5.4 What must a case brief contain?
Case briefs can vary in form and length, depending on the context. The following table shows one commonly used template for case briefs.
| 1 | Name of case | Give the correct name of the case, which is usually the parties’ names. |
| 2 | Citation | Give the correct citation(s) for the case. |
| 3 | Court | Identify the name of the court and the names of the particular judge(s) giving the judgment. |
| 4 | Material facts | Outline very briefly the factual circumstances which give rise to the issues ultimately adjudicated on and material to the court’s holdings. |
| 5 | Procedural history | Outline very briefly how the dispute got to the court, including, where relevant, the nature of the action, the remedy sought, the process by which the case was commenced (e.g. writ, application, police charges) and (if the matter is on appeal) any lower court decisions already made in the matter. |
| 6 | Issues | Identify clearly and precisely the legal or factual issue(s) addressed by the court in the judgment. |
| 7 | Holdings | Identify the decision of the court on each of those issues. Those decisions are known as ‘holdings’ or ‘held points’. They are what the court decided or held on those issues. These will usually form the key legal principles for which the case will stand as authority. The holdings of the court will necessarily be those of the majority judges. Sometimes there is no clear majority holding on a particular issue, even though a majority of the court agreed on the practical outcome of the case. In such cases, identify the holdings of each of the majority judges. Where a court makes a decision about a factual issue (i.e. it decides what actually happened), that decision is called a ‘finding’ of fact. In most case briefs, you will be concerned primarily with the court’s decision on legal issues; i.e. its holdings on the legal issues. |
| 8 | Reasons | Expound concisely the court’s reasons for reaching those decisions or held points. This is the ratio decidendi: any ‘indispensable factor’ in the court’s reasoning to its conclusion. These should be taken directly from the judgment with care. Some degree of paraphrase may be needed, but be accurate. Where there is more than one judge, be clear as to who stated the reasons and whether other judges concurred with those reasons. |
| 9 | Additional comments | Identify and expound comments or observations made by the court that are not essential to the final decision, but which are worth noting. These are ‘obiter dicta’ (remarks made in passing). The holdings and reasoning of dissenting or minority judges should be included here if they are of interest or are important. |
| 10 | Order(s) | Identify what the court’s final order(s) were; i.e. what it ordered to be done, or not done, to dispose of the matter. |
This template may need to be adapted to the particular case you are reading, especially where you are asked to read only particular judges’ reasons or selected passages rather than the whole case. Nonetheless, the basic format can be followed in such cases.
Identifying these various aspects of a case is not always easy. Not every judgment is written clearly or in a way that makes it straightforward to identify the main issues, or the ratio, or the held points. In such cases, you will need to work harder at interpreting the case. This can involve making explicit what is reasonably implicit in the text. That can sometimes involve some degree of reconstruction of the judgment as you try to make clear what is implicit or inherent in the judgment. Interpretations should, however, still be objective and neutral. Be careful not to state things as implied just because you think they ought to have been considered.
It is acceptable to quote short passages from the judgment, especially when it comes to the key legal principles being articulated. But keep it simple and keep it short. The task is not to find the ‘juicy bits’ of a judgment and just repeat them at length. Nor is the task simply to replicate the judgment in miniature. Instead, the task is to understand, and communicate the essence of, the judgment in concise terms. If you are quoting several sentences at a time, you are probably quoting too much.
The length of a case brief will depend on the task that you have been set and the detail of the judgment you are dealing with. Some case briefs will be longer than others.
TIP: BE CLEAR, CONCISE AND DIRECT
Aim first for clarity and simplicity – the language used in a case brief should be clear, concise and direct. Write in a plain, direct manner. Do not think that because it is a legal document it must be written in ‘legalese’, with complex sentence structure and lots of pretentious words and phrases.
There will often be a need to use specific technical legal terminology. Use the relevant terms clearly and precisely, but try to keep them to a minimum where possible.
