5: Case Briefing - Procedural History, Disposition, Applicable Statutes and Facts

Finding and Understanding the Procedural History

An important first step in writing your case brief is making sure you understand who’s who in terms of parties, lower courts and reviewing courts. Much of this information is contained in the caption of the court decision you are briefing, along with a lot of other information about the case.

Writing the Procedural History

It’s important to provide a full and detailed explanation of what occurred prior to the appeal that resulted in the reviewing court’s decision that you are briefing. Procedural history can get confusing if there are multiple appeals by different parties who are unhappy about what happened in the lower court for different reasons. It usually helps to begin by diagramming the parties involved in the appeal(s), briefly describing what they are appealing and why. Below is a simple table that you can use for this purpose.

We’ll use the Miller v. Thomack Court of Appeals decision to complete this table step by step.

Finding and Understanding the Disposition

The easiest place to find the reviewing court’s disposition is at the end of the majority opinion. In Wisconsin, it will typically be one of these options, printed in italics:

• Judgment affirmed
• Judgment reversed (or Judgment reversed and remanded)

Once again, if you are accessing the reviewing court’s decision in a hard copy reporter (book) or on Westlaw®, you can also find it at the end of the synopsis, usually in italics.

You can also find it in the reviewing court’s decision, typically right near the procedural history:

Writing the Disposition 

Again, resist the temptation to simply copy and paste from the reviewing court’s decision! Instead, put the Disposition into your own words. There are many correct ways to do so; just make sure your Disposition contains all of the following content:

• The name of the Appellant (or, if this is a Supreme Court decision, the Petitioner). You can include the Appellant’s full party designation if you wish, but it’s not required
• A statement of the what the reviewing court did to the lowest court’s action that is being reviewed
• A description of the impact/result of the reviewing court’s action on the parties’ claims

Here’s how the Disposition for the Miller v. Thomack Court of Appeals decision could be written:

The Court of Appeals reversed the trial court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Karen, Ransom and Beattie, and ordered the Millers’ claims against those parties reinstated. The Court of Appeals also reversed the trial court’s denial of summary judgment to the Pamperins and ordered that the Millers’ claims against the Pamperins be dismissed.

That’s it. No facts about underage drinking, and no explanation of why the Court of Appeals reversed the Trial Court.

A further example …

As you know, the Wisconsin Supreme Court granted a Petition for Review of the Court of Appeals’ decision in Miller v. Thomack. As it turned out, the Supreme Court agreed with (or affirmed) the Court of Appeals’ decision. If you were briefing the Supreme Court decision, your Disposition could look nearly identical to what you saw as the Disposition for the Court of Appeals’ decision.

The Supreme Court reversed the trial court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Karen, Ransom and Beattie, and ordered the Millers’ claims against those parties reinstated. The Court of Appeals also reversed the trial court’s denial of summary judgment to the Pamperins and ordered that the Millers’ claims against the Pamperins be dismissed.

That’s because what we really want to know is what the Supreme Court ultimately did with the parties’ claims that began in the Trial Court. That being said, if you want to include all of the details, you could write the Disposition this way:

The Supreme Court affirmed the Court of Appeals’ reversal of the trial court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Karen, Ransom and Beattie, and ordered the Millers’ claims against those parties reinstated. The Court of Appeals also reversed the trial court’s denial of summary judgment to the Pamperins and ordered that the Millers’ claims against the Pamperins be dismissed.

Either way is fine; I just find the second version to be a bit confusing since there are two dispositional words (affirmed, reversed) used.

Remember, when you prepare your final draft of your case brief, the Disposition will go at the end. I just think it’s helpful to write the Disposition right after you write the Procedural History because the two are so closely related.

Finding and Understanding the Applicable Statute(s) 

The first step is to find the actual statute that is being interpreted and applied to the parties involved in the appeal. This can be tricky because reviewing courts also typically mention statutes that define the procedure that must be followed in the appeal (sometimes called the Standard of Review). The reviewing court may also mention the statute that gave the parties the right to file a certain motion (such as a Motion for Summary Judgment or a Motion to Dismiss). That means the first statute you come across in the decision might not be the substantive statute being interpreted in the decision and applied to the parties’ claims.

Finding applicable statutes can be complicated. Where you find it depends on whether you are accessing the reviewing court’s decision in a hard copy reporter (book), on Westlaw®, or on FastCase® or the Internet in general.

