportunity to
attempt to answer, and an attempt if it had been made, would have been
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withOut avail. No argument can blot out the
fact,
which stands predomi-
nant throughout the record, that he was a prisoner from the time these
men reached his sons' house until he
passed
over the State line into South
Dakota, and everyone who reads the record must know that resistance on
his part
t
their will
would
not have been tolerated.
In
omer
v
Knowles,
17
Kan.
436, It
is
said:
False
Imprisonment
S
necessarily a wrongful Interference
with
the per-
sonal liberty of an individual. The wrong may be committed by words alone,
or
acts
alone, or
by
both, and
by
merely operating on the will
of
the
individual, or by
personal violence. or
by
both.
It is
not necessary that the
individual be confined within a prison, or within walls: or that he be as-
saulted, or even touched. It is not necessary that there should be any injury
done to the Individual's person, or to his character. or reputation. Nor
is
It
necessary
that the wrongful
act be
committed
with
malice, or ill will, or even
with the slightest wrongful Intention. Nor is It necessary that the
act
be under
c r of
any legal or judicial proceeding. All that
S necessary is,
that the in-
diVidual
be
restrained
of
hiS liberty without any sufficient legal
cause
therefor,
and by words or acts which
he
fears
to disregard.
In
ike
v Hanson 9 N.H. 49), the plaintiff did not intend to pay a tax,
and the collector was so informed. He, in demanding the tax, declared to
the plaintiff that he arrested her, and
she
paid the money under that re-
straint. It was held that the
facts
were
sufficient
t
sustain her action for
assault and false imprisonment. The court summarized the doctrine an-
nounced by
Starkie
on EVidence, thus:
That in ordinary practice words
are
sufficient to constitute an Imprison-
ment, if they impose a restraint upon the person and the plaintiff
is
accord-
ingly restrained. for
he S
not obliged
to
Incur
risk of
personal Violence and
Insult by resisting until actual violence be used .
. . .
The
court, acting on
its
conclusion
of
fact that plaintiff had consented
to everything before the
State
line was reached, instructed the
JUry
over
plaintiff's objection and exception that he could recover only against those
who maltreated him at the South Dakota line, and that if the evidence was
not
sufficient in the
judgment
of the JUry to satisfy them
as
to the identity
of
those
m n
they would return a verdict for the defendants, there being
no liability on the part
of
any of the defendants except those, if any, who
assaulted him there.
This we
think was also
error. As
already
said,
those
who took the plaintiff from the sons' home, those who participated to any
extent in so doing, those who aided in his deportation on the way, and
those who abused him at
the
State line and warned him that if he ever
returned to Minnesota he would be hanged, were all actively engaged in
the execution of one purpose, and the transaction throughout ... was for
the accomplishment of that purpose, .
It
is
also claimed by the defendants that
what
was done by them was
done to protect the plaintiff against others who might iruure him because
of
his disloyalty, or his reputation for disloyalty.
This
presents a
new
doctrine
unknown t us, and no authority has been cited to support it. We cannot
believe that the
law
will ever sanction the claim, either
In
defense or mfti-
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gation that the rights
of
one may be via/a ted for the purpose of preventing
others from doing the same thing
he judgment
is
reversed and the cause remanded for a new trial.
A decision's
citation
is
made
up
of
the
case's
name,
references
to
the
reporter or reporters
in which
the decision
was
printed, the name
of
the
court where the decision was
made,
and
the year of
the
decision. For
Meints, all this information
appears
in the
heading
on page 28.
The case name is composed by separating
the
last
names
of the parties
with a v. If the opinion was written by a trial court, the name of the plain
tiff
appears
first. In some appellate courts,
the name
of
the appellant comes
first, but in others the parties are listed as
they
were in the trial court. In a
case
with multiple plaintiffs
or defendants, the name
of only
the
first listed
per
side appears in
the
case name.
Reporters are publications
that print
opinions, mostly from appellate
courts.
There
are two kinds: official reporters published
under
the control
of
courts and
unofficial
ones published by
private
companies.
Most opinions
appear both
in an official
reporter and
in
at
least one unofficial reporter.
Some courts, however, publish their decisions in only one reporter, which
has
an official status
but an
unofficial format. Meints D. Huntington was
decided by
the Eighth
Circuit
of
the
United
States Court
of Appeals. Deci
sions of
the
United
States Courts
of Appeals
appear
only in
the
Federal Re
porter (abbreviated
F. ). The decision you have just
read
begins on page
245
of volume 276.
Thus,
Meints is cited to in the following form:
kfeints 'D. Huntington
276
F. 245 (8th Cir. 1921).
§J 2
The Interdependence
mong
Facts Issues
and
Rules
Many facts
are mentioned
in an opinion merely
to
proVide background,
continuity, or
what
journalists call human interest to what \\'ould other-
wise be a tedious
and
disjointed
recitation.
Of
the
remaining facts.
some
are
merely
related to
the
court's
thinking, while others caused the court to
come to its decision. This last
group
could be called the detcnllillati,;.:ej acts
or the essentialfacts. They are essential to
the
court's
decision because they
determined
it: if they
had
been different,
the
decision would hayc been dif
ferent.
The
determinative facts lead to the rule of the case - the rule of law
for
which the case stands
as
precedent
- and the discoyery of that
rule
is
the most important goal of case analysis. (Of
course,
where se\'eral issues
are raised
together
in a case,
the court must
make se\'eral rulings
and an
opinion
may thus
stand
for several different rules.)
2. In Chapter 16, you
will
learn
more
ahout constructing legal Ci taWl I l
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§3.2
The
determinative faets ean be identified by asking the following ques
tion: i f
a
p rticul r f ct h d
not happened,
or It it h d
h ppened
dil er-
ently, would the
court h ve m de
(1 dUt erent decision? i
so,
that
fact is
one
of
the
determinative facts. This can be illustrated
through
a nonjudicial
decision of a
sort
with which you
might
recently
have had
some experience.
