As an ongoing project to inform the general public of the various resources that are available. I will endeavor to explain the basic tools and techniques needed to research case-law and to investigate publicly available legal information. To begin this series I will outline how to use google scholar to find basic case-law. There is more than google available to you as a “free-database”; Sites such as find-law, Justa, case-text to name a few. However, to those who are just starting out, learning how to use google is pretty valuable.
Figure 1.1 – That is your search bar. You can use helpful commands such as intext:, insubject:, and quotes to narrow down what you are looking for. A helpful tip to discovering the elements of a particular charge is to type in the legal name of the charge ie. Aggravated Assault, Battery, Conversion, Fraud, etc. For our example I will type in Unlawful Arrest.
Figure 1.2 – Select case-law if you want to sheppardize or discover cases that relate to the subject. Choose articles if you want to read some academic titles on the subject.
Figure 1.3 – Select the type of venue you want to do research in. Not every state defines the elements of a charge the same way. How one court rules on one subject vs. another also changes. The types of actions that are considered a statutory offense also changes from state to state. If you push “Select Courts” it will open up a full list of courts that you can look at.
Figure 2. Google Court Search.
Figure 2.1 – Allows you to search all state courts or clear your search criteria.
Figure 2.2 – Allows you to search all Federal/Appellate courts or clear your Federal/Appellate search criteria.
Figure 2.3 – For our example I am going to select the entire 9th federal district (and in the next figure I am going to look at and select all Washington state cases).
Figure 2.4 – Click “done” when you want your searches to populate.
Figure 3. Google Court Search Continued.
Figure 3.1 – I have selected Washington state courts for this example.
Figure 3.2 – You can also click “done” on the bottom of the same page to populate your search results.
Figure 4. Search Result Returns.
Figure 4.1 – You can change the subject of your search in the search bar without reselecting your court search criteria.
Figure 4.2 – You can change which court your are looking for without modifying the subject search material.
Figure 4.3 – These are your time dependent search filters and sort buttons. You can sort by relevance (Keyword) or date (If you know when the case happened).
Figure 4.4 – For our example I will be selecting Dubner v. City and County of San Francisco.
Figure 5. Dubner v. City and County of San Francisco.
Figure 5.1 – This is how the case is cited.If a name is on the left they are the plaintiff and on the right they are the defendant; Dubner is the Plaintiff, City and County of San Francisco is the defendant; 266 F. 3d 959 is the name on the federal register; Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit is the location of the case; 2001 is the year the case was filed.
Figure 5.2 – This is the venue in which the case was decided, the file date, and the decision date.
Figure 5.3 – This is a summary of the outcome (not all cases will have a summary) You this bit of information to speed up your search outcomes. If you are looking to see what works to satisfy the elements of a charge as a plaintiff see if the outcome is a Win for the plaintiff, if you are a defendant than look for outcomes that find in favor of the defendant to that particular charge.
In the above example, we see that a lady charged the city with an unlawful arrest. The appeals court (This is a controlling case, for courts of a lower status) ruled to overturn the trial court and move for a retrial (The plaintiff gets another shot at a law-suit), we can see that her appeal for the case was affirmed in part and reversed in part ( which means while the lower court is right about one thing, we see the fact mean that its really about something else). They affirmed that the court is right to dismiss a case if the evidence isn't there to prove the issue, however the Appellate court did see that she was prevented from attaining the evidence necessary to prove her case therefore she should be allowed to try again and gather what she needs to prove her case. The appellate court is concerned primarily with procedural errors. The errors only appear on the record if you make timely objections to an issue entered or prevented from being entered on the record. You have a right to preserve the record of your case, the appellate process guarantees that right.
Figure 6. Dubner v. City and County of San Francisco.
Figure 6.1 – Explains the elements necessary to establish Unlawful Arrest.
Figure 6.2 – Explains the procedural error that the appellate court cognized, namely that the plaintiff did their due diligence in discovery to identify the officers in question. The claim did not fail for want of effort on her part but rather the department did not disclose the officers at the site in question.
Figure 6.3 – Explains that while the evidence sought could not prove conclusively the individuals in question to be charged with the cause of action. It does prove that the issue in question did happen and by constructive notice; a prima facie case did exist to try further.
Figure 7. Dubner v. City and County of San Francisco.
Figure 7.1 – This is the judgement of the appellate court. The appellate court is saying that the plaintiff gets another attempt to sue on the same claim. Its also agreeing with the trial court; the evidence presented during the original claim was not enough to establish punitive damages (however if retried she might find some new evidence in discovery, the old evidence remains but in her case she was given a direction to pursue), it is enough to collect on the original charge however.
Figure 7.2 – Its interesting to note that the appellate court mentions that her arrest, has no specific charges attached to it. The defendants simply cited case law and allowed the judge to make the inference as to which statute to look at, as a legal technique its something worth looking at when constructing your own case. Especially, if the case in point does not fit on its face with the elements of your particular cause of action.