Chapter 1b. Reading a Case
Angie Otten and Kate Richardson--Revised by: Kim Battern and Liz Acquisto
Correctly reading a case is important and in doing so,
one must understand how it is written and what it includes.
Most cases are organized in a particular manner starting with
the name of the case and ending with the outcome. It is crucial
to understand how the court came to the final verdict. Most
cases studied in this class are appellate.
Appellate
Having the power or
authority to review and
decide appeals, as a court
According to Dictionary.com
When reading a case, the name always comes first
Party
along with the parties involved. Parties can be individuals, the
One of the litigants in a
government, organizations, or even large corporations or
legal proceeding; a plaintiff
companies. The level of the case being tried determines which
or defendant in a suit
party is listed first. At the trial level the plaintiff is always
According to Dictionary.com
listed first. For example, if Ms. Smith sues Mr. Harris, the case
would be called Smith v. (versus) Harris. If the courts decide in favor of Ms. Smith and Mr.
Harris disagrees with this outcome he has the power to appeal. However, at the appeal the order
of the names could possibly be reversed. Some cases
have several plaintiffs and defendants. Often when
Plaintiff
The party that sues in a civil case
this occurs, only some of these parties are listed.
Defendant
The party that is sued in a civil case or
prosecuted in a criminal case
According to Dictionary.com
After the name of the case comes the citation. This includes the volume and page
numbers from where the case fully appears. The year the case was decided comes next, along
with more information about the court that decided the case. This is all in parentheses. For
example, 540 U.S. 581 (U.S. Sup. Ct. 2004) means that the case can be found on page 581 of
volume 540 of the United States Reports. This is the official reporter for the United States
Supreme Court. There are many abbreviations for different legal reporters. The U.S. Sup. Ct.
stands for the U.S. Supreme Court. Every court also has its own abbreviations and it is
impossible to include them all in this format.
The first written section of the case is the background and underlying facts. This simply
outlines the major events pertaining to the case. This section only includes facts, no opinions.
Chapter 1b: Reading a Case
Page 1
A dissenting opinion may
also be included in a case.
This is when a judge feels
strongly against the
majority, so they write an
opinion on how they would
decide the case.
After the statement of facts comes the previous history.
This informs the court about any previous courts that
have dealt with the case and how they handled it.
The next section is the written opinion. This
section most significant to the case and has a tendency to
become complicated. It is written by the judge or judges
that decide the case. Essentially it discusses which laws are
associated with the issues and how those laws should be applied.
The opinion
also explains the reasoning behind why and how these laws are
relevant to the particular case. These reasons are the holding. The holding of a case sets
precedent for upcoming cases, allowing courts to use them as reference for the future.
What to remember about holdings


Holding is language in a judicial opinion that is necessary for the decision the court
reached and is said to be binding in subsequent courts
It is also the rule of law that sets a precedent for future cases
Cases can have multiple holdings
The last section is the decision and remedy. This is simply who the case is decided in
favor of and the result. The possible results are affirmed, reversed, or reversed and remanded.
These results apply to the lower court immediately preceding the court the case currently resides.
For example, when Mr. Harris appealed the court and won, that would mean the decision was
reversed in favor of Harris. If Ms. Smith won the appeal the decision would be judgment
affirmed in favor of Smith. If there is an error in the original case, it would be reversed and
remanded. This means that Smith v. Harris would be unable to continue on to an appellate court
and would have to go back to trial.
Affirmed
Previous court’s
decision is
upheld
Reversed
The appellate court overturns the
decision from the court that had the
case immediately previously. The
winner becomes the loser.
Case 1:
Reversed and remanded
The appellate court returns a decision that
differs from the previous court and sends
it back. Usually this is because the
appellate court does not want to second
guess on how evidence that was properly
admitted or improperly kept out would
have affected the jury’s verdict.
The name of the first case to be looked at is
Wishnatsky v. Huey [584 N.W.2d 859 (N.D. Ct. App.