Assume
that
a rental agent has
just shown
you an
apartment
and
that
the
following are true:
A. The apartment is located half a mile from
the
law school.
B.
It is a
studio
apartment (one room plus a
kitchenette and bath
room)
C.
The
building
appears
to be well-maintained and safe.
D.
The
apartment
is
at the corner
of
the
building,
and
windows on
two sides provide ampic light
and
,'entilation.
E. t
is on
thc
third floor. away from the street,
and
the neighbors do
not appear to be disagreeable.
F.
The rent is
8400
per
month,
furnished.
G. The landlord will require a year's lease, and if you do not
stay
in
the
apartment
for
the
full year. subleasing it
to
someone else would
bc difficult.
H. You have a widowed aunt, with whom you get along well and who
lives
alone
in a
house 45 minutes
by
bus
from
the
law sehool,
and
she has offered to let you use the second floor of
her
house during
the sehool year.
The
house
and
neighborhood are safe
and
quiet,
and the living arrangements would be satisfactory to you.
I.
You have
made
a
commitment
to work
next summer
in EI Paso.
J. You have taken
out substantial
loans to go to law sehool.
K.
You
neither
own
nor
have access to a car.
L.
Reliable loeal people
havc
told you
that
you
are
unlikely to find
an
apartment that is better, eheaper, or more convenient than
the
one
you have
just
inspected.
V{hich facts are essential to your deeision? i
the apartmcnt had
been two
miles from the law sehool
(rather
than a half-mile), would your deeision be
different?
f
not, the first listed fact could not bc determinative. t might he
part
of
the
factual mosaic
and
might explain
why you
lookcd
at
the apart
mcnt in the first plaee, but you would not base your decision on it. (Go
through the
listed facts
and mark
in
the
margin
whether each
would
deter
mine your
decision.)
Facts recited spccifically in an opinion can sometimes be reformulated
generically. In
the
hypothetical above, for example, a
generic restatement
of fact might be the
follOWing: "you have
a rent-free
alternative
to
the
apartment, but the
altcrnative would
require 45
minutes of travel
each
way
plus
the expcnse
of public
transportation." That
formulation
is generic
be
cause it includes
other
speCific possibilities that in the end have
the
same
relevant characteristics and effect. It would include, for example, the follow
ing, seemingly different, facts: "you arc a member of the clergy in a religion
that
has
given you a leave of
absence
to
attend
law school: you
may
continue
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to live rent-free in the satisfaetory quarters your religion has provided, but
to get to the law school, you will have to walk 15 minutes and
then
ride a
subway for 30
minutes
morc, at the
same
cost as a bus.
A rule of law is, in essence, a principle that governs
how
a
particular
type
of decision is to be made or, put another way, how eertain types of faets
are
t
be
treated
by
the
official
(such
as a
judge) who
must
make
a decision.
Where
a
court
does not state a rule of the case,
or where
it ambiguously
states a rule, you might arrive at an arguably
supportable
formulation of the
rule by considering the determinative facts to have caused the result. There
is room for interpretive maneuver where one could reasonably interpret the
determinative facts narrowly (specifically) or
broadly
(generically).
Notice how different formulations of a rule can be extracted from the
apartment example. A narrow formulation might be the following:
A law
student
who has a
choice
between renting
an apartment
and
living in the second floor of an aunt's
house
should
choose
the
latter
where the
student
has had to borrow money to go to law school: where
the apartment s rent is 8400 per
month
but the aunt's second Hoor
is
free except for bus fares; where
the student must
work in
EI
Paso
during the summer; and where
t
is difficult loeally to
sublease
an
apartment.
Beeause this formulation
is
limited to
the
specifie facts given in
the
hypo
thetical, it could directly govern only an
extremely
small
number
of future
decision-makers. It would 110t for example, directly govern
the
member of
the clergy described above, even if she
must
spend
next
summer doing relief
work in Eritrea.
Although a
deeision-maker in a future situation might be able to reason
by analogy from
the narrow
rule
set
out above, a broader,
more
widely ap
plieable formulation, stated generically, would directly govern both situa
tions:
A student on a tight budgct
should
not sign a year's lease
where
the
student cannot live in the leased property during the summer and
where a nearly free
alternative
is available.
An even more general formulation would govern un even wider circle of
applications:
A
person
with limited funds
should not
lease
property
that that
person
cannot fully usc where there is a nearly free alternative.
The
follOWing however,
is
so
broad
as to be meaningless:
A person
should
not spend money in a way that would later lead to
problems.
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§3.2
The
interpretation
of opinions is not easy. Cases do not unfold
their
nciples for the asking, wrote Cardozo.
They
yield up their
kernel
slowly
d painfully. l Courts often do not explicitly
state
the issue,
the
holding,
the rule for
which
the
case
is to
stand
as
precedent, and the
determina-
e facts are not usually labelled as such. Whenever a court gives less than
ull explanation, you must use what is explicitly stated to
pin
down what
only implied.
Fortunately, the determinative facts, the issue, the holding, and thc rule
:: all dependent on each other. In the
apartment
hypothetical, for exam-
if the issue were different - say, How shall I respond to
an
offer to
join
e
American
Automobile Association'?
the
selection of
determinative
~ t s
would also change. (In fact,
the only determinative one
would be fact
You
neither
own
nor have
access to a car. )
You
will oftcn find yourself
ing
what
the
court
tells you
about
the
issue
or
the
holding to
fill
in
what
e court has not told you about
the determinative
facts - and vice versa.
For example, if the court states
the
issue but does not identify
the
rule
spe