Case Law and the Canadian Abridgement – Introduction
Approximate duration: 30 minutes
Description: Learn how case law comes into being, and the importance of legal precedent. Also learn how to use the Canadian Abridgment, the key resource for indexing and organizing Canadian case law.
What Do You know?
Before starting this module, test your baseline knowledge with the following questions. You will receive basic feedback on your answers that will be further explained by the content in the module. Good luck! These questions are just for practice: your results will not be recorded by the system.
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1. Compiling Case Law
How is Case Law compiled? Which of the following phrases are true?
(Click all that apply)
Every judicial decision is documented, but not all are published.
Feedback: True.
A reported decision is a case published in a case law reporter.
Feedback: True.
An unreported case is not published in a print journal and therefore, unavailable.
Feedback: False. Unreported cases can usually be obtained directly from the court, from the court's website, or in an electronic caselaw database.
An unreported case is as authoritative as a reported one.
Feedback: False. While it can be helpful to cite an unreported case, reported cases tend to have more authority or precedential value.
You should always independently assess the relative authority of the decision before you cite a decision.
Feedback: True.
Like a bird in the hand, it is always better to have one reported case in support of your argument rather than two unreported ones!
Feedback: True.
2. Finding Case Law
Which of the following are included in an effective research strategy?
(Click all that apply)
Browsing case law indexes;
Feedback: Correct. Browsing the indexes to key case law reporters can quickly yield results!
Reading summaries or digests of cases;
Feedback: Correct. Reading summaries or digests of cases is another effective strategy for locating the law.
Using a commercial online or Legal Information Institute (LII) database;
Feedback: Correct. Research tools such as online databases or commercial services allow you to search for case law by style of cause, subject and more..
Using the Canadian Abridgment;
Feedback: Correct. The Canadian Abridgment is a comprehensive multi-volume research tool for Canadian jurisprudence. It includes all reported decisions since at least 1867, and many unreported ones.
Using Internet search engines;
feedback: Incorrect. Internet search engines (Google, Yahoo) are good for finding well-known of oft-cited cases, but not much else, unless you are using a specifically law-oriented engine such as CanLII.
Learning Objectives
At the end of this module you will be able to:
- Explain how jurisprudence or the body of case law on a topic is compiled;
- Locate case law using both print and electronic resources;
- Describe the main features of the Canadian Abridgment and how to use this source to find case law;
- Explain the importance of noting-up a case.
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Last Updated: 2014-09-08
