The ''Federal Appendix'' was a

case law Case law, also used interchangeably with common law, is law that is based on precedents, that is the judicial decisions from previous cases, rather than law based on constitutions, statutes, or regulations. Case law uses the detailed facts of ...

reporter A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

published by

West Publishing West (also known by its original name, West Publishing) is a business owned by Thomson Reuters that publishes legal, business, and regulatory information in print, and on electronic services such as Westlaw. Since the late 19th century, West h ...

from 2001 to 2021. It published

judicial opinion A judicial opinion is a form of legal opinion written by a judge or a judicial panel in the course of resolving a legal dispute, providing the decision reached to resolve the dispute, and usually indicating the facts which led to the dispute and ...

s of the

United States courts of appeals The United States courts of appeals are the intermediate appellate courts of the United States federal judiciary. The courts of appeals are divided into 11 numbered circuits that cover geographic areas of the United States and hear appeals f ...

that were not expressly selected or designated for publication. Such " unpublished" cases are ostensibly without value as

precedent A precedent is a principle or rule established in a previous legal case that is either binding on or persuasive for a court or other tribunal when deciding subsequent cases with similar issues or facts. Common-law legal systems place great v ...

. However, the Supreme Court made a change to the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure in 2006. Now, Rule 32.1 says that federal circuit courts are not allowed to prohibit the citation of unpublished opinions issued on or after January 1, 2007. Opinions of all the

are included in the ''Federal Appendix''. "Published" opinions of the U.S. courts of appeals are published in the ''

Federal Reporter The ''Federal Reporter'' () is a case law reporter in the United States that is published by West Publishing and a part of the National Reporter System. It begins with cases decided in 1880; pre-1880 cases were later retroactively compiled by We ...

''. The ''Federal Appendix'' organizes court opinions within each volume by the date of the decision, and includes the full text of the court's opinion. West attorney editors add headnotes that summarize key principles of law in the cases, and Key Numbers that classify the decisions by topic within the West American Digest System. 861 hardbound volumes of the ''Federal Appendix'' were issued. Publication of ''Federal Appendix'' ceased in 2021, but nonprecedential United States courts of appeals opinions are still available on

Westlaw Westlaw is an online legal research service and proprietary database for lawyers and legal professionals available in over 60 countries. Information resources on Westlaw include more than 40,000 databases of case law, state and federal statu ...

. Westlaw abbreviates citations to the Federal Appendix as Fed. Appx. The Bluebook calls for citations to the Federal Appendix to be abbreviated as F. App'x. There is debate within the legal community about the desirability of designating certain judicial opinions as without precedential value.

External links

Official West Publishing site for the ''Federal Appendix''

References

Case law reporters {{US-law-stub