4 ms·

> District court cases are not precedential with respect to other district court cases and it is rare that there is a usable opinion deciding the case. Lawyer

by dctoedt 14y ago

> District court cases are not precedential with respect to other district court cases and it is rare that there is a usable opinion deciding the case. Lawyer and former litigator here. It's true that district-court decisions have the status of binding precedent authority only within their own districts. Such decisions, though, can be and regularly are cited elsewhere as "persuasive" authority. For example, in a California case, a lawyer might argue, in effect, "Your Honor, in a similar situation in New York, Judge So-and-So took Action X, for the reasons explained in her published opinion; we submit that you should take Action X too."

pseingatl 14y ago
I never said that district court decisions had no value; simply that you're not going to find them easily in PACER. And there's nothing wrong with citing caselaw in F.Supp.; but my point is that lawyers do not normally do case law research using PACER. The way the US legal system should work is that once the parties see that Judge So-and-so is right, litigation should cease, right? But it doesn't work that way. Especially at the federal level--if Main Justice doesn't like a decision they'll keep shopping until they get one they like--as will any other litigant who has to litigate in multiple jurisdictions. And my friend, since when do district judges follow the decisions of their district colleagues? Those decisions are only persuasive as well. Look at my SDFla comment. The only binding precedents are those from the Supremes and those that come from your circuit (or the 5th, if you're in the 11th and there's a need to cite a pre-1982? case). Or the Fed. Cir. for matters within their jurisdiction. Or the FS Ct., but now we are really far afield.
pseingatl 14y ago
Another issue is what happened to FLITE and JURIS--these were two USG systems that were set up to provide federal lawyers with computer-assisted legal research (as it was called then). I think the JURIS database eventually became available, but FLITE was shut down. In any event, most of this material is now outside the Thomson/West Lexis/Nexis paywall, but the current situation as I understand it is still far from ideal.

by dctoedt 14y ago

pseingatl 14y ago

I never said that district court decisions had no value; simply that you're not going to find them easily in PACER. And there's nothing wrong with citing caselaw in F.Supp.; but my point is that lawyers do not normally do case law research using PACER. The way the US legal system should work is that once the parties see that Judge So-and-so is right, litigation should cease, right? But it doesn't work that way. Especially at the federal level--if Main Justice doesn't like a decision they'll keep shopping until they get one they like--as will any other litigant who has to litigate in multiple jurisdictions. And my friend, since when do district judges follow the decisions of their district colleagues? Those decisions are only persuasive as well. Look at my SDFla comment. The only binding precedents are those from the Supremes and those that come from your circuit (or the 5th, if you're in the 11th and there's a need to cite a pre-1982? case). Or the Fed. Cir. for matters within their jurisdiction. Or the FS Ct., but now we are really far afield.

pseingatl 14y ago

Another issue is what happened to FLITE and JURIS--these were two USG systems that were set up to provide federal lawyers with computer-assisted legal research (as it was called then). I think the JURIS database eventually became available, but FLITE was shut down. In any event, most of this material is now outside the Thomson/West Lexis/Nexis paywall, but the current situation as I understand it is still far from ideal.