An

Introduction to
Judicial Opinions

3.1

The Anatomy of Opinions

In an opinion announcing a court's decision, one might find nine different

kinds of pronouncement:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.

a recitation of procedural events

a recitation of pleaded or evidentiary events
a statement of the issue or issues to be decided by the court
a summary of the arguments made by each side
the court's holding on each issue
the rule or rules of law the court enforces through each holding
the court's reasoning
dicta
a statement of the relief granted or denied

Only infrequently, however, do all nine occur in the same opinion.

Opinions often begin with (1) a recitation of procedural events inside
the litigation that have raised the issue decided by the court. Examples are
motions, hearings, trial, judgment, and appeal. Although the court's descrip
tion of these events may
because of unfamiliar terminology - seem at
first confUSing, you must be able to understand procedural histories because
the manner in which an issue is raised determines the method a court will
use to decide it. A court decides a motion for a directed verdict, for example,
very differently from the way it rules on a request for a jury instruction,
even though both might require the court to consider the same point of law.
The procedural events add up to the case's procedural posture at the time
the decision was made.
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Introduction to Law and Its Study

3.1

Frequently, the court will next describe (2) thc pleaded events or thc
eVidentiary events on which the ruling is based. In litigation, parties plcad
racts and then prove them. The court has no other way of knowing what
transpired between the parties bet'ore the lawsuit began. If the procedural
posture involved a motion to dismiss a pleading I - before any evidence
could be submitted
the decision will be bascd on the allegations in the
challenged pleading (usually a complaint). Otherwisc, the court's knowledge
of thc facts will come from evidentiary events such as testimony and ex
hibits at trial or at a hearing, or perhaps affidavits and exhibits submitted in
connection with a motion.
A court might also set out (3) a statement of the issue or issues before
the court for decision and (4) a summary of the arguments made by cach
side, although either or both are often only implied. A court will further
state (or at least imply) (5) the holding on each of the issues and (6) the
rule or rules of law the court enforccs in making each holding, together with
(7) the reasoning behind
often called the rationale for - its decision.
Somewhere in the opinion, the court might placc some (8) dicta. (You will
learn more about dicta in the next few months. but for the moment think
of it as discussion unnccessary to support a holding and therefore lacking
binding preceden tial authority.)
An opinion usually ends with (9) a statement of the relit:f' granted or
denied. If the opinion represents the decision of an appellate court, the re
lief may be an affirmance, a reversal, or a reversal combined with a direction
to the trial court to proceed in a specified manner. If thc opinion is from a
trial court, the relief is most commonly the granting or denial of a motion.

Exercise I.

Dissecting the Text of Meints v. Huntington

Read Meints v. Huntington and determine where (If anywhere) each of these
types of pronouncement occurs. Mark up the text generously and be prepared to
discuss your analysis in class. Look up in a legal dictionary every unfamiliar word
and every familiar word that is used In an unfamiliar way.

MEINTS v. HUNTINGTON
276 F 245 (8th Cir. 1921)
LEWIS, District Judge. John Meints. a resident and citizen of South Dakota,
brought this action against O. P Huntington and others, residents and citi
zens of Rock County. Minnesota, to recover damages. on the charge that
they deported him from Minnesota to South Dakota on the night of August
19. 1918. and maltreated him on the way. After a lengthy trial, exhibited
here by 1100 pages of testimony. the greater part of which relates to the
loyalty of the defendants and the disloyalty of plaintiff during the late World
War, there was verdict and Judgment for defendants.