1998)]. This case deals with battery. Battery is seen as an
interference with an individual’s personal rights. The case
Chapter 1b: Reading a Case
Battery
The intentional and harmful
or offensive touching of
another without his consent
Page 2
begins with the statement of facts. The issue in question begins with Martin Wishnatsky walking
into his boss, Peter Crary’s, office without knocking. In doing so, he interrupted a conversation
between Crary and Assistant Attorney General David Huey. As Wishnatsky was opening the
door Huey pushed the door closed into Wishnatsky’s face forcing him to leave the office and
pushing him into the hallway. Wishnatsky was not harmed in any way from this action, but sued
Huey for battery.
At the trial level the courts sided in favor of Huey. Unsatisfied with this outcome,
Wishnatsky made an appeal. Huey supported his case by stating his interpretation of the situation
in an appellate court. This is the statement of opinions by the parties about the holdings:
“Attorney Crary and I had settled into a serious discussion about the case and had
established a good rapport when the door to his office suddenly swung open without a
knock. An unidentified individual carrying some papers then strode in unannounced. I
had not been told that anyone would be entering Attorney Crary's office during the
private meeting. . . . I subsequently learned that the individual's name is Martin
Wishnatsky.”
Wishnatsky rebutted with his offenses and view of the events:
“1. I am a born-again Christian and cultivate holiness in my life. As a result I am very
sensitive to evil spirits and am greatly disturbed by the demonic. However, in Christ there
is victory.
2. On January 9, 1996, Mr. David Huey of the North Dakota Attorney General's office
visited the ministry where I was working at 16 Broadway in Fargo, North Dakota with an
ex parte court order.
3. The following morning I entered the office of Peter Crary, an attorney for whom I do
paralegal work, to give him certain papers that had been requested. Mr. Crary was
speaking with Mr. David Huey at the time. As I began to enter the office Mr. Huey threw
his body weight against the door and forced me out into the hall. I had not said a word to
him. At the same time, he snarled: "You get out of here." This was very shocking and
frightening to me. In all the time I have been working as an aide to Mr. Crary, I have
never been physically assaulted or spoken to in a harsh and brutal manner. My blood
pressure began to rise, my heart beat accelerated and I felt waves of fear in the pit of my
stomach. My hands began to shake and my body to tremble. Composing myself, I
reentered the office, whereupon Mr. Huey began a half-demented tirade against me and
stormed out into the hall. I looked at Mr. Crary in wonder.”
The edited opinion, written by Judges Hoberg, Hodney, and Kleven is as follows:
“We certainly agree with the Supreme Court's determination that when Wishnatsky attempted to
enter the room in which Huey was conversing with Crary, ‘Huey apparently reacted in a rude
and abrupt manner in attempting to exclude Wishnatsky from that conversation.’ As a matter of
law, however, Huey's ‘rude and abrupt’ conduct did not rise to the level of battery.
Chapter 1b: Reading a Case
Page 3
The evidence presented to the trial court demonstrates Wishnatsky is ‘unduly sensitive as to his
personal dignity.’ Without knocking or otherwise announcing his intentions, Wishnatsky opened
the door to the office in which Huey and Crary were having a private conversation and attempted
to enter. Huey closed the door opened by Wishnatsky, thereby stopping Wishnatsky's forward
progress and pushing him back into the hall. The bodily contact was momentary, indirect, and
incidental. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to Wishnatsky, and giving him the
benefit of all favorable inferences which can reasonably be drawn from the evidence, we
conclude Huey's conduct in response to Wishnatsky's intrusion into his private conversation with
Crary, while ‘rude and abrupt,’ would not ‘be offensive to a reasonable sense of personal
dignity.’ In short, an ‘ordinary person . . . not unduly sensitive as to his personal dignity’
intruding upon a private conversation in Wishnatsky's manner would not have been offended by
Huey's response to the intrusion. We conclude that Huey's conduct did not constitute an
offensive-contact-battery, as a matter of law, and the trial court did not err in granting Huey's
motion for summary judgment dismissing Wishnatsky's action.
