Court Decisions

This Web site provides four publications of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and Appeals Court. Three are provided at no charge: slip opinions, opinion archive, and unpublished decisions. The fourth publication, advance sheets, are available by subscription. All four publications are fully searchable.

Slip opinions. Slip opinions are available to the public shortly after 10 A.M. on days opinions are released. The Today's SJC Opinions feature announces at 8 A.M. the case captions and docket numbers of those opinions the SJC intends to release at 10 A.M. Most opinions are released within 130 days of oral argument.

You may access the slip opinions either by checking this Web site for the opinion sought or by registering for automatic electronic mail delivery of cases in one or more of the following areas:

(i) All cases
(ii) All civil cases
(iii) All criminal cases
(iv) Business law
(v) Civil procedure
(vi) Insurance
(vii) Labor and employment
(viii) Municipal
(ix) Public law
(x) Real estate
(xi) Torts
(xii) Trusts, estates, and family law
(xiii) Miscellaneous

Slip opinions posted to the Web site are removed within two weeks and then appear in advance sheet format in the Advance Sheet and Opinion Archive sections of the site.

Opinion Archive. The opinions of the Supreme Judicial Court and Appeals Court released since 2001 are available, without charge, and are fully searchable. The archive differs from the Advance Sheets in two respects: first, the opinions found in the archive do not contain the headnotes created by the office of the Reporter of Decisions; second, the list of rule 1:28 decisions of the Appeals Court that appear in the slip opinion and advance sheet publications do not appear in the opinion archive. However, the memoranda and orders that support the rule 1:28 decisions appear in the unpublished decisions portion of the Web site.

Unpublished Decisions. The memoranda and orders that support the decisions pursuant to rule 1:28 of the Appeals Court released since February 26, 2008, are available, without charge.

Advance Sheets. Advance sheets, which supersede the slip opinions, appear on this Web site each Monday. The advance sheets include the official headnotes, the same pagination that will later appear in the bound volumes, and any subsequent amendments and substantive corrections made to the opinions between the time of release and the publication of the bound volumes. A subscription to the electronic advance sheets may be obtained on the Web site or by calling 1-800-344-5009.