Case Brief

Case briefing is a long-used method of studying law. Its purpose is to have students
identify the rules of law found in court cases and analyze how courts apply these rules of
law to the facts of a case in an objective and rational manner. Case briefing hones
analytic skills and heightens understanding of the role of courts in defining, interpreting,
and applying law. This appendix explains one way to brief cases. There is no single
standard for case briefing, but the structure below is common and will serve you well,
both in studying the law now and in using the law in the future. It is worthwhile
mastering. After explaining a how a brief is constructed, a sample brief of the case Eric J.
v. Betty M., is provided.

PURPOSES OF A BRIEF
1. Establishes a useful means of bringing the facts of a case back to memory in a short
time, for whatever purpose, including classroom discussion.
2. Allows you to extract from a judicial decision its future value as precedent. In other
words, it helps you find the principles of law that the case sets forth.
3. Allows for easier and smoother review of an area of law. Each brief takes a complex
and long document (the case) and reduces it to its key facts, holding, and rationale
(the brief). A collection of briefs can provide a comprehensive summary of an area of
law.

ELEMENTS OF A BRIEF
A brief is primarily a self-teaching tool; as such, you should structure them to meet your
own needs. Many formats have been proposed by various writers. The method to use is
the one that makes the most sense to you. For an introductory law class, the purpose of
a brief is more limited than for either a law student or a lawyer. Also, a brief should be
brief! A long brief eliminates the most important role of a brief: the boiling down of a
complex case to its essence.
Several basic components of a brief are present in almost all brief styles. If your brief
style includes the following elements, you should do well:
Facts
Issue or issues
Holding, including the rule of law
Rationale

FACTS
State the facts of the case in your own words. Indicate which facts are operative, and
which bear on the issues to be decided. Do not just repeat the judges words. Be brief.
Often a sign of how well you understand the case is your ability to identify the relative
importance of facts. Some cases may have many extraneous facts that do not need to be
in your brief. Most certainly, some facts will be more important than others. Your task is
to frame the problem by describing the facts that count, the ones that matter.
ISSUE
Issue spotting is the skill of recognizing in the facts a pattern that implies a certain type
of issue. For instance, facts that describe two people both claiming ownership rights
over a chair should spotlight an issue of ownership of personal property. In reading
cases, often the parties and the court do this work for you. Ask yourself what legal
questions are posed by the appealing party. The appealing party is alleging that an error
of law was made. What is that error? What question is the court answering? Sometimes
a court will see the issue differently than the parties and present a different twist on the
issue. State the issue cleanly and crisply. Avoid stating it in technical or procedural terms.
Some believe that beginning your issue statement with Whether will allow you to
focus your statement.
Example: Whether Smith established legal ownership of the chair by physically
possessing it for seven years.

HOLDING
What is the ruling by the court? Who won? Answering these questions forces you to
identify the outcome of the case. You must understand the procedural setting enough to
know what happens as a result of the decision. For instance, if the court rules in favor
of the appellants, what does this mean? More importantly, you need to find the holding
on the issue itself. How did the court decide the issue? What rule of law is provided by
the case? Using the chair ownership example from above, a holding that resolves the
issue might be:
Example: The court found that Smith had not established ownership of the chair by
virtue of possessing the chair for seven years.
Notice how the above statement ignores who owns the chair. A newspaper headline
would be more focused on the personal story: Smith Loses Chair to Green. In briefing a
case, however, you are not a reporter; you are a student of the law. For that reason you
must stick to the issue and its resolution as the primary focus.

RATIONALE
The length of each part of the case brief need not be evenly distributed. In fact, the
rationale section is usually the longest section. In the rationale section you explain why
the court ruled the way that it did. This means that you need to describe the courts
reasoning, sometimes even quoting the courts choice of words. You also must explain
which facts the court depended upon and which ones it discounted or ignored. You
should also note what prior decisions it looked at and whether it chose to follow them,
overrule them, or differentiate them. The court might also interpret or cite particular
statutes or other laws in reaching its decision. Finally, notice whether the court relies
upon public policy to reach its decision. Thus the potential components to a courts
rationale include:
Facts: which ones were dispositive and which ones not
Prior cases that were followed, differentiated, or overruled
Statutory law and how it was interpreted
Public policy principles
Your task is to organize these components and explain how the court used them to reach
its decision. You are trying to find the rule of law that may flow from this case. The rule
of law is the why of the decision, not the what. This is very important, as unless you
can determine the why of a case, it is very difficult to use the case to predict the
outcome of similar disputes when they arise.
Returning to the chair ownership issue above, the holding does not tell us the why
and, as such, it is not really that useful. The rationale of the court, however, might
describe how the court relied upon a long history that ownership is not automatically
determined by mere possession, but instead depends on how possession and control
was lost by a previous owner.

REMEMBER
Note that almost all cases are appellate cases. Think about which appellate court they
are from: state or federal? Is it a final court of appeal or an intermediate court? Consider
when the case was decidedrecently, or many years ago? Has the passage of time eroded
the soundness of the decision? Finally, but also important, what do you think of the
decision? Is it logical, just, fair, or otherwise? How does it fit with a textbook chapter or
topic? Briefing cases can teach you about courts, moral viewpoints, and the seam
between ethical values and the law.

BRIEF OF THE CASE OF Eric J. v. Betty M.

Here is a sample brief of the case of Eric J. v. Betty M. (Cal. Appellate Case 1999), which
you read for homework 1. Note that Facts and Rationale make up the bulk of the case
brief. The facts have been retold in the authors own words. Not all facts were recited.
The Rationale explains the courts holding and what it means as a rule of law. It cites the
case law as well as the public policy that the court applied. The Rationale also explains
how the court dealt with a possible contrary case.

FACTS
Robert brought home his new girlfriend, Helen, and her eight-year-old son, Eric, to meet
his mother, father, brothers, and sister and their spouses. The relationship between
Robert and Helen continued and Helen and Eric were guests several times in different
family homes. No family member told Helen about Roberts criminal history of felony
child molestation. It was later discovered that Robert sexually molested Eric during some
of these visits at the family homes all the while Robert was on parole for child
molestation. Robert was convicted of molesting Eric and sent back to prison. Helen filed
suit against Roberts family claiming they had a duty to warn her about Roberts criminal
past and the potential danger to her child, and failing that duty they were liable for
money damages for the harm suffered by Eric. The trial court dismissed the case on
a nonsuit motion.

ISSUE
Whether the trial court properly dismissed the negligence claim based on the premise
that family members of a convicted child molester have no affirmative duty to disclose
that information to the molesters girlfriend who has an eight-year-old boy.

HOLDING
The appellate court affirmed the trial court, holding that the family members had no
affirmative duty to disclose the information.
RATIONALE
The appellate court placed great weight upon the no duty to aid rule, developed over
the centuries in courts. The court noted that a special relationship is required to create
a duty to warn, give aid, or otherwise help another. Ultimately, the court found that no
such special relationship existed and found no other reason to suggest that the family
members had a duty to warn the girlfriend. The court cited several cases, including a
California Supreme Court case, Williams v. State of California, that establish the no duty
to aid rule. In short, a person who has not created the danger or risk is not liable simply
for failing to take an affirmative action unless there is some relationship that creates a
duty to act. The court rejected a case that seemed to rule the other
way, Soldano v. ODaniels, by explaining that the facts in that case clearly showed that
the defendant had actually prevented someone else from rendering aid. The court also
noted that any decision to find a duty to aid in this case would interfere with family
relationships by creating intolerable conflicts of interest. Impliedly, this went against
public policy.