Why is Rakusen v Jepsen cited in that order? Rakusen v Jepsen is a high profile Rent Repayment Order (RRO) application case, in which the Applicant’s name typically comes before that of the respondent when the case is referred to. In this one, Rakusen is the name of the landlord (ie respondent party), yet their name seems invariably to be cited in front. Why is this?
Rakusen was the appellant at the Court of Appeal. Many, but not all, appellate courts adopt the norm of listing the appellant as the first party in the style of cause, even if they were the respondent or defendant in the underlying matter. This style decision can vary between courts within the same country and can even differ between courts within the same appeal hierarchy. E.g. in Canada different provinces do it different ways, and not all of them match the Supreme Court's style.
In appellate cases, the party appealing is called the "petitioner", and the other party is called the "respondent". These cases are listed Petitioner v. Respondent. In your example, Twombly was the original plaintiff, and Bell was the defendant in a class-action. This initial action would have been referred to as Twombly v. Bell. The case was dismissed by the trial court. Twombly appealed to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. This action would have been still been called Twombly v. Bell, since Twombly was the party petitioning for the appeal. The 2nd Circuit agreed with Twombly, and reversed the district court's decision. Bell, then on the losing side, decided to appeal to the US Supreme Court. Because Bell was the petitioner in this action, Bell gets listed first.
One option is to bring a civil lawsuit to obtain a court order for the return of your property, something that usually proceeds on an expedited schedule (often one to three weeks from filing to an order). The traditional name of such a lawsuit is "replevin" although the modern and minority terminology for this kind of lawsuit is civil action for "claim and delivery." You could ask the police to intervene, and they might do so, but are not required to do so without a court order. This can take the form of a criminal theft charge, or could take the form of what is called a "civil assist" when the individual comes to the place where the property is held in the presence of law enforcement which assures a peaceful transfer. Sometimes a court in another matter such as a divorce, or domestic violence criminal case, will enter an order authorizing or directing that a civil assist take place. The appropriate remedy depends to some extent upon the reason given for not returning the property. One valid defense to not returning property is that a lease created a lien in the personal property left at the premises for unpaid rent, or a lien for moving and/or storage charges. The availability of such liens varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and based upon the precise details of the situation. Another valid defense would be that the person in possession of the property was not satisfied that they knew who owned it.
This is very, very weird. I've never heard of a case like this one. Is there some context that could explain why anyone would refile a divorce someplace new twelve years after getting divorced the first time around? The logical thing to do if Canadian civil procedure is at all analogous to U.S. civil procedure on this point, would be to have a Canadian lawyer file a motion in the Canadian divorce case to set aside the judgment on the extraordinary grounds that you were not married any longer at the time that the 2015 divorce was filed, seeking to set aside the 2015 case ruling. In most U.S. jurisdictions with civil procedural rules modeled on the federal rules of civil procedure (California's are not), this would be a motion under Rule of Civil Procedure 60, but obviously, the Canadian rule numbering would probably be different. Alternatively, if the home is in California, you could bring an action for declaratory judgment declaring that the Canadian judgment is invalid because it was brought in a divorce action between people who were already divorced and probably also lacked jurisdiction over you and the property. I'm not sure what you mean by CPL in this context. Normally, in a real estate context, a CPL would mean a "closing protection letter", but in the context you are using it, it sounds like you are referring to something akin to a lis pendens or a lien. Perhaps you mean a "certificate of pending litigation" which is another name of a lis pendens in at least some Canadian jurisdictions (but is terminology rarely used in the U.S.). This sounds like slander of title, or "abuse of process" or the filing of what is known as a spurious lien, any of which are actionable, but without knowing what a CPL actually is, it is hard to know.
