American Constitutional Law



American Constitutional Law

Introduction

On a specific topic or issue when two people differ and their disagreement or incongruity directs to a lawsuit or court case then sometimes the lawsuit conclude by a judge with his decision in support of any one of them. In a written document, the ruling will be explained by the judge referred to as an “opinion”.

It is also known as the legal opinion. All the explanation is done by the opinion about the case, the related legal principles are discussed and then to the facts the law applies in favor of one side and to reach a ruling. At the direction of the court, the opinions are frequently published (Kerr, 2007). The amount of pronouncements and statements they contain about the law and how it should be comprehended establishes, change, overturn or reinforce the legal model.

The opinion is incorporated in a volume, if it is decided by the court to publish an opinion, from a series of books known as the Law reporters or in the United States as reporters. The opinions of the courts that are published are also cooperatively known as the case law and in the legal systems of common law is one of the major sources.

Discussion

Hundreds of years of practice and history are reflected by the modern legal opinions. A predictable and simple formula is followed by these legal opinions. This section will give a brief explanation of the contents of the legal opinion.

Caption

The first part of the legal opinion is its title that is known as the “Caption”. The s of the individual who conveyed the lawsuit and the individual who is sued are included in the caption. These two individuals or sides are usually known in the case as the “litigants” or the “parties”.

Legal Citation

Some numbers and letters are found under the case name. For the case, these numbers and letters are called the legal citation. The legal citation explains the law book of the legal opinion publication (Kerr, 2007). It also explains the name of the court that decides the case and the year in which the case was decided by the court.

Facts of Case

The first part of the legal opinion body describes the facts of the case. In the fact section of a legal opinion, there are no specific regulations for the facts that what the judge incorporate. Sometimes, the facts sections are short and at times they are extensive. Sometimes they are incomplete and sometimes they are precise and obvious. In some legal opinions the procedural history is included in the facts which describe the working of the legal dispute in the legal system.

Law of the Case

After the facts section, the legal opinion discusses the law of the case. The law is presented in two stages in various legal opinions. First stage describes the general principles of the law that are pertinent to the cases. The history of a specific field of the law may be explored in this ...