If you are accessing the reviewing court’s decision in a hard copy reporter (book) or on Westlaw®, you will see a series of headnotes below the synopsis. Some of them may contain brief overviews of statutes discussed in the decision, along with (improperly formatted) citations to statutes:

The purpose of the headnote is to allow the reader to jump to the portion of the decision that discusses the topic summarized in the headnote:

If you are accessing the reviewing court’s decision or on FastCase® or the Internet in general, there are no headnotes.

Regardless of whether you have headnotes to help you locate the appliable statute(s), it is critically important to read the entire decision thoroughly and carefully and use a highlighter or other methods to mark the statutes the reviewing court is interpreting and applying. Look for portions of the decision discussing the meaning and/or application of words or phrases in a statute beyond just a citation of the statute.

Writing the Applicable Statute(s)

Once you have found the statute(s) the reviewing court is interpreting and applying in its decision, writing the Applicable Statutes section of your case brief is fairly simple:

• Start with the complete and proper Bluebook citation of the statute
• Copy and paste the actual language of the statute and put it in quotation marks
• If the statute is long or contains a lot of words and phrases that aren’t directly relevant to the legal questions on appeal, revise the statute by taking words out or paraphrasing it.

Do not include the reviewing court’s interpretation of the statute, or an explanation of its meaning. Include only the words of the statute itself. Here are the applicable statutes in the Miller v. Thomack case brief.

Section 125.07(1)(a)1., Wis. Stat. (1996): “No person may procure for, sell, dispense or give away any alcohol beverages to any underage person not accompanied by his or her parent, guardian or spouse who has attained the legal drinking age.”

Section 125.07(1)(a)3., Wis. Stat. (1996): “No adult may knowingly permit or fail to take action to prevent the illegal consumption of alcohol beverages by an underage person on premises owned by the adult or under the adult’s control.”

The reviewing court expressly stated it was focusing on the phrase “procure for” (see below),

Thus, it would be fine to write the first statute this way:

Section 125.07(1)(a)1., Wis. Stat. (1996): “No person may procure … any alcohol beverages [for] any underage person not accompanied by his or her parent, guardian or spouse who has attained the legal drinking age.” 

Understanding the Facts

The substantive facts tell us what happened to the persons involved in the appeal. Unlike procedural facts (which we detailed in the Procedural History and Disposition sections of the case brief), the substantive facts are the who, what, when, where, why (sometimes) and how of the contract, accident, transaction, etc., that forms the basis of the original court action.  There are generally three different types of facts: legally significant, contextual (background) and irrelevant.

Legally significant facts are those facts that directly lead to or otherwise affect the legal outcome of the case. If the legally significant facts are changed, the outcome would likely change as well. Whether a fact is legally significant depends upon the legal issue in question. For example, the date of an accident would be legally significant if there was a question as to whether the statute of limitation had passed. In contrast, if there is no issue as to the statute of limitation, the date of the accident is merely background information.

Contextual facts provide you some background or “flavoring” of the case. Although such facts do not impact the legal issue, they do help us understand the issue better.  Think of contextual facts as similar to supporting characters in a movie or book. Often, they help us to understand the main character and the plot, and their interaction with the main character adds interest.

Irrelevant facts are neither legally significant nor contextual.  They really don’t add to our understanding and simply take up space.  Usually, irrelevant facts relate to minor details, such as the color of the car the defendant was driving, or the name of the hairstylist the plaintiff uses. If you always keep the legal issue in front of you, it’s easy to determine which facts are irrelevant.  If they don’t directly affect the legal issue, or help you to understand it, they are irrelevant.

Suppose the issue is whether the defendant breached a legal duty (one of the elements of negligence. A witness tells you the defendant drove a new blue SUV through a red light and smashed into the plaintiff’s old white Geo Metro. The fact that the defendant failed to stop at a red light is legally significant. The fact that the defendant drove a blue car is irrelevant. The location of the accident, the facts that the defendant drove a large SUV and the plaintiff drove a sub-compact, are contextual.

Finding the Facts

The facts are usually pretty easy to find. Typically, there is a distinct “facts” section of each decision. Sometimes the court uses a heading, as in the Miller v. Thomack case on page 133 (it’s titled “Background”). In shorter decisions, the facts section starts with a paragraph that states something like, “The following facts are before us on this appeal.” The synopsis also usually has a general statement of the facts.  Be careful! Sometimes the “facts” or “background” section  of the decision doesn’t contain all of the facts. The court may include additional legally significant facts when it discusses its holding or its reasoning. It can be helpful to highlight all instances of facts as you read the decision and decide later if the facts are legally significant, contextual or irrelevant.