.l.l

28

1. See pages 8-9.

An Introduction to .Judicial Opinions

Exercises

The plaintiff was born In Illinois, went to Rock County, Minnesota, and
resided there in the town of Luverne for sixteen or seventeen years prior to
the summer of 19 J 8. In the spnng of that year he was suspected of being
interested in or of having contributed to the support of a Non-Partisan
League newspaper printed and published in that town; on account of that,
and also because it was claimed that he was disloyal, a large body of men,
including some of the defendants, went to his house about midnight of
June J 9th, woke him up, compelled him to dress and come out and some
of them In automobiles took him across the State line into Iowa, a distance
of about fifteen miles, told him not to return and left him there, He then
went to St. Paul and reported the occurrence to a US Government agent
in the Department of Justice, That agent sent two men to Rock County to
make an investigation, and on their report Mr. Campbell of that Depart
ment advised plaintiff to return to Rock County but to go to the home of
his two sons, some twelve miles out from Luverne, and remain there, He
did return the latter part of July and went to his sons' home, On the night
of August 3rd, men in eight or nine automobiles went out to the sons'
house, Among them were the defendants Huntington, Connell, Ihlan,
Miner, Turnbull and Kimmerling, They tried to enter the house by unlocking
the doors With keys which they had, but were not able to do so, and finally
obtained entrance by going through the cellar, They were hunting for plain
tiff, but could not find him, In the late afternoon of August J 9th some sev
enty-five to eighty men in about twenty-five automobiles, most of them
from Luverne, met at a church about four miles from the sons' house, and
proceeded from there in a body, arriVing at the sons' house about dusk, The
plaintiff and his sons saw them coming, went into the house and fastened
the screen door on the Inner side, The married son's wife and children were
also in the house and shortly became greatly excited and alarmed, as their
outcries demonstrated, Huntington and others went to the door and de
manded to know where the plaintiff was, and that they be permitted to
enter, The son who stood inside the door refused to open it and declined
to admit them The defendant Long at once forced the door open and a
number of men immediately entered, including Long and Huntington, The
son testified that he was assaulted by them and thrown out of the house,
They denied that, and testified that his bloody face was caused by his own
struggles while they held him to prevent violence on his part, The plaintiff
stood at the head of the stairway with a gun and a fork handle, At first he
refused to come down or to permit anyone to come up, The other son was
induced by some of the defendants, or others with them, to go up and tell
hiS father that they did not intend Violence, The plaintiff sent back word by
his son that the defendant Long might come up and he would talk with
him, He then came down with Long and was taken in Huntington's au
tomobile to Luverne, Huntington drove, and some of the other defendants
were in the car with him and the plaintiff, Most of the crowd went with
them, but a few turned west toward the South Dakota line before Luverne
was reached, Plaintiff was held at Luverne until about eleven o'clock, and
while there was refused permission to see hiS wife or to talk with her over
the telephone, About that hour he was again put In Huntington's car, De

29

Exercises

Introduction to Law and Its Study

fendants Huntington, Long, Michaelson and Smith also got in, and they
started for the South Dakota line, some fifteen miles away. accompanied by
another auto in which were defendants Turnbull, Connell, Kimmerling and
McDermott. They reached the State line about midnight. and were stopped
there by armed men whose faces were masked. They took Meints from
Huntington's car, assaulted him, whipped him, threatened to shoot him,
besmeared his body with tar and feathers, and told him to cross the line
into South Dakota, and that if he ever returned to Minnesota he would be
hanged....
On the foregOing facts, ... there can be no doubt that from the time the
crowd reached the sons' house and on up to the time Meints crossed the
State line, he was coerced and compelled by a show of force to submit
himself to the will of others, that he was unlawfully restrained of his liberty,
falsely imprisoned for the time being, ... and that this was done ... to drive
him from the State of Minnesota. And so we say at once that the trial court
erred in refusing to instruct a verdict for the plaintiff and against all defen
dants who took parr; for it cannot be maintained that because Meints may
have been, in their opinion, disloyal, and was interested in and gave sup
port to the Non-Partisan League Newspaper, that that would put him at
the mercy of defendants and invest them With the right and power to ad
judge and inflict punishment, nor would the fact that the defendants were
loyal men ... have the slightest tendency to excuse or justify in the eyes of
the law the acts charged against them. , .. Mr. Cooley, in his work on Torts,
says [that] n, . any restraint put by fear or force upon the actions of another
is unlawful and constitutes a false imprisonment, unless a showing ofjus
tification makes it a true or legal imprisonment." ...
The court yielded to the contention of the defendants that the plaintiff
could not recover for anything that was done prior to the assaults made
upon him, when the State line was reached, on the claim that he had
consented to everything that had happened before that, and so instructed
the jury over the objection of the plaintiff. This was prejudicial error. Can it
be seriously Hlought that it was the wish of plaintiff to leave Rock County?
His home was in Luverne, his wife was there, he had lived there for many
years, all of his family and all of his interests were in Rock County; he had,
to the knowledge of some, if not all, of the defendants but recently returned
to remain there. He evidently knew the purpose of these men when he
saw them coming, some of them had been hunting for him in the night
time a few days before. He armed himself to resist them, but they came in
such numbers and invaded the home in such a ruthless and high-handed
manner that resistance was obviously futile. He knew. and every rational
thought convinces, that if he had not submitted he would have been more
severely treated. Who would have the temerity to argue that they would
have permitted him to remain, or after starring, to have alighted from Hun
tington's auto and return? While they held him for two or three hours in
Luverne he was refused permission to see his wife or to talk with her over
the 'phone. He was in a large room with a crowd about him who jeered
him and asked him questions so thickly that there was no opportunity to
attempt to answer, and an attempt if it had been made, would have been

