Cases Flashcards
What do you do at the start of examining the details of a case report?
- Find out which court the case was heard in.
If appealed, ensure that you start with the case report from the highest appeal court as this will review arguments used in the lower courts
- Find out how many judges were in the case. Normally an odd number to ensure a decisive result.
Supreme Court - max number is 11, although panels of 5 judges are more common.
Court of Appeal - usually three judges.
High Court - usually only one.
If more than one judge - important to identify which judge wrote the detailed judgement.
Who are the appellant and respondent in a case?
Appellant - the party to the case who has appealed against the decision in be court. They would have lost the case in the court below.
Respondent - the party to the case who won in court immediately below.
What is “allowing” and “dismissing”?
Where a judge in an appeal case “votes” in favour of the appellant - they are described as allowing the appeal.
If they “vote” against the appellant - they will be described as diamond the appeal.
The decision of the judge at first instance will either be affirmed (approved) or reversed (rejected).
What are the summary and headnote in a case report?
Summary
Immediately under the title of the case - the court and the judges will be listed.
A summary of the main legal issues of the case follows.
Provides the general gist of the story.
Headnote
Written by the publishers of the law report - not be the judges.
Should not be quoted in court or law essay - but it provides a straight forward summary of the facts of the case, the result and key legal decisions.
Should always be the starting point.
What are the judgements in the case report?
The order of judgements will reflect which judge is delivering the “leading” judgment.
The leading judgement will include a full decision of the facts and background which may not be repeated in the other judgements.
Numbered paragraphs are used.
The judgments which form the majority “votes” are referred to as majority judgments.
Minority judgments are written by dissenting judges (disagree with the overall decision)
Some case reports will include full discussions of the case by every judge. They may arrive at their “voting” decisions for different reasons which can cause difficulties for lawyers and judges in later cases.
