Decisions

Data models for published judicial decisions.

class justopinion.decisions.ReporterVolume(**data)

A group of decisions corresponding to a bound print volume.

Parameters

id – The unique identifier for this volume.
url – The URL of this volume in the Case Access Project API.
full_name – The name of this volume.

class justopinion.decisions.Court(**data)

A court that issues legal decisions.

Parameters

id – The unique identifier for this court.
name – The name of this court.
url – The URL of this court in the Case Access Project API.
slug – The URL-safe name of this court.
name_abbreviation – The abbreviation of this court’s name.

class justopinion.decisions.Jurisdiction(**data)

A government or other entity that is responsible for a legal system.

Parameters

id – The unique identifier for this jurisdiction.
name – The name of this jurisdiction.
url – The URL of this jurisdiction in the Case Access Project API.
slug – The URL-safe name of this jurisdiction.
whitelisted – Whether the jurisdiction’s cases are accessible without restriction in the Case Access Project API.
name_abbreviation – The abbreviation of this jurisdiction.

class justopinion.decisions.Opinion(**data)

A document that resolves legal issues in a case and posits legal holdings.

Usually an opinion must have type="majority" to create holdings binding on any courts.

Parameters

type – the opinion’s attitude toward the court’s disposition of the case. e.g. majority, dissenting, concurring, concurring in the result
author – name of the judge who authored the opinion, if identified
text –

classmethod remove_author_name_punctuation(v)

Normalize Opinion author names by removing punctuation.

Return type: str

locate_text(selection)

Get set of position selectors for text in Opinion.

Return type: TextPositionSet

select_text(selector)

Get text using a TextQuoteSelector.

Parameters: selector (TextQuoteSelector) – a selector referencing a text passage in the Opinion.
Return type: Optional[str]
Returns: the text referenced by the selector, or None if the text can’t be found.

class justopinion.decisions.CaseData(**data): The content of a Decision, including Opinions.

class justopinion.decisions.PageRank(**data): The rank of the Decision in the collection of documents.

class justopinion.decisions.CaseBody(**data): Data about an Opinion in the form used by the Caselaw Access Project API.

class justopinion.decisions.DecisionAnalysis(**data): Data generated by Case Access Project about a Decision.

exception justopinion.decisions.DecisionError: Error for failed attempts to assign Opinions to Decisions.

class justopinion.decisions.Decision(**data)

A court decision to resolve a step in litigation.

Uses the model of a judicial decision from the Caselaw Access Project API.

One of these records may contain multiple Opinions. Typically one record will contain all the Opinions from one appeal, but not necessarily from the whole lawsuit. One lawsuit may contain multiple appeals or other petitions, and if more then one of those generates published Opinions, the CAP API will divide those Opinions into a separate record for each appeal. The outcome of a decision may be determined by one majority Opinion or by the combined effect of multiple Opinions. The lead opinion is commonly, but not always, the only Opinion that creates binding legal authority. Usually every rule posited by the lead Opinion is binding, but some may not be, often because parts of the Opinion fail to command a majority of the panel of judges.

Parameters

decision_date – date when the opinion was first published by the court (not the publication date of the reporter volume)
name – full name of the opinion, e.g. “ORACLE AMERICA, INC., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. GOOGLE INC., Defendant-Cross-Appellant”
name_abbreviation – shorter name of the opinion, e.g. “Oracle America, Inc. v. Google Inc.”
docket_num –
citations – ways to cite this Decision
parties –
attorneys –
first_page – the page where the opinion begins in its official reporter
last_page – the page where the opinion ends in its official reporter
court – name of the court that published the opinion
casebody – the Decision content including Opinions
juridiction – the jurisdiction of the case
cites_to – CAPCitations to other Decisions
id – unique ID from CAP API
last_updated – date when the record was last updated in CAP API
frontend_url – URL to the decision in CAP’s frontend
analysis – data generated by Case Access Project about this Decision