About the Reporter
The Office of the Reporter of Decisions of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and Appeals Court has entered its third century of law reporting. By act of the Massachusetts Senate and House of Representatives (Acts 1803, c. 133) the first Reporter was appointed "to obtain true and authentic reports of the decisions" of the Supreme Judicial Court. Since 1804 there have been seventeen Reporters of Decisions who, in addition to serving as Reporter, have distinguished themselves as members of the Massachusetts and New Hampshire bars and in the field of legal publishing. Three Reporters have served in the Massachusetts Legislature, one as a judge of the Superior Court, one as Attorney General of Massachusetts, four as Associate Justices of the Supreme Judicial Court, one as Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court, and one as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
While our mission to publish accurately the decisions of the Supreme Judicial Court (and since 1972 the decisions of the Appeals Court) has remained the same since 1804, the means of distributing the courts' decisions has changed with the times.
The printed advance sheets and bound volumes remain the official publication of the courts' decisions and the bound volumes continue to be the official archive of the courts' decisions. This is reflected by Rule 16 (g) of the Massachusetts Rules of Appellate Procedure, which requires that any citation in a brief filed "shall include, wherever reasonably possible, a reference to any official report of the case." When circumstances require that a decision be obtained quickly and obtaining a printed copy of the slip opinion is not sufficient, our office Web site provides fast access to the courts' opinions.
The primary purposes of this Web site are to provide the most timely and efficient dissemination of the decisions of the two Massachusetts appellate courts and to provide information about the operation of the office of the Reporter of Decisions and the history of the court.
John Adams Courthouse
Seven-Justice Courtroom
Distribution of Opinions
The opinions of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and Appeals Court are made available to the bar, public, and press through the office of the Reporter of Decisions by means of print and electronic services. The publications are (1) the slip opinions (which are released without charge in a printed 8½" X 11" format and electronically on this Web site); (2) the advance sheets (which are available by subscription in printed soft-cover pamphlets and electronically on this Web site); and (3) printed bound volumes.
1. Slip opinions. In most cases the courts' opinions will be released within 130 days of oral argument, the text of which is made available to the public at 10 A.M. on days opinions are released. An announcement is made on this Web site (Today's SJC Opinions) at 8 A.M. indicating whether the Supreme Judicial Court intends to release cases at 10 A.M. and listing the case captions and docket numbers of those opinions the court intends to release. The opinions of the Appeals Court are not announced in advance.
In addition to the opinion of the court, a slip opinion contains the catchwords (but not the headnotes prepared by the office of the Reporter of Decisions), which alert the reader to the kind of case that is being released, a statement of the procedural history of the case, and a listing of appellate counsel. The slip opinions are available in printed form from the Public Information Office or from the office of the Reporter, or on this Web site.
The Web site provides two methods for gaining access to the slip opinions: (a) checking the Web site, clicking on a case caption, and either reading or printing the case from the screen; or (b) registering for automatic electronic mail delivery of cases from the following designated practice topic 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 this Web site are removed at the end of two weeks. All slip opinion services are provided without charge.
2. Advance Sheets. The slip opinions are superseded by publication of the advance sheets. The printed advance sheets consist of soft-cover pamphlets that contain, in addition to the opinions of the two appellate courts, all features found in the official Massachusetts Reports and Massachusetts Appeals Court Reports, with the exception of the Memorials of the Justices, which are found in the official bound volumes and on this Web site. The printed advance sheets are mailed each Friday and contain all cases decided between Thursday of the preceding week and Wednesday of the week of publication. They appear on this Web site each Monday.
The advance sheets (both printed and electronic versions) 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. In addition, the electronic version of the advance sheets provides full searchability of the opinions by docket number, date of release, party name, and word or phrase.
The printed advance sheets are published weekly and are available by subscription from the publisher of the official reports, Thomson West. A subscription to the electronic advance sheets may be obtained on this Web site, or by calling 1-800-344-5009. The advance sheet pamphlets are accumulated until approximately 960 pages are reached and then are gathered to form a bound volume.
3. Bound Volumes. The final versions of the courts' opinions are the casebound sets of volumes titled Massachusetts Reports and officially cited, 447 Mass. 1 (2006), and titled Massachusetts Appeals Court Reports and officially cited 66 Mass. App. Ct. 1 (2006). The bound volumes are available from Thomson West.
John Adams Courthouse
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Courtroom
Which Publication Controls?
Slip opinions are superseded by the publication of the advance sheets. If discrepancies exist between the slip opinion and the advance sheet versions, the advance sheet version controls. If discrepancies exist between print and electronic versions of a slip opinion, the print version controls.
Advance sheet pamphlets are superseded by the publication of the bound volume. If discrepancies exist between the advance sheet and bound volume versions, the bound volume version controls.
The bound volumes of the Massachusetts Reports and Massachusetts Appeals Court Reports contain the only official text of the opinions of the Supreme Judicial Court and Appeals Court. If discrepancies exist between any other version of a case and the bound volume version of the Massachusetts Reports or Massachusetts Appeals Court Reports, the bound volume version controls.
Counsel Appearing at Oral Argument
The practice of the Supreme Judicial Court and the Appeals Court is to recognize, in the listing of counsel in the official report of a decision, attorneys who have presented oral argument. Also, an attorney who was seated at counsel table at the time of oral argument, and who signed in as appearing with counsel who argued, is also recognized. At the conclusion of oral argument, the official sign-in sheet is delivered to the Reporter's office and, at the time of release of an opinion, those names that appear as having argued or as having sat at the counsel table are printed in the official report of the case. When there is no oral argument, as when a case is submitted on briefs, or when an amicus brief is filed, the names of the attorneys appearing on the briefs will then be listed.
We hope our Web site is useful and informative. We welcome your comments and suggestions for ways to improve it.
C. Clifford Allen
Reporter of Decisions
September 2008