Because we have concluded there was no battery as a matter of law, we need not address the
immunity issues Wishnatsky has raised. We need not consider questions, the answers to which
are unnecessary to the determination of the case.”
Holdings:


At common law, the least touching of another's person willfully, or in anger, is a
battery; for the law cannot draw the line between different degrees of violence,
and therefore totally prohibits the first and lowest stage of it: every man's person
being sacred, and no other having a right to meddle with it, in any the slightest
manner. On the other hand, in a crowded world, a certain amount of personal
contact is inevitable, and must be accepted.
An actor is subject to liability to another for battery if: (a) he acts intending to
cause a harmful or offensive contact with the person of the other or a third person,
or an imminent apprehension of such a contact; and (b) an offensive contact with
the person of the other directly or indirectly results. An act that is not done with
the intention stated above does not make the actor liable to the other for a mere
offensive contact with the other's person although the act involves an
unreasonable risk of inflicting it and, therefore, would be negligent or reckless if
the risk threatened bodily harm. A bodily contact is offensive if it offends a
reasonable sense of personal dignity.
Case 2:
The next case involves contracts. The case is Glover v.
Jewish War Veterans of the United States, Post NO 58 (68 A.2d 233
(Municipal Court of Appeal for the District of Columbia, 1949.)
Mary Glover sought to recover an award offered for information
pertaining to a homicide. An award had been made for information
Chapter 1b: Reading a Case
Contract
A legally enforceable
promise or set of
promises
Page 4
leading to the arrest and conviction of the perpetrators of a murder. The organization making the
offer was private and the award notice was placed in the newspapers. Glover’s daughter’s
boyfriend was one of the perpetrators. Upon being questioned by the police, Glover provided
information that led to his arrest and conviction for the murder. Glover did not know of the
reward until the day after she had given the police the information. Glover did not volunteer the
information, but rather submitted it only upon being questioned by the police.
The edited opinion of the court, written by Clagett, Associate Judge, as follows:
“The issue determinative of this appeal is whether a person giving information leading to the
arrest of a murderer without any knowledge that a reward has been offered for such information
by a non-governmental organization is entitled to collect the reward. The trial court decided the
question in the negative and instructed the jury to return a verdict for defendant. Claimant
appeals from the judgment on such instructed verdict.
Claimant's most significant testimony, in the view that we take of the case, was that she first
learned that a reward had been offered on June 12, the day after she had given the police officers
the information which enabled them to find Wheeler. Claimant's husband, who was present
during the interview with the police officers, also testified that at the time of the interview he
didn't know that any reward had been offered for Wheeler's arrest, that nothing was said by the
police officers about a reward and that he didn't know about it 'until we looked into the paper
about two or three days after that.'
We have concluded that the trial court correctly instructed the jury to return a verdict for
defendant. While there is some conflict in the decided cases on the subject of rewards, most of
such conflict has to do with rewards offered by governmental officers and agencies. So far as
rewards offered by private individuals and organizations are concerned, there is little conflict on
the rule that questions regarding such rewards are to be based upon the law of contracts.
Since it is clear that the question is one of contract law, it follows that, at least so far as private
rewards are concerned, there can be no contract unless the claimant when giving the desired
information knew of the offer of the reward and acted with the intention of accepting such offer;
otherwise the claimant gives the information not in the expectation of receiving a reward but
rather out of a sense of public duty or other motive unconnected with the reward. In the nature of
the case,' according to Professor Williston, 'it is impossible for an offeree actually to assent to an
offer unless he knows of its existence.' After stating that courts in some jurisdictions have
decided to the contrary, Williston adds, 'It is impossible, however, to find in such a case [that is,
in a case holding to the contrary] the elements generally held in England and America necessary
for the formation of a contract. If it is clear the offeror intended to pay for the service, it is
equally certain that the person rendering the service performed it voluntarily and not in return for
a promise to pay. If one person expects to buy and the other to give, there can hardly be found
mutual assent. These views are supported by the great weight of authority, and in most
jurisdictions a plaintiff in the sort of case under discussion is denied recovery.'”
