Did that really need to be said?

I seriously take issue with the courts' lack of publishing opinions these days. I've found courts of appeal do not follow their own rules governing publications. I guess they're shy. It frustrates a litigator because the application of most if not all rules depends on the facts of your case. We waste so much money litigating issues that you just know have already been litigated, but did not result in a published opinion. Stare decisis, ever hear of it??

Federal courts have it right, they even publish trial court (district court) level opinions/orders! That's unheard of at the state level -- in Cali at least.

Well, I recently had to rely on a federal district court memorandum opinion -- because of the shocking lack of authority in Cali -- but noticed only the Westlaw cite is available b/c it's not published in the Federal Supplement. Instead of researching the exact rule on this, I did the lazy-man's "natural language" search in westlaw -- "citing cases not reported in federal supplement." In two secs flat I got a footnote that satisfies me:

"Opinions of the United States District Court that have not been published in the Federal Supplement are properly cited by this court as persuasive, although not precedential, authority." (In re Roderick (2007) 154 Cal.App.4th 242, 277, fn. 31; citing Schlessinger v. Holland America (2004) 120 Cal.App.4th 552, 559, fn. 4.)

Nailed it. Exactly one cut and one paste later I have a sexy foonote of my own and can cite my unpublished Massachusetts district court case with reckless abandon. The funny thing is though... the opinion would be merely persuasive, not precedential, authority even if published in the Federal Supplement! It's an out-of-state opinion, even if it were a California district court.

This reminds me of a quote from The Office:

Andy Bernard: So Tuna, when we get in there, let's do a really good job, ok?
Jim Halpert: Did that really need to be said?

And that explains the random title of this post.