« Ind. Decisions: More on the Court of Appeals' "not-for-publication" opinions | Main | Ind. Decisions - Transfer list for week ending July 15, 2005 »

Friday, July 15, 2005

Ind. Decisions: Still More on the Court of Appeals' "not-for-publication" opinions

I was delighted to receive a note on yesterday's "not-for-publication" posting from George T. Patton, Jr., Bose McKinney & Evans LLP, which I reproduce with his permission:

Marcia, In response to your post about not-for-publication opinions, the 2004 Annual Report of the Indiana Court of Appeals shows that 27.1% of decisions last year were published, a figure some distance from what you ventured. Here is a link to the Report and the information is on page 4, along with each individual appellate judge's publication percentage.

My own view generally favors web availability of all decisions. Also, I tend to lean toward allowing citation to such decisions knowing that there is usually a published opinion making the same point. The Indiana Court of Appeals cannot foresee at the time of deciding whether to publish how some new wrinkle of law may develop over time out of what seems to be settled law. That said, if the rule changed, I would not plan on spending much time reading such decisions because the Court of Appeals mostly get the publication question right.

In my post yesterday (see immediately below), I estimated that "2 out of 5" Court of Appeals opinions are classified as not-for-publication. The court report, as George points out, indicates that more than 7 out of 10 Court of Appeals opinions are classified as not-for-publication.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on July 15, 2005 11:37 AM
Posted to Ind. App.Ct. Decisions