What information is available on FindACase™?
This site provides case decisions from courts nationwide. All of the content is
a matter of public record. FindACase™ does not contain statutes or regulations.
To expand your legal research beyond cases, please visit www.versuslaw.com.
To learn more about courts that are covered by FindACase™, look at our
Library Directories or click “Our Sources” from any page.
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From which courts are opinions available?
FindACase™ offers access to all federal and state case law. Coverage begins
in 1900 for the U.S. Supreme Court, 1930 for the Federal Circuit Courts of Appeals,
and 1950 for the Federal District Courts and, with limited exceptions, State Appellate
Courts.
For court coverage details, please see
Library Directories. You can also access the directories by clicking “Our
Sources” from the top or bottom of any page.
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What is included in each case?
You may review the first part of the text of any case listed in your search results for free. Also the case name, the court and jurisdiction.
With purchase of a case, you will receive a complete record, including the citation to the case and/or the docket number, and the footnotes (if any).
This information is necessary to complete ongoing research or to use in a legal proceeding.
If the document contains a simple affirmation or denial without discussion, there may not be additional text. Each case may be downloaded for
$7.95.
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How do I search?
The FindACase™ home page defaults to a “Simple Search.” Just enter the keywords
you are researching into the box and click “Go!” The search will cover all courts
and jurisdictions for that term. You will receive a list of up to 25 results to
review.
If you want to search a specific court or jurisdiction or date, click on the “Advanced
Search” text. You will be taken to a search page that will allow you to select a
date range, state location, and court type. You can adjust the number of results
you will receive, as well as the type of search you wish to use (matching all search
words, exact phrases, or Boolean searches). You can also choose to search by citation.
Once you have filled in the form, click “Go!” at the top or bottom of the page.
A Simple Search will search for all of the words you provide in the search box.
To search for exact phrases, select that option from the Advanced Search page
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How do I search by citation?
A citation search can be accomplished by entering the citation into the Simple Search
query box, by selecting “citation” for search type on the advanced search page,
or by using a Boolean search on the Advanced Search page.
Simple Search. To search for an opinion when you have the citation (official,
parallel, or VersusLaw citation), enter the citation in quotes in the search field.
Make sure you have the punctuation correct before proceeding.
For example, to find United States v. Tohono O’odham Nation, 559 F. 3d 1284 (Fed.
Cir. 2009), using a simple search, enter the following in the search query
box:
“559 F. 3d 1284”
This search yields a small number of hits, including both the 2009 Federal Circuit
case and the later U.S. Supreme Court decision in the same dispute.
For this type of search, it is important to use the proper format, including spaces
and punctuation. This search will retrieve the opinion cited and will also retrieve
other opinions that cited to the opinion. Thus, you have the ability to follow the
opinion's subsequent history.
NOTE: While you can search for an opinion by its citation, it is advantageous
to know the parties involved as well since the document will appear for review without
any citation or docket number listed. Results are sorted by relevance, so the cited
case may not be listed first. If the case has been cited often, it may not appear
in the 25 returned documents for the Simple Search; try the Advanced Search option
instead.
For in-court purposes you may purchase the document with citations after reviewing
it.
Citation Search. For a quick and easy method for searching by a document's
official citation, choose Citation next to Search Type at the top
of the Advanced Search page. This will refresh the page with a citation form in
which you can enter the opinion's volume number, use the pull-down menu to select
the reporter, then enter the page number. As with a Simple Search, the opinion itself
will be retrieved as well as all opinions referencing that opinion. Note that this
search goes across the entire library, including all jurisdictions, with a search
return limit of 25 documents.
Boolean/Fielded Search. From the Advanced Search screen, choose Standard
by search type and boolean next to Search By. Then enter the citation
in the search box at the top in this format: (cite contains xxx) where xxx
is the citation. Using the example above, the box would read: (cite contains 444
u.s. 286). The citation must be in proper format and the parentheses must
be used. Use this type of search for opinions at least six months old; newer opinions
will not yet have official citations. They will however, include a VersusLaw citation
and docket number. See the FAQ on citing to a FindACase™ opinion.
NOTE: You can also use this fielded search for searching for opinions by
the party names: (parties contains savilla) for example.
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I have a citation but don't know in which state to search?