Chapter 1b: Reading a Case
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Holdings:


In the nature of the case, it is impossible for an offeree actually to assent to an offer
unless he knows of its existence. If it is clear the offeror intended to pay for the service, it
is equally certain that the person rendering the service performed it voluntarily and not in
return for a promise to pay. If one person expects to buy, and the other to give, there can
hardly be found mutual assent.
It is impossible that there should be an acceptance unless the offeree knows of the
existence of the offer.
Practice:
Read the edited cases and answer the questions that follow.
Katko v. Briney
183 N.W.2d 657; 1971 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 717; 47 A.L.R.3d 624
Background Facts and Procedural History:
Katko filed an action for damages resulting from serious injury caused by a shot from a 20gauge spring shotgun set by defendants in a bedroom of an old farm house which had been
uninhabited for several years. Katko and his companion had broken in and entered the house.
At Briney's request Katko's action was tried by a jury, which returned a verdict for Katko and
against Briney for actual and punitive damages. The trial court overruled Briney's motions for
judgment notwithstanding the verdict and for a new trial. The primary issue was whether an
owner could protect personal property in an unoccupied boarded-up farmhouse against
trespassers and thieves by a spring gun capable of inflicting death or serious injury.
Edited Opinion:
The primary issue presented here is whether an owner may protect personal property in an
unoccupied boarded-up farm house against trespassers and thieves by a spring gun capable of
inflicting death or serious injury.
We are not here concerned with a man's right to protect his home and members of his family.
Defendants' home was several miles from the scene of the incident to which we refer infra.
The main thrust of defendants' defense in the trial court and on this appeal is that "the law
permits use of a spring gun in a dwelling or warehouse for the purpose of preventing the
unlawful entry of a burglar or thief". They repeated this contention in their exceptions to the
trial court's instructions 2, 5 and 6. They took no exception to the trial court's statement of the
issues or to other instructions.
In the statement of issues the trial court stated plaintiff and his companion committed a
felony when they broke and entered defendants' house. In instruction 2 the court referred to
the early case history of the use of spring guns and stated under the law their use was
Chapter 1b: Reading a Case
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prohibited except to prevent the commission of felonies of violence and where human life is
in danger. The instruction included a statement breaking and entering is not a felony of
violence.
Instruction 5 stated: "You are hereby instructed that one may use reasonable force in the
protection of his property, but such right is subject to the qualification that one may not use
such means of force as will take human life or inflict great bodily injury. Such is the rule
even though the injured party is a trespasser and is in violation of the law himself."
Instruction 6 stated: "An owner of premises is prohibited from willfully or intentionally
injuring a trespasser by means of force that either takes life or inflicts great bodily injury; and
therefore a person owning a premise is prohibited from setting out 'spring guns' and like
dangerous devices which will likely take life or inflict great bodily injury, for the purpose of
harming trespassers. The fact that the trespasser may be acting in violation of the law does
not change the rule. The only time when such conduct of setting a 'spring gun' or a like
dangerous device is justified would be when the trespasser was committing a felony of
violence or a felony punishable by death, or where the trespasser was endangering human life
by his act."
Instruction 7, to which defendants made no objection or exception stated: "To entitle the
plaintiff to recover for compensatory damages, the burden of proof is upon him to establish
by a preponderance of the evidence each and all of the following propositions:
"1. That defendants erected a shotgun trap in a vacant house on land owned by defendant
Bertha L. Briney, on or about June 11, 1967, which fact was known only by them, to
protect household goods from trespassers and thieves.
"2. That the force used by defendants was in excess of that force reasonably necessary
and which persons are entitled to use in the protection of their property.
"3. That plaintiff was injured and damaged and the amount thereof.
"4. That plaintiff's injuries and damages resulted directly from the discharge of the
shotgun trap which was set and used by defendants."
The overwhelming weight of authority, both textbook and case law, supports the trial
court's statement of the applicable principles of law.
