NCJ Number
93711
Journal
Judicature Volume: 67 Issue: 7 Dated: (February 1984) Pages: 336-345
Date Published
1984
Length
10 pages
Annotation
Opinion writing should be consistent with the functions of appellate and trial courts and the functions of the opinions themselves.
Abstract
The fundamentally different functions of appellate and trial courts derive from the roles of these courts as triers of issues and triers of facts, respectively. The pattern of opinion writing for appellate courts has five parts: opening paragraph identifying the type of case, aligning the parties, and giving the result in the trial court; indication of the issues on appeal; statement of some or all of the facts; discussion of the law, with additional facts as needed; and conclusion, with whatever directions are necessary. The introduction of a trial court opinion should include the kind of case; the roles of the parties in the case; the issues of fact, law, or conflicting claims or the issues on appeal, a generalization, ordinarily the court's conclusions with respect to the issues and the court's decision; and a forecast or overview of the body of the opinion. The body should support the conclusions and decision presented in the introduction. Some or all of the following five parts should appear in the body of the opinion: generalization about the facts or evidence to be presented; forecast or overview of the facts to be presented; facts that support the generalization, presented one by one, most important first; laws, rules, or principles that relate the facts to the generalization; and conflicting claims about the facts and laws. A total of 33 footnotes are included.