An opinion's citation includes the name of the reporter in which it is "published";
there are state and regional reporters. The regional reporters listed below show
the states that are covered for each:
- Atlantic (A., A.2d) – Connecticut, Delaware, D.C., Maine, Maryland,
New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont
- North Eastern (N.E., N.E.2d) – Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, New
York, Ohio
- North Western (N.W., N.W.2d) – Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska,
N. Dakota, S. Dakota, Wisconsin
- Pacific (P., P.2d, P.3d) – Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii,
Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, Utah, Washington,
Wyoming
- Southern (So., So.2d) – Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi
- South Eastern (S.E., S.E.2d) – Georgia, N. Carolina, S. Carolina, Virginia,
West Virginia
- South Western (S.W., S.W.2d, S.W.3d) – Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri,
Tennessee, Texas
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How do I find opinions on specific topics?
To find opinions on certain topics or points of law, you can use three different
methods: 1) using all words; 2) using an exact phrase; or 3) employing a Boolean
search.
All Words. This parameter searches for documents in which all the search
words are present, in any order. The search presumes "and" between each word of
the search. Use this technique for broad topic search. The Simple Search uses this
model.
Exact Phrase. To find a phrase or term of art, select this search type; no
quotation marks are necessary. For example: judgment of dissolution, ex parte application,
community property share.
Boolean. A variety of options are available to you in a Boolean search (available
on the Advanced Search page), allowing you to search with the use of connectors,
wild card characters and fielded searches.
- Connectors:
- and -- both words must be present: medical and negligence
- or -- either word can be present: medical or scientific
- w/n -- first word occurs within a specified number of words of the second
word: negligence w/10 surgery
- and not -- first word occurs, but not second: malpractice and not medical
- Wildcards:
- question mark (?) -- replaces a single character: appl? would find apple
or apply but not apples or application, among others
- asterisk (*) -- replaces any number of characters: judg* would find judge,
judges, judgment, etc.
- Fielded Searches:
- (cite contains xxx) -- retrieves specific opinion: (cite contains 102
S. Ct. 3034).
- (parties contains xxx) -- retrieves opinions with specified party names:
(parties contains florio)
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How do I cite to a FindACase™ opinion?
All opinions, once purchased, on FindACase's site contain a VersusLaw citation as
well as the court's docket number or official citation. In lieu of internal page
numbers, all paragraphs of an opinion are numbered, allowing for a closer pinpoint
on any specific quotation or point of law. See The Bluebook, A Uniform System of
Citation, Eighteenth Edition; Rule 18.1.1, page 152. It allows, in part: "Screen
or page numbers, if assigned, should be preceded by an asterisk; paragraph numbers,
if assigned, should be preceded by a paragraph symbol."
Example of a VersusLaw citation format:
Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 1966.SCT.41457, ¶15 (1966) www.versuslaw.com
In this example, 1966.SCT.41457 is the VersusLaw citation, and paragraph 15 is being
cited.
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What does [U] stand for in the results list?
[U] indicates the opinion is unpublished. To exclude unpublished opinions from your
search, first choose a Boolean search type from the Advanced Search page. Append
your search with and not (name contains (U)).
Other characters indicate that an opinion has been withdrawn [W], or that
it is a table case [T].
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How are document removals handled?
Content carried on this site is public information, and is acquired from courts
in all states and federal jurisdictions. The entirety of this information constitutes
a set of documents held in the public domain, which collectively form an appellate
record. We maintain this set of documents to serve the public in matters of legal
research. FindACase(tm) is one of many online and print sources for such cases.
To ensure the continued utility of this public domain resource, we will not remove
a record from the public domain, which includes search engine indexes, nor will
we redact any portion of it, without a court order from an appropriate court of
authority.
When a court "seals" a decision, it does not intend to remove it from the appellate
record. It intends, rather, to direct its own personnel, typically the Clerk of
the Court, to cease making that opinion available to the public through the court,
i.e., it will no longer be available at the Court's counter and will no longer be
available electronically on the Court's system. "Sealing" a document does not remove
the opinion from the appellate record, especially in the instance of an opinion
which has received a citation.
If the document you want removed has a formal citation, we will not remove the document,
i.e., a formal citation implies the case has been printed in one or more case law
reporters and circulated to law libraries all over the United States. In such a
case, removing the case from our servers does not remove it from the public domain;
it merely disadvantages our users by leaving a hole in the appellate record.
We are a private company carrying public domain documents released by government
entities to the public; we carry nothing that is not in the public domain. Other
private companies carry these same documents and we all do so under the protection
of
Cox Broad. Corp. v. Cohn, 420 U.S. 469 (1975), the case line of authority
from
Feist Publications, Inc., v. Rural Telephone Service Co., 499 U.S. 340 (1991),
and
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
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What is your privacy policy?
The FindACase™privacy policy can be viewed here.
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Questions? Comments? Contact us.
Contact us.
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