Like many decisions, the Miller v. Thomack decision has a “Background” section that contains most of the facts:

As you might have noticed, the facts relating to both appeals (the Millers’ and the Pamperins’) are recited together. This is not the only place in the decision that contains the facts. Later on in the decision, when discussing the appeal by the Millers against Kimberly Ransom, Karen Miller and Jason Beattie, the Court repeated these facts:

Similarly, when discussing the Pamperins’ appeal, the Court added the following facts:

When facts are repeated in the reviewing court’s decision, or discussed in the portion of the decision that explains the reviewing court’s legal analysis, there’s a good chance those facts are legally significant.

Based on what we see in the decision, we know that:

With respect to the Millers’ appeal, the legally significant facts are those that relate to:

• Who contributed money toward the purchase of the beer
• Whether the people who contributed money to buy the beer knew that underage persons would be drinking it

With respect to the Millers’ appeal, the contextual facts are those that relate to:

• Who actually purchased the beer (Brian Clary) and from where (a liquor store)
• Where the minors drank the beer
• Where the beer was located while the minors drank it
• Whether someone served or distributed the beer or everyone who drank the beer helped themselves to it
• A description of the accident which injured Rhonda Miller

With respect to the Pamperins’ appeal, the legally significant facts are those that relate to:

• Who actually purchased the beer (Brian Clary) and from where (a liquor store)
• Where on the Pamperins’ property the minors drank the beer
• Contact the Pamperins may have had with one or more of the minors
• Actual knowledge the Pamperins had that the minors were on the property drinking beer
• Circumstances that should have led the Pamperins to believe that the minors were on their property drinking beer (what could/should the Pamperins have seen or heard with respect to the minors’ activities on the Pamperins’ property)

With respect to the Pamperins’ appeal, the contextual facts are those that relate to:

• How the minors purchased the beer (with whose money, whose ID, etc.)
• Where the minors drank the beer other than on the Pamperins’ property
• A description of the accident which injured Rhonda Miller

Writing the Facts

As with many of the other sections of your case brief, resist the temptation to simply copy and paste from the reviewing court’s decision! Instead, write the facts in your own words. Think about how you want to organize the facts. Most of the time you’ll write the facts as a chronological story about what happened. Here’s one way you could write the facts for the Miller v. Thomack appeal:

On the night of the accident which injured Rhonda Miller, Rhonda arranged for Brian Clary, who was 21 years old, to buy beer for her, for her two cousins, Kimberly Ransom and Karen Miller, for Craig Thomack and for Jason Beattie, all of whom were minors under the age of 18 and could not purchase beer legally. Kimberly contributed $5.00 toward the purchase; it is assumed that Karen and others also contributed money. Clary bought the beer and placed it in Craig’s car.

After drinking some of the beer at an unoccupied cabin, Craig drove Rhonda, Karen and Kimberly to the parking lot of Pamperin’s Bear Lake Bar and Hall. Rhonda, Craig, Karen, Kimberly and Jason consumed the beer on the beach area behind the tavern. No one distributed or served the beer; they all helped themselves.

Testimony indicated that one of the minors may have asked the bartender if the group could swim at the lake, and that one or more of the minors may have used the tavern’s restroom. None of the minors purchased any alcohol from the tavern; all of the beer they consumed was purchased by Brian Clary at a liquor store. Several of the minors testified that they could see into the bar that evening. However, testimony from persons inside the tavern that evening, including Brian Clary, indicated that the minors could not be seen or heard from inside the bar.

Rhonda and Craig later left the beach area in Craig’s car, with Craig driving. Rhonda was not wearing her seat belt. At some point, Craig lost control of the vehicle in a rainstorm, resulting in an accident that severely injured Rhonda.

If you compare the above paragraphs to what you read in the Miller v. Thomack decision, you can see that the legally significant facts are included in detail, whereas contextual facts (most notably the facts about the accident and Rhonda’s injuries) are merely summarized.

Now that you have the Procedural History, Disposition, Applicable Statutes and Facts of the Miller v. Thomack decision, you have a good foundation for understanding and writing the case brief sections that explain the Court of Appeals’ legal analysis: The Issues, Holdings, and Reasoning sections.