HCDs are back!

[Anna]

TN has restored the Housing Court Decisions that were lost in the 9/20/05 crash.
http://tenant.net/Court/Hcourt/

[Aubergine]

That is very good news.

Once you find a decision on Tenant.net that looks useful, how do you get the full text of the decision, how do you do further research to make sure the case is accepted as good law, and how should you cite the case in papers submitted to the court or agency?

To retrieve the full text and official citation of Appellate Term, Appellate Division, and Court of Appeals decisions since 1/1/2000, and selected Housing Court and Supreme Court decisions from that period, you can use the Law Reporting Bureau's (LRB) website at http://www.nycourts.gov/reporter/Decisions.htm . The "Search Official Reports" link -- http://government.westlaw.com/nyofficial/ -- allows searching by case name, citation, or word or phrase.

The online Slip Opinions are the form in which recent decisions are released before the official reports are published, and in some cases the online Slip Opinion is the only medium in which the case will be published. Here's the LRB's explanation of the various official reports:

The Official Reports are divided into three levels: the New York Reports [e.g., 74 NY2d 201], containing the decisions of the State's highest court, the Court of Appeals; the Appellate Division Reports [e.g., 252 AD2d 156], containing the decisions of the State's four intermediate appellate level departments; and the Miscellaneous Reports [e.g., 178 Misc 2d 185], containing the decisions of trial level courts and the Appellate Term of the Supreme Court.

All decisions published in the Official Reports are also assigned an official electronic citation number, in the form, e.g., 2001 NY Slip Op 00001. The initial number denotes the year that a decision is published. The second is a unique serial number assigned to each decision for that particular year. Citations for Unreported opinions have a "(U)" suffix, e.g., 2001 NY Slip Op 40001(U). Use this electronic citation for officially published cases which have not been assigned a permanent citation in the traditional "volume-report-page" form. To determine the electronic citation for a case, use the New York Slip Opinion Service.

http://www.nycourts.gov/reporter/FAQ.htm

Officially reported decisions from prior to 2000 can be retrieved through Lexis, which is available at the county public access law libraries ( http://www.courts.state.ny.us/lawlibraries/publicaccess.shtml ) during business hours.

If a case is published in the New York Law Journal (NYLJ) and also in an official reporter or slip opinion, you should not cite it using the NYLJ citation. Use the Official Reports citation, or if published online only, the Slip Opinion citation.

Retrieving cases published only in the New York Law Journal:

The Housing Court Decisions summarized on Tenant.net also include cases that are reported only in the New York Law Journal, and do not get published as slip opinions or in the official reports. Because the NYLJ is a subscription-only publication, retrieving the full text of these decisions can be time-consuming and inconvenient. There are three main ways to access these decisions, depending on when and in what part of the paper they were published.

The first and most convenient method is via Lexis or Westlaw. The county public access law libraries offer in-person Lexis access during business hours. The limitation here is that decisions of the Appellate Terms are largely excluded from the Lexis NYLJ database, as is anything published prior to September 1, 1989.

A second method is to look at microfilmed back issues of the NYLJ, which are available in major law libraries. The CUNY Law School library ( http://www.law.cuny.edu/library/ ) is open to the public during most of the year. Some county public access libraries may have the NYLJ on microfilm, but I know that the one in Manhattan (80 Centre St) does not.

The third method is to use the Housing Court Reporter (HCR), a privately-published series that reprints the text of all landlord-tenant and related decisions published in the NYLJ, as well as unpublished decisions. The HCR is available at the county public access law libraries and at the CUNY Law School library.

Before retrieving a case from the NYLJ or the HCR, verify that the case was not also given an Official Reports or slip opinion citation.

Verifying a case is still good law, and using one case to find others -- Shepard's:

Another important function available through Lexis is "Shepardizing," which is a search for cases that explain, apply, overrule, distinguish, or otherwise cite a particular case or statute. This is a key step in verifying that your case is still reflective of the law (or not) and in finding other decisions that may be useful or important. Librarians at the public access libraries can help you use Shepards for either purpose.