I am not sure what the claim in the textbook means, and have been unable to find any other reference to support or explain it. Headnotes are always “presumptively correct” in the sense that they are professionally authored, so you can generally presume them to be correct, unless they conflict with the full text of the decision. But I’m not aware of any statute or case law that creates a formal presumption in relation to headnotes. Perhaps you could write to the author and ask if that’s what she means. What is unique about England and Wales, as the origin of the common law and the associated tradition of law reporting, is the preeminence of the Incorporated Council of Law Reporting. The ICLR was established in 1865 and publishes all official law reports in England and Wales. Arguably unlike the official or authorised reports of other common law jurisdictions, the ICLR’s reports are considered to be more authoritative even than the judgment published by the court itself. The ICLR’s website explains: However important the case, the transcript of a judgment does not have the same value, as a record of the decision contained in it, as a full text law report. Where, therefore, a law report is available, particularly where the case has been reported in one of the official series, The Law Reports, published by ICLR, it must be cited and referred to in that version in preference for any other: see Practice Direction (Citation of Authorities) [2012] 1 WLR 780 … the combination of a summary report and a transcript does not enjoy the same status as a full text law report where one is available, for reasons which will become clear once one appreciates the amount of careful editorial work that goes into preparing the full report. In other jurisdictions, the official law reports are treated with less reverence, although it is still normal for courts to require them to be cited in preference to primary sources such as slip opinions. Nonetheless, further down the page the ICLR makes clear that the full text of the judgment takes primacy over the headnote, just as in other jurisdictions: Although the headnote adds value to the report of a judgment, it is the judgment itself which sets the precedent and binds subsequent decision-makers. Nevertheless, a good headnote is a work of meticulous legal draftsmanship and can withstand the closest of textual scrutiny. Accuracy is all. Make the proposition too general, and the principle appears either so watered down as to be meaningless or, more dangerously, misleadingly wide in its application. Draw it too narrowly, and it fails to express the principle on which the court based its decision. At its best, a headnote is a precious distillation – the single malt of legal learning.
The legal position You are quite clearly not running a business and if the matter went to court you could easily prove this be e.g. getting testimony from the people at the party, your testimony etc. In any event, your landlord can’t “fine” you. Fines are a punishment and only government can punish people. They can sue you for breach of contract for damages (which are restitution not punishment) or to seek specific performance. The practical position Take the listing down. Rightly or wrongly, it's souring your relationship with your landlord and their relationship with their HOA. Is having this mildly amusing joke worth damaging these relationships, particularly if you might want to renew your lease? The landlord might feel that they are better off with a tenant who doesn't cause them grief with their HOA. Even if your landlord understands, the HOA might not. If they sue your landlord, they will have very little choice but to join you. Yes, you will almost certainly win your day in court but you will not get reimbursed for the time and effort you had to go to. this includes taking the day off work, subpoenaing all your friends to give testimony etc. Who has time for that crap? Further, whenever you go in front of judge or arbitrator who has the power to force a resolution of your dispute, you are rolling the dice. Sure, you may think you have great evidence and the other sides' is completely bogus but if they present theirs with skill and confidence and you screw yours up then they can walk away with a win. Real court cases depend on who the judge believes. If they believe your landlord's reasonable story about running an illegal bar and they don't believe your crazy tale of it all being a joke - you lose. Remember: free speech can't be restricted but it does have consequences. Further, anyone who bases relationships on legal rights and responsibilities is going to have very shallow relationships.
This practice varies depending on the court and/or judge's own style preferences and is often a judgment call based on what the author is trying to communicate with a citation. I'll give a few reasons why a judgment might provide multiple layers of citations: because the &quot;deeper&quot; source is a well-used precedent for a particular point, so it is meaningful for readers to know that the shallower source cited the well-accepted leading case on an issue to show that a particular proposition has been long-accepted in a jurisdiction (your example might show that whatever proposition that is being cited has been used in this district over a 25-year period) to show that a decision from a lower-level court is consistent with historical jurisprudence or with higher-level jurisprudence One example: [12] It is common ground between the parties that reasonableness is the applicable standard of review for the Independent Chairperson’s decision. I agree (Perron v Canada (Attorney General), 2020 FC 741 (&quot;Perron&quot;) at para 45, citing Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65 (&quot;Vavilov&quot;) at para 23; see also Schmit v Canada (Attorney General), 2016 FC 1293 at paras 19-20, and the cases cited therein). Here, the author is trying to say this point is well settled. What is the standard of review for decisions of the Independent Chairperson? It is &quot;reasonableness.&quot; This was stated in Perron, which itself cited Vavilov, Canada's leading case (since 2019) on how to select the standard of review. It is important to know that Perron relied on Vavilov rather than an obsolete framework for selecting the standard of review. In your particular example, it seems that Albert E. Price, Inc. v. Metzner is or was a leading case in the 3rd Circuit on what constitues irreparable harm when seeking a preliminary injunction in copyright infringment cases (based on my very brief skim of how other judgments tend to use it). By noting that a judgment cited Metzner, this is a form of shorthand that is quite meaningful to practitioners in this area of law.
