COMPILING A CASE BRIEF OR SUMMARY

A good case summary will reduce a piece of case law into a manageable, limited number of

parts which allow you both to pull out the essential ingredients of a case at a glance, as well

as providing a concise set of notes from which to prepare for an examination. What follows

is a template for a case summary. Most cases will contain the elements listed and described

in the template, and thus this format should be helpful in dealing with most cases you are

assigned.

Name of Case & Citation Give the case name, and a reference to where you obtained the

case report, i$.$e$.,[1998]1$ S$.$C$.$R$.1128.$

Type and Level of Case

Facts

Issue$($s$)$ on Appeal

Judgement

Dissenting Opinion

Record the Court where the case is heard, i$.$e$.,$ Supreme Court

of Canada, and its form, i$.$e$,$ "appeal by accused of lower court

decision re$..."$

Outline the facts in point form, only as they relate to the

issue$($s$)$ of importance in the case you are summarizing.

Outline the issues in point form. You can usually find the issues

by looking for words like "whether", and often judges will state

very clearly that "the issue$($s$)$ on this appeal is$/$are$....".$

You need to identify the judge writing the decision $($and those

concurring$)$ and summarize the actual decision. judgment will

outline why a particular decision has been made, and the

decision itself is usually found at the end of the case report.

If there were judges who disagreed with the decision of the

majority; you should also outline briefly the nature of the

dissent, as a dissenting position at the level of the Supreme

Court can be important! You should also know that not all

judgments will have a dissenting opinion. This assignment requires you to locate, read and summarize a judgement of the Supreme Court of

Canada. The case which is the focus of the assignment is R v Kokopenace; you will need to go to

the Supreme Court of Canada website, locate the judgement, download and read it$,$ then you must

summarize the essence of the judgement using the $$Case Summary Template$$