Prosser on Torts, Third Edition, pages 116-118, states:
“The law has always placed a higher value upon human safety than upon mere rights in
property, it is the accepted rule that there is no privilege to use any force calculated to
cause death or serious bodily injury to repel the threat to land or chattels, unless there is
also such a threat to the defendant's personal safety as to justify self-defense. Spring guns
and other man-killing devices are not justifiable against a mere trespasser, or even a petty
thief. They are privileged only against those upon whom the landowner, if he were
present in person would be free to inflict injury of the same kind."
Chapter 1b: Reading a Case
Page 7
Restatement of Torts, section 85, page 180, states:
"The value of human life and limb, not only to the individual concerned but also to
society, so outweighs the interest of a possessor of land in excluding from it those whom
he is not willing to admit thereto that a possessor of land has, as is stated in § 79, no
privilege to use force intended or likely to cause death or serious harm against another
whom the possessor sees about to enter his premises or meddle with his chattel, unless
the intrusion threatens death or serious bodily harm to the occupiers or users of the
premises. A possessor of land cannot do indirectly and by a mechanical device that
which, were he present, he could not do immediately and in person. Therefore, he cannot
gain a privilege to install, for the purpose of protecting his land from intrusions harmless
to the lives and limbs of the occupiers or users of it, a mechanical device whose only
purpose is to inflict death or serious harm upon such as may intrude, by giving notice of
his intention to inflict, by mechanical means and indirectly, harm which he could not,
even after request, inflict directly were he present."
Plaintiff's claim and the jury's allowance of punitive damages, under the trial court's
instructions relating thereto, were not at any time or in any manner challenged by
defendants in the trial court as not allowable. We therefore are not presented with the
problem of whether the $10,000 award should be allowed to stand.
We express no opinion as to whether punitive damages are allowable in this type of case.
If defendants' attorneys wanted that issue decided it was their duty to raise it in the trial
court.
Questions:
1. Who was the plaintiff in the original (trial) case? The defendant?
2. Who was the plaintiff in the appellate case? The defendant?
3. What is the holding in this case?
4. Was the decision of the lower court affirmed, reversed, or reversed and remanded?
Chapter 1b: Reading a Case
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Famous American Trials: Scopes “Monkey” Trial—Daniel Garbo
The 1925 “Scopes Monkey Trial,” formally known as the State of Tennessee vs. Scopes is one of
the most classic and influential legal cases in American history. The defendant, Tennessee high school
teacher John Scopes ,was charged with teaching evolution according to parts of Charles Darwin’s theories
and in doing so, directly violating Tennessee law. The trial featured two of the most widely renowned and
well respected attorneys in American history, with William Jennings Bryan as a member of the
prosecution and Clarence Darrow as the head defense attorney. After Scopes, a willing defendant acting
partially on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) encouraged his students to testify
against to a grand jury, he was indicted.
The trial was overseen by judge John Raulston and was thought by many to have proceeded with
a great deal of bias in the favor of the prosecution. With many of its key witnesses being denied the
opportunity to speak at the trial, Darrow’s defense team changed its strategy throughout the trial. The
defense originally planned to contend that the charge brought against Scopes violated his rights as a
teacher. As the trial progressed, they shifted their argument to contend that Scopes had not even violated
anti-evolution teaching laws because what he taught did not conflict with the bible. The most crucial
portion of the trial was Darrow’s examination of William Jennings Bryan as an “expert of the bible.”
After thorough preparation, Darrow attacked Bryan for his lack of knowledge on the bible and his
seemingly ridiculous defense of the government. This portion of the trial lowered public credibility for
the creationist theory and the American educational system.
Eventually, Scopes was found guilty of violating the law and was fined $100, though the case was
later set aside due to a technicality relating to the setting of the fine. The overall result however, was very
positive for Clarence Darrow’s defense team, the ACLU and believers in the evolutionist theory. Darrow
had largely discredited the creationist theory and had begun a shift away from religious fundamentalist
ideals as legislation in the United States.
Chapter 1b: Reading a Case
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