30

An Introduction to Judicial Opinions

Exercises

withOut avail. No argument can blot out the fact, which stands predomi
nant throughout the record, that he was a prisoner from the time these

men reached his sons' house until he passed over the State line into South

Dakota, and everyone who reads the record must know that resistance on

his part to their will would not have been tolerated. In Comer v. Knowles,

17 Kan. 436, It is said:

False Imprisonment IS necessarily a wrongful Interference with the per

sonal liberty of an individual. The wrong may be committed by words alone,

or
acts alone, or by both, and by merely operating on the will of the

individual, or by personal violence. or by both. It is not necessary that the

individual be confined within a prison, or within walls: or that he be as

saulted, or even touched. It is not necessary that there should be any injury

done to the Individual's person, or to his character. or reputation. Nor is It

necessary that the wrongful act be committed with malice, or ill will, or even

with the slightest wrongful Intention. Nor is It necessary that the act be under

c%r of any legal or judicial proceeding. All that IS necessary is, that the in
diVidual be restrained of hiS liberty without any sufficient legal cause therefor,

and by words or acts which he fears to disregard.

In Pike v. Hanson 9 N.H. 49), the plaintiff did not intend to pay a tax,
and the collector was so informed. He, in demanding the tax, declared to
the plaintiff that he arrested her, and she paid the money under that re
straint. It was held that the facts were sufficient to sustain her action for
assault and false imprisonment. The court summarized the doctrine an
nounced by Starkie on EVidence, thus:

That in ordinary practice words are sufficient to constitute an Imprison

ment, if they impose a restraint upon the person and the plaintiff is accord
ingly restrained. for he IS not obliged to Incur risk of personal Violence and

Insult by resisting until actual violence be used .

. . . The court, acting on its conclusion of fact that plaintiff had consented
to everything before the State line was reached, instructed the JUry over
plaintiff's objection and exception that he could recover only against those
who maltreated him at the South Dakota line, and that if the evidence was
not sufficient in the judgment of the JUry to satisfy them as to the identity
of those men they would return a verdict for the defendants, there being
no liability on the part of any of the defendants except those, if any, who
assaulted him there. This we think was also error. As already said, those
who took the plaintiff from the sons' home, those who participated to any
extent in so doing, those who aided in his deportation on the way, and
those who abused him at the State line and warned him that if he ever
returned to Minnesota he would be hanged, were all actively engaged in
the execution of one purpose, and the transaction throughout ... was for
the accomplishment of that purpose, .
It is also claimed by the defendants that what was done by them was
done to protect the plaintiff against others who might iruure him because
of his disloyalty, or his reputation for disloyalty. This presents a new doctrine
unknown to us, and no authority has been cited to support it. We cannot
believe that the law will ever sanction the claim, either In defense or mfti

31

Exercises

Introduction to Law and Its Study

gation, that the rights of one may be via/a ted for the purpose of preventing
others from doing the same thing ...
The judgment is reversed and the cause remanded for a new trial.

