Court Reports in Europe

Court reports (also called “reports”) are published collections of histories of legal cases, with the arguments used by counsel and the reasons given for the decision of the court. They are volumes of printed (or online) opinions of magistrates, judges or justices.

Case report may be official or unofficial, authoritatives or not. Most unofficial reports are authoritatives, and they are cited as source.

Case reports are among the most important sources of legal authority in the common law system. Most reports of judicial decisions are based in the resolution of disputes on appeals, being trial court decisions rarely published.They have not precedential effects.

The number of reports has increased exponencially. According to the Wolters Kluwer Bouvier Law Dictionary, conservatively reports would require “storage of 100.000 volumes, not counting digests and citators”. Now, court reports are published generally electrolically.

Court Reports in England

At the begining of the XIX century, the reports of Chief Justice Coke were especially styled “The Reports”, and were in general cited without the author’s name, as ” Rep.”

Court Reports in the United States

In the American colonies, juges and lawyers relied on English precedents, as no decisions of American courts where published until the Kirby´s Reports, in Connecticut, in 1789. Court reports from other states soon follow.

See Also

• Catalogue of Court Reports
• Judicial Opinions
• Headnotes
• Nominative Reports (also called “Named Reports”)
• Reporters of Decisions
• United States Reports
• The United States Law Week (U.S.L.W)

Source. Salvador Trinxet Llorca