- Federal Appendix
The "Federal Appendix" is a
case law reporter published byWest Publishing . It publishesjudicial opinion s of theUnited States courts of appeals that have been not been selected for publication. Such "unpublished" cases are ostensibly without value asprecedent . However, the Supreme Court made a change to theFederal 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 Now, Rule 32.1 says that federal circuit courts are not allowed to prohibit the citation of unpublished opinions issued on or after January 1, 2007.Opinions of the Fifth and Eleventh Circuits are not included in the "Federal Appendix", because those courts do not provide their "unpublished" opinions to any publisher. "Published" opinions of the U.S. courts of appeals are published in the "
Federal Reporter ".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 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 .Over 150 hardbound volumes of the "Federal Appendix" have been issued since it began publication in 2001. It is cited to as F. App'x
There is debate within the legal community about the desirability of designating certain judicial opinions as without precedential value. [See Scott E. Gant, "Missing the Forest for a Tree: Unpublished Opinions and New Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 32.1," 47 Boston College Law Review 705 (2006) [http://www.bc.edu/schools/law/lawreviews/meta-elements/journals/bclawr/47_4/bclr_47_4_web.pdf] ]
External links
* [http://west.thomson.com/store/product.aspx?product_id=40015694&pfv=True Official West Publishing site for the "Federal Appendix"]
References
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