A decision's citation is made up of the case's name, references to the

reporter or reporters in which the decision was printed, the name of the
court where the decision was made, and the year of the decision. For
Meints, all this information appears in the heading on page 28.
The case name is composed by separating the last names of the parties
with a "v." If the opinion was written by a trial court, the name of the plain
tiff appears first. In some appellate courts, the name of the appellant comes
first, but in others the parties are listed as they were in the trial court. In a
case with multiple plaintiffs or defendants, the name of only the first listed
per side appears in the case name.
Reporters are publications that print opinions, mostly from appellate
courts. There are two kinds: official reporters published under the control
of courts and unofficial ones published by private companies. Most opinions
appear both in an official reporter and in at least one unofficial reporter.
Some courts, however, publish their decisions in only one reporter, which
has an official status but an unofficial format. Meints 'D. Huntington was
decided by the Eighth Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals. Deci
sions of the United States Courts of Appeals appear only in the Federal Re
porter (abbreviated "F."). The decision you have just read begins on page
245 of volume 276.
Thus, Meints is cited to in the following form: kfeints 'D. Huntington, 276
F. 245 (8th Cir. 1921)."

J.2

The Interdependence Among Facts. Issues.

and Rules

Many facts are mentioned in an opinion merely to proVide background,

continuity, or what journalists call "human interest" to what \\'ould other
wise be a tedious and disjointed recitation. Of the remaining facts. some are
merely related to the court's thinking, while others caused the court to
come to its decision. This last group could be called the detcnllillati,;.:ej'acts
or the essentialfacts. They are essential to the court's decision because they
determined it: if they had been different, the decision would hayc been dif
ferent. The determinative facts lead to the rule of the case - the rule of law
for which the case stands as precedent - and the discoyery of that rule is
the most important goal of case analysis. (Of course, where se\'eral issues
are raised together in a case, the court must make se\'eral rulings and an
opinion may thus stand for several different rules.)
2. In Chapter 16, you will learn more ahout constructing legal

32

CitaWlIl5

An Introduction to Judicial Opinions

3.2

The determinative faets ean be identified by asking the following ques

tion: if a particular fact had not happened, or It'it had happened dilJ'er
ently, would the court have made (1 dUt'erent decision? Ii so, that fact is
one of the determinative facts. This can be illustrated through a nonjudicial
decision of a sort with which you might recently have had some experience.
Assume that a rental agent has just shown you an apartment and that the
following are true:
A. The apartment is located half a mile from the law school.
B. It is a studio apartment (one room plus a kitchenette and bath
room)
C. The building appears to be well-maintained and safe.
D. The apartment is at the corner of the building, and windows on
two sides provide ampic light and ,'entilation.
E. It is on thc third floor. away from the street, and the neighbors do
not appear to be disagreeable.
F. The rent is 8400 per month, furnished.
G. The landlord will require a year's lease, and if you do not stay in
the apartment for the full year. subleasing it to someone else would
bc difficult.
H. You have a widowed aunt, with whom you get along well and who
lives alone in a house 45 minutes by bus from the law sehool, and
she has offered to let you use the second floor of her house during
the sehool year. The house and neighborhood are safe and quiet,
and the living arrangements would be satisfactory to you.
I. You have made a commitment to work next summer in EI Paso.
J. You have taken out substantial loans to go to law sehool.
K. You neither own nor have access to a car.
L. Reliable loeal people havc told you that you are unlikely to find an
apartment that is better, eheaper, or more convenient than the one
you have just inspected.
V{hich facts are essential to your deeision? Ii the apartmcnt had been two
miles from the law sehool (rather than a half-mile), would your deeision be
different? If not, the first listed fact could not bc determinative. It might he
part of the factual mosaic and might explain why you lookcd at the apart
mcnt in the first plaee, but you would not base your decision on it. (Go
through the listed facts and mark in the margin whether each would deter
mine your decision.)
Facts recited spccifically in an opinion can sometimes be reformulated
generically. In the hypothetical above, for example, a generic restatement
of fact H might be the follOWing: "you have a rent-free alternative to the
apartment, but the altcrnative would require 45 minutes of travel each way
plus the expcnse of public transportation." That formulation is generic be
cause it includes other speCific possibilities that in the end have the same
relevant characteristics and effect. It would include, for example, the follow
ing, seemingly different, facts: "you arc a member of the clergy in a religion
that has given you a leave of absence to attend law school: you may continue
33

