Federal Supplement
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The ''Federal Supplement'' ( is 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 a l ...
reporter 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 ...
in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
that includes select
opinions An opinion is a judgment, viewpoint, or statement that is not conclusive, rather than facts, which are true statements. Definition A given opinion may deal with subjective matters in which there is no conclusive finding, or it may deal with ...
of the
United States district courts The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district, which each cover one U.S. state or, in some cases, a portion of a state. Each district cou ...
since 1932, and is part of the
National Reporter System West's National Reporter System (NRS) is a set of case law reporters for federal courts and appellate state courts in the United States. It started with the '' North Western Reporter'' in 1879 which has its origin in ''The Syllabi'' (1876, ). ...
. Although the ''Federal Supplement'' is an unofficial reporter and West is a private company that does not have a legal monopoly over the court opinions it publishes, it has so dominated the industry in the U.S. that legal professionals uniformly
cite A citation is a reference to a source. More precisely, a citation is an abbreviated alphanumeric expression embedded in the body of an intellectual work that denotes an entry in the bibliographic references section of the work for the purpose of ...
the ''Federal Supplement'' for included decisions. Approximately 40 new volumes are published per year.


Distinctions

Before 1932, federal district court cases were 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 ...
'', which now publishes only case law from 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 fr ...
and the
United States Court of Federal Claims The United States Court of Federal Claims (in case citations, Fed. Cl. or C.F.C.) is a United States federal court that hears monetary claims against the U.S. government. It was established by statute in 1982 as the United States Claims Court, ...
; prior series had varying scopes that covered opinions of other federal courts as well. The ''
United States Reports The ''United States Reports'' () are the official record ( law reports) of the Supreme Court of the United States. They include rulings, orders, case tables (list of every case decided), in alphabetical order both by the name of the petitioner ...
'' are the official law reports of the rulings, orders, case tables, and other proceedings of the
Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
.


Features and print format

The ''Federal Supplement'' organizes court opinions within each volume by the date of the decision, and includes the full official text of the court's opinion. West 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 The West American Digest System is a system of identifying points of law from reported cases and organizing them by topic and key number. The system was developed by West Publishing to organize the entire body of American law. This extensive taxon ...
. Although opinions designated by the courts as "for publication" or "publish" are included in the ''Federal Supplement'', West editors also select certain opinions without such a designation for publication, as part of West's editorial process. Opinions explicitly designated "not for publication" will not be selected.


Stare Decisis and Precedent

Unlike the "published" opinions 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 fr ...
—which are included 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 ...
'' series and have full
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 valu ...
ial value, binding the lower courts in the relevant judicial circuit (vertical stare decisis) and, to a lesser degree, the issuing Court of Appeals (horizontal stare decisis)—published district court opinions do not constitute binding precedent. They may, however, be viewed as more persuasive than unpublished opinions.


Series


''Federal Supplement''


''Federal Supplement, Second Series''


''Federal Supplement, Third Series''


Electronic sources

The ''Federal Supplement'', including its supplementary material, is also available on
CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains data. Computers can read—but not write or erase—CD-ROMs. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold both comput ...
compilations, and on West's online legal database,
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 statute ...
. Because individual court cases are identified by case citations that consist of printed page and volume numbers, the electronic text of the opinions incorporates the page numbers of the printed volumes with "star pagination" formatting—the numbers are boldfaced within brackets and with asterisks prepended (i.e., 4'') to stand out from the rest of the text. Though West has
copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...
over its original
headnotes A headnote is a brief summary of a particular point of law that is added to the text of a court decision to aid readers in locating discussion of a legal issue in an opinion. As the term implies, headnotes appear at the beginning of the publish ...
and keynotes, the opinions themselves are
public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work A creative work is a manifestation of creative effort including fine artwork (sculpture, paintings, drawing, sketching, performance art), dance, writing (literature), filmmaking, ...
and accordingly may be found in other sources, chiefly Lexis, Westlaw's competitor. Lexis also copies the star paginated ''Federal Supplement'' numbering in their text of the opinions to allow for proper citation, a practice that was the subject of an unsuccessful copyright lawsuit by West against the parent company of Lexis.See ''Matthew Bender & Co. v. West Publ. Co.'', 158 F.3d 693 ( 2d Cir. 1999).


Notes


External links

*{{wikisource-inline
Official West Publishing site for the ''Federal Supplement, 2d''
West (publisher) Case law reporters