LEGAL WRITING

Reading Law Reports

by:
Dr P Obiri-Korang (LLD, LLM, PVT, LLB, BSc, Cert in Civ Mediat)

30 January 2023

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 Introduction

 What is a brief?
 A brief is a written summary of the case.

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 How to prepare a brief
 To prepare one, you must distill the case's most important parts and restate them in your own words. The effort will provide a
variety of important benefits.
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 Read the case carefully and thoroughly to describe the case accurately. Describing the case in your own words forces you to
determine exactly what the courts said, which concepts and facts were essential to its decision, and the proper legal

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terminology and procedures.
 Steps to briefing a case

1. The title of the case

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 A brief should begin with the case name, the court that decided it, the year it was decided, and the page on
which it appears in the casebook
 Sampson v Delilah [2023] 1 AC 307 2

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 The most commonly encountered abbreviations for law reports in the UK
• The Law Report Series:
• AC Appeal Cases
• Ch Law Reports, Chancery Division
• QB Law Reports, Queen's Bench Division 3
• KB Law Reports, King's Bench Division
• Fam Law Reports, Family Division
• P Law Reports, Probate Division 2
What are the abbreviations used in Ghana?

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• Other commercial series
• All ER All England Reports
• BCLC Butterworths Company Law Cases
• Cr App R Criminal Appeal Reports
• Cr App R (S) Criminal Appeal Reports Sentencing
• FSR Fleet Street Reports
• ICR Industrial Cases Reports 3
• IRLR Industrial Relations Law Reports
• LLoyd's LR Lloyd's Law Reports

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• P & CR Property, Planning and Compensation reports
• SC Session Cases (Scottish)
• WLR Weekly Law Reports

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Reported Party names and law report citation

Unreported Party names and (unreported, date)

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Example of reported case Sampson v Delilah [2023] 1 QB 411

Example of an unreported case 2 Sampson v Delilah (unreported, 3 February 2023)

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 • Using square and round brackets
• Sampson v Delilah [2023] 1 QB 411 –
• Square brackets in a citation, indicates that the law report series is structured by year. The year is the primary
method of finding the book on the shelf
• Within the law report (QB) you would have to look for the year and then look for volume 1.

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• Sampson v Delilah (2023) 5 QB 411 –
• Round brackets in a citation, indicates that the volume number is the primary source of structure for the law
report series
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• This means that the year is not necessary to find the correct volume and that you use the volume number to find
the book within the series (there is only one volume 5 in the law report series).
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2. Identify the facts of the case
• Next, state the facts of the case
• This section is necessary because legal principles are defined by the situations in which they arise
• Include in your brief only those facts that are legally relevant. A fact is legally relevant if it had an impact on the
case's outcome
• For example, in a personal injury action arising from a car accident, the colour of the parties' cars
seldom would be relevant to the case's outcome
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• Similarly, if the plaintiff and defendant presented different versions of the facts, you should describe those
differences only if they are relevant to the court's consideration of the case
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• Because you will not know which facts are legally relevant until you have read and deciphered the entire case, do

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not try to brief a case while reading it for the first time.
3. Outline the procedural history
• With the statement of facts, you have taken the case to the point at which the plaintiff filed suit. The next section
of the brief, the procedural history, begins at that point and ends with the case's appearance in the court that wrote
the opinion you are reading 3

• For a trial court opinion, identify the type of legal action the plaintiff brought. For an appellate court opinion, also
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describe how the trial court and, if applicable, the lower appellate court decided the case and why.

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4. State the issues in question
• In this section of the brief, state the factual and legal questions that the court had to decide

• The issues or questions of law raised by the facts peculiar to the case are often stated explicitly by the court

3 litigants and lawyers, others of

• Constitutional cases frequently involve multiple issues, some of interest only to
broader and enduring significant to citizens and officials alike. Be sure you have included both

2 in terms of questions that can be answered with a precise “yes” or

• When noting issues, it may help to phrase them
“no”

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 For example, the famous case of Mensima and Others v AG involved the applicability of the Constitution of
Ghana (article 37(2)) to regulation 3(1) and 21 of the Manufacture and Sale of Spirits Regulations of 1962 (LI
239) that sought to prevent the plaintiffs from distilling and selling Akpeteshie because they were not members of
a registered cooperative society

3 a recognised cooperative society

 The legislation required licences to be issued to only distillers who are a part of
 The key issue in this case may be “does the exclusion of persons from the distilling and selling of akpeteshie by
the state solely on the basis that they are not members of a recognised association amount to the denial of “the
law on freedom of association”? 2

 The implication of this case has gone far beyond the situation of the plaintiffs.
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5. State the holding in your words
 The decision, or holding, is the court’s answer to a question presented to it for answer by the parties involved or
raised by the court itself in its own reading of the case.
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 In this section, separately answer each question in the issues section. For quick reference, first state the answer in
a word or two, such as "yes" or "no." Then in a sentence or two, state the legal principle on which the court relied
to reach that answer (the "holding"). 2

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6. Describe the court's rationale for each holding
• The reasoning, or rationale, is the chain of argument which led the judges in either a majority or a dissenting
opinion to rule as they did

• You now should describe the court's rationale for each holding

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• This section of the case brief may be the most important, because you must understand the court's reasoning to
analyse it and to apply it to other fact situations, such as those on the exam

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• Starting with the first issue, describe each link in the court's chain of reasoning

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• This should be outlined point by point in numbered sentences or paragraphs
7. Explain the final disposition
• Describe the final disposition of the case. Did the court decide in favor of the plaintiff or the defendant?
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• What remedy, if any, did the court grant? If it is an appellate court opinion, did the court affirm the lower court's
decision, reverse it in whole or in part
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8. Include other opinions
• Concurring and dissenting opinions are included in a casebook when they present an interesting alternative
analysis of the case. Therefore, you should describe the analysis in your case brief. It will help you see the case in
a different light

3 judges of a particular court

• Make a note of how each justice voted and how they lined up. Knowledge of how
normally line up on particular issues is essential to anticipating how they may vote in future cases involving
similar issues
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• NOTE: Do not brief the case until you have read it through at least once

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 Difference between ratio decidendi and orbiter dictum

Ratio decidendi
Ratio decidendi: Latin for “reason (or rational) for the decision”. 3
1. The term refers to a key factual point or chain of reasoning in a case that drives the final judgment.
2. The ratio decidendi has a binding effect
3.
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Ratio decidendi are the reasons behind the decision given by the court

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Obiter dictum
• Obiter dictum: Latin for “something said in passing”
• Also referred to as “dictum”, “orbiter” or “judicial dicta”

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• A comment, suggestion, or observation made by a judge in an opinion that is not necessary to resolve the case,
and as such, it is not legally binding on other courts but may still be cited as persuasive authority in future
litigation 2

• Though unnecessary, dicta are still studied and valued for their potential usefulness. Dicta are frequently

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incorporated in later opinions and sometimes even serve as the basis of those opinions
 3 courts and some courts, it would
• Although the doctrine of binding precedent states that all courts bind all lower
be wrong to conclude that everything contained in a decision is of equal weight. The traditional view is that we
have to differentiate between the ratio decidendi of a judgement, which will be the binding part, and the obiter
dicta, which will be the non-binding part
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