3.2

Introduction to Law and Its Study

to live rent-free in the satisfaetory quarters your religion has provided, but
to get to the law school, you will have to walk 15 minutes and then ride a
subway for 30 minutes morc, at the same cost as a bus."
A rule of law is, in essence, a principle that governs how a particular type
or, put another way, how eertain types of faets
of decision is to be made
are to be treated by the official (such as a judge) who must make a decision.
Where a court does not state a rule of the case, or where it ambiguously
states a rule, you might arrive at an arguably supportable formulation of the
rule by considering the determinative facts to have caused the result. There
is room for interpretive maneuver where one could reasonably interpret the
determinative facts narrowly (specifically) or broadly (generically).
Notice how different formulations of a rule can be extracted from the
apartment example. A narrow formulation might be the following:
A law student who has a choice between renting an apartment and
living in the second floor of an aunt's house should choose the latter
where the student has had to borrow money to go to law school: where
the apartment's rent is 8400 per month but the aunt's second Hoor
is free except for bus fares; where the student must work in EI Paso
during the summer; and where it is difficult loeally to sublease an
apartment.
Beeause this formulation is limited to the specifie facts given in the hypo
thetical, it could directly govern only an extremely small number of future
decision-makers. It would 110t, for example, directly govern the member of
the clergy described above, even if she must spend next summer doing relief
work in Eritrea.
Although a deeision-maker in a future situation might be able to reason
by analogy from the narrow rule set out above, a broader, more widely ap
plieable formulation, stated generically, would directly govern both situa
tions:
A student on a tight budgct should not sign a year's lease where the
student cannot live in the leased property during the summer and
where a nearly free alternative is available.
An even more general formulation would govern un even wider circle of
applications:
A person with limited funds should not lease property that that person
cannot fully usc where there is a nearly free alternative.
The follOWing, however, is so broad as to be meaningless:
A person should not spend money in a way that would later lead to
problems.

34

Introduction to Judicial Opinions

3.2

The interpretation of opinions is not easy. "Cases do not unfold their

nciples for the asking," wrote Cardozo. "They yield up their kernel slowly
d painfully."l Courts often do not explicitly state the issue, the holding,
the rule for which the case is to stand as precedent, and the determina
e facts are not usually labelled as such. Whenever a court gives less than
ull explanation, you must use what is explicitly stated to pin down what
only implied.
Fortunately, the determinative facts, the issue, the holding, and thc rule
:: all dependent on each other. In the apartment hypothetical, for exam
~, if the issue were different - say, "How shall I respond to an offer to join
e American Automobile Association'?"
the selection of determinative
~ts would also change. (In fact, the only determinative one would be fact
"You neither own nor have access to a car.") You will oftcn find yourself
ing what the court tells you about the issue or the holding to fill in what
e court has not told you about the determinative facts - and vice versa.
For example, if the court states the issue but does not identify the rule
spe<.:ify which facts are determinative, you might discover the rule and
e determinative facts by answering the following questions:
l.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Who is suing whom over what series of events and to get what relief?
\Vbat issue does the court say it intends to decide?
How does the court decide that issue?
On what facts does the court rely in making that decision?
What rule does the <.:ourt enforce?"

ne of the cardinal rules of intellectual detective work - whether done by

scientist in the laboratory, by an historian with freshly discovered but
nbiguous documents, or by V. I. Warshawski with the murder evidence
this: design the sequence of inquiry so that you begin \vith what you al
:ady know and can progrcss through what you do not know in a manner
tat helps you build on each thing you discover along the way.
Cases are hard not because judges Iikc to make puzzles, but for more
'actical reasons. Even the most prescient judges cannot foresee every ram
cation of every dccision or all of thc future factual contexts to which a
'eeedent might be applied. Sometimcs, an inadvertently imprecise phrase
an opinion creates room for interpretation. And, invariably, it is not hu
anly possible for a court to explain all its reasoning: the effort would be so
lmense that many fewer cases could be decided. In any event, one of the
ost important skills of effective lawyering is the ability to find room for
terpretive maneuver and to exploit it to advantage. The lawyer's art is in
lrt to see meaning that is both favorable to the client and at the same time
edible and persuasive to a court. Fact interpretation is a vcry large part
that skill.

3.2 1. Benjamin ;;;'athan Cardozo. The Nature (!t'tlle Judicial Process 29 (1921),
2. [n answering this question, use [he same kind of reasoning we applied to the apart
,m hypothetical: develop several different phrasings of the rule (broad, narrow. mid
ng); and idemify the one the court is most Iilwly to han; had in mind,

35