The author of the passage is telling you where the quotation comes from, using a formal case citation. Lawyers usually don't use footnotes, endnotes, or parentheses to set off these citations. Case citations are a sort of shorthand developed by lawyers and judges over the past few centuries. The goal is generally to identify the name of the case, where to locate it, when it was decided, and what court decided it. Although there are a few different styles for formal citations to cases, you don't need to learn much to cover the basics for common types of cases. How to Read It Case name Brown v. Bd. of Educ. Case names usually have a "v." in the middle. Most of the time, the plaintiff goes on the left and the defendant goes on the right. But United States Supreme Court cases are different. Almost always, the Supreme Court reviews decisions of lower courts. They do so in an unusual way: the loser in the lower court asks the Supreme Court to change the outcome. Because the loser, more formally called the "appellant," is the one initiating proceedings in the Supreme Court, they go on the left. (To learn more, look into "writ of certiorari.") Since Brown is a Supreme Court case, we can guess that Brown lost in the lower court; and indeed that's what happened in this case. There are some arcane rules about abbreviating case names. The full name of this case is "Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka." If you're a law student, especially if you're on the law review, you get to learn all about these rules. If you're not, thank your lucky stars and try not to worry about it. Volume, reporter, and page number 347 U.S. 483 This is the bit you want to copy and paste to find the case. It's a lot like a URL: the idea is to clearly identify and locate a case. If you just want to find the case on the Internet, you don't need to understand how it works, and you can skip to the next section. These three parts tell you where to find the beginning of the case in a good old-fashioned printed book. You know those yellow books in the background of lawyer advertisements? That's what we're talking about. They're called "reporters," because they originally contained somebody else's reports of what judges said in court. Now, of course, the judges write down their own decisions; but the name stuck. The middle part, here "U.S.", identifies what set of books the case is in. You can learn something about the court from this: U.S. -- United States Reports -- United States Supreme Court F., F.2d, F.3d -- Federal Reporter -- Federal Courts of Appeal F. Supp -- Federal Supplement -- Federal District Courts (trial courts) The first number is what volume the case is in. This is the number printed on the spine of the book. The second number is what page the case begins on. Pinpoint citation , 495 When somebody wants to refer to a specific place in a case, they just put the page number or range right after the case page number. Remember, "483" was the page the case starts on; "495" is the page where the court actually say what we're talking about. If you flip to page 495 of volume 347 of the U.S. Reports, you'll find the quoted sentence. Remember: usually when you see two numbers separated by a comma, like "483, 495", the first one is part of the citation to the case as a whole, and the second one says what page to look at. Date and court name (1954) This part varies a lot between the different formal styles. In "Bluebook" style, which most law journals use, the year the case was decided is enclosed in parentheses, along with anything necessary to identify the court. Here, there's no court name, because we already know from the "U.S." that it's a Supreme Court case. For lower appellate cases, this might be "(9th Cir. 2005)", meaning that it's a decision of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals from 2005. Dealing with short citations You may also see something like "Id. at 495". This is a short citation; "Id." means "the last thing I cited." Go back to the nearest previous citation and look that up, going to the page cited. How to Use It (aka "tl;dr") The key to actually finding a case on the Internet is to copy the three numbers in the middle--the volume, reporter name, and page number. Here, "347 U.S. 483". Don't include any pincite after a comma; Google and many search engines may be clever enough to figure out what you mean, but they may not. There are a bunch of free online services providing case texts. I prefer Google Scholar; just paste the citation in, being sure to select "case law". Other people like CourtListener, FindLaw, and Justia.com. Commercial databases like Westlaw or LexisNexis have a lot more than just the case; most importantly, they list citations to the case. Your local public law library might have a terminal for one of the services that you can walk in and use. Be sure you're reading the actual case, not a summary or "annotation." This is especially true if you're writing an answer here on Law.SE. Many case summaries, especially for famous cases, are written for first-year law students; some of them are probably written by first-year law students! They're often helpful, but they focus on what the student needs to know for class, which often isn't what the case actually said. If I find you quoting a case summary as if it's "the law," I will not be very nice to you.