Citing cases correctly:

The Civil Practice Law and Rules (CPLR) and New York court rules require that cases be cited from the Official Reports, if so published. Cases that are not published in the Official Reports, such as those that are printed in the NYLJ or Housing Court Reporter, or that are issued by the court but never published, should be cited to those sources. Citations to unofficial reporters (e.g., NYS2d) in addition to the official reports (parallel citation) is not required and is done only as a courtesy to adversaries who might rely on that source. Since most practitioners now use electronic databases that can retrieve a case with any citation, there is little reason to add
parallel citations.

The New York state courts do not require that litigants use a particular citation style. However, the courts do use a single official style manual for their own published opinions. If the rules it sets out are good enough for the court, they should be good enough for anyone who submit briefs and memoranda to the court. It is also available for free online at the LRB website: http://www.nycourts.gov/reporter/New_Styman.htm

Supplying unreported and hard-to-retrieve decisions:

It is never a bad idea to provide copies of cases to the court or agency if they are not easily retrieved from the official reporters, slip opinions, or the NYLJ databases on Lexis or Westlaw. They can be attached as an appendix to a memorandum or brief.

[Anna]

more on retrieving full-text of decisions:

NY Slip Opinions:

decisions are published electronically on the LRB (direct link = http://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/lawReporting/Search ), a few days/weeks later on Westlaw http://government.westlaw.com/nyofficial/

They will carry the same slip number, e.g.: '2005 N.Y. Slip Op. 02294'; however, some decisions will be assigned a permanent citation in the traditional "volume-report-page" form which will only be updated on Westlaw, e.g. '16 A.D.3d 242, 790 N.Y.S.2d 871', not on LRB. Not all of these decisions which are assigned publication numbers will actually be published in paper books.
All Appellate Division (ADxd) and Court of Appeals (NYxd) decisions are published in books and have book citations, with the minor exceptions of those 'removed from publication' before the book is printed.
Appellate Term and original court (Miscxd: Supreme, Civil, Housing, Small Claims, etc.) may or may not be assigned book citations. Please note that the version from these lower courts published in the NYLJ or elsewhere is sometimes edited before publication online or in the books; these are sometimes minor revisions, sometimes as much as half is edited out.

Two other online sources of decisions from the lower courts, where decisions are in PDF format, are
https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/caseTrac/jsp/ecourt.htm click Decisions
http://decisions.courts.state.ny.us/search/query3.asp
Many of these decisions never make it to the official reports online or in books, e.g., most 'xxx v DHCR' Article 78 decisions.

New York Law Journal, other sources

The NYPL has paper and microfilm copies of the NYLJ on the periodicals floor at Mid-Manhattan Library
455 Fifth Avenue at 40th Street.

The NYPL has an in-house electronic database Factiva of either one year or 'from 09/11/2001 to present' at SIBL, 188 Madison Avenue at 34th St. NYPL SIBL website says it also has 'from 09/01/1989 to present in nexis.com '
Bring blank floppy disk or CD.
SIBL also has paper versions of Vendome's/Brownstone's ALI & LvT Insider: http://www.tenant.net/.WWW/forum/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=3;t=001057

The Queens Library has/had a subscription to either the NYLJ or Lexis, available onsite at various locations. (will someone please drop in or call and update the forum? thanks)
It also has paper copiesof the NYLJ for about 1 year and "the New York law journal digest-annotator covering the lower court opinions of the first and second judicial departments, as published in the New York law journal." http://www.queenslibrary.org/

Various & sundry websites re-publish NYLJ decisions and/or articles, such as the L&T attys' websites of the authors of articles or winning side of decisions, misc sites such as http://knowledgeplex.org/ , etc., TN forums and http://tenant.net/
It never hurts to Google the whole web for: 'T's last name, 1 or 2 uncommon words from LL's name, the judge's last name, and year'

Supplying online decisions:

Before printing, be sure to set the Page Format or Page Setup to print the URL and the date in the bottom margin of the page. (bottom is preferable because stapling your court papers together will hide the top margin). When printing PDFs: if this info does not print, print out the previous page listing the clickable PDF file.

<small>[ October 11, 2005, 11:04 AM: Message edited by: Anna ]</small>