Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Law

Legal cases as Primary vs. Secondary

I am working with an editor who believes that legal cases are secondary sources. To me it is common sense that such decisions are WP:PRIMARY. I didn't see it clearly mentioned in WP:RS or here on this project. Is there any place where it is spelled out more clearly? If there isn't one, we could use a section on good legal sources. I did see it discussed here: [1]. --David Tornheim (talk) 22:03, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

We have RSLAW (there's been some discussion recently about getting it to a better state). Cases are primary sources because their holdings are open to interpretation and their factual findings are based on what the parties present to the court and the court's first-hand evaluation of evidence. voorts (talk/contributions) 23:02, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

I am late to the party, but for the record I think our position has to be a bit more nuanced. I think the starting point for this discussion has to be WP:ALLPRIMARY. That is, any legal case (by which I'm assuming we mean court opinion) is a primary source in at least some respects. So how we're citing the opinion matters. In that regard, I would agree with voorts that a court opinion is always a primary source as to its own holding and legal reasoning, and probably also as to the procedural history of the case. But a court opinion would typically be secondary as to the background principles of law that the court is applying. Facts are a messier question analytically, although I think most would agree that a court opinion, regardless of whether it is "really" primary or secondary, should only be cited for the facts of the case with in-text attribution (and with great caution, if at all, outside of articles about the opinion).

The kind of court opinion we're talking about also matters. IMO trial court opinions should be probably be treated as if they were self-published primary sources, even when they have secondaryish aspects (not least because many such opinions, at least in US civil litigation, are drafted by the prevailing party). But an appellate court's recitation of background law should IMO be considered a fairly reliable secondary source for those points -- not least since it is, at least in the common law jurisdictions I'm familiar with, reviewed by multiple jurists before publication, and is the type of source on which experts in the field rely. If a particular area of law in a particular jurisdiction hasn't attracted scholarly attention, appellate opinions may be the best available source.

In general, context matters. And in that spirit I think we also have to keep in mind the general weirdness of the law relative to other fields. Sources Wikipedia considers generally reliable in other contexts are often comically bad about getting legal details correct. (See pretty much any news article about pretty much any litigation.) We would serve our readers poorly if we didn't take that inconvenient reality into account. But exactly how to take it into account is IMO a case-specific question. -- Visviva (talk) 02:37, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

But an appellate court's recitation of background law should IMO be considered a fairly reliable secondary source for those points -- not least since it is, at least in the common law jurisdictions I'm familiar with, reviewed by multiple jurists before publication, and is the type of source on which experts in the field rely.
I think the problem with that is that "an appellate court's recitation of background law" is often vague (usually a product of compromise among judges on a panel) and are sometimes left intentionally vague such that they are open to interpretation in a later case. For example, lawyers distinguish case law in their briefing and courts sometimes end up limiting doctrines or outright redefining them. While some propositions of law are so settled that they can't reasonably be open to a different interpretation (e.g., that a contract requires consideration), many legal questions are resolved through analysis and synthesis of ambiguous case law. This is why we should rely on secondary sources that analyze legal cases and trends and attempt to make sense of what's actually going on in judicial decisionmaking. voorts (talk/contributions) 02:58, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

I do not find the primary/secondary distinction to be very useful as applied to court opinions. As for the court's own holding, the opinion is obviously a primary source. But for other purposes, the distinction may not be so clear. For example, the findings of facts in a trial court's opinion is the judge's assessment after reviewing proposals from both sides. Is that really primary, or should it be considered secondary? What about the appellate opinion? There a panel of judges is reviewing the opinion below. In addition, one judge writes the draft opinion, but then it is reviewed by the other judges. That certainly starts to look very secondary.

I'm influenced here by my experience with Happy Birthday to You. For decades, the history of the song and its copyright were obscure, leading to claims of copyright ownership by Warner/Chappell Music. Professor Robert Brauneis in 2010 wrote an excellent article exploring the history and arguing that these claims were invalid. Litigation resulted, and a court conducted a detailed review that closely examined Brauneis's work. So at this point the most detailed, reliable, and scholarly source is the court's opinion. I would argue that that is a perfectly acceptable secondary source (although the article does not currently cite it as such).

I've also seen the argument that a court opinion is a secondary source for background law, and it does seem like there should be something to it. However, it does require a careful assessment of what is background law versus what is the court's holding. John M Baker (talk) 22:59, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

I think the facts are a primary source because they're the judge's interpretation of what the parties have presented, either on a motion or at trial. As we know, sometimes the facts presented at trial are not the full facts of what actually occurred, whether that be because the parties have selectively argued only specific facts or because certain facts have been omitted under the rules of evidence. Likewise, an appellate opinion is bound by the facts that were developed below. I also disagree that citing an opinion for background law is valid because the law changes; someone without access to or who does not know how to conduct a proper search of a legal database might find an appellate decision that says X as "background law", but without realizing that X was repudiated by a later court, or even a court of coequal jurisdiction (such as in the case of one intermediate appellate court creating a split with another). See also my comment above. voorts (talk/contributions) 01:15, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Facts are always at risk of being incomplete, even for the most reliable secondary sources. I also don’t think that the considerations you mention prevent an opinion from being a secondary source of background law, although you do highlight some reasons why we might ordinarily be hesitant to use that source. John M Baker (talk) 03:38, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

I think it's better to counsel not using opinions as sources. While an editor who is a lawyer should know how to parse out the law, an editor who has limited experience with law-related topics might not. It's better to avoid the issue of having editors trying to parse judicial opinions and extract points of law from them (which in my opinion is OR), when scholarly sources or treaties are usually available. Any differences in interpretations of the case law in those sources can be attributed and explained. voorts (talk/contributions) 03:55, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

As a practical matter, I suppose that is right, with perhaps a caveat for U.S. Supreme Court opinions. My points are (1) I don’t find the primary/secondary distinction a helpful way of thinking about it and (2) the findings of fact are often the best available source for the facts of a particular matter. John M Baker (talk) 04:14, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Even SCOTUS changes the rules though. Just last term, there was a case where they effectively overruled another decision while claiming they were just "clarifying" it. (Forgetting the name, but when I read the decision, I thought to myself thaat it was obviously a compromise opinion because some Justices wanted to overruled while others agreed with the outcome but didn't want to overrule.) I don't think it's wise to have non-lawyers relying on these cases as statements of the law without the benefit of outside analysis. voorts (talk/contributions) 11:46, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Legal case is in dire need of sourcing

Can someone have a look at this article? Cheers! BD2412 T 15:48, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

It should be merged with Lawsuit. Currently Litigation is a redirect to the latter but, in my eyes, it should be the article with Legal case and Lawsuit as redirects to it. DeCausa (talk) 16:56, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

I think Legal case is a valid summary-style article, since it includes both civil and criminal cases, and a criminal case isn't called a "lawsuit" in common usage. Both Legal case and Lawsuit are in pretty bad states, though. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:42, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Exactly, a criminal case and a civil case are both kinds of legal cases, with many aspects in common (jurisdictional questions, proceedings, factfinders, processes for obtaining and admitting evidence). BD2412 T 22:17, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

It's difficult to say because "lawsuit" is an Americanism whereas "legal case" has wider usage across the anglosphere. Because of that, lawsuit and legal case is better wrapped up into "litigation" (which can be civil or criminal) which is the only word that avoids the whole WP:NOTDICTIONARY taint. DeCausa (talk) 22:40, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

We could also add Legal proceeding to the mix. IMO that might be the best home for a globalized BCA. I'm a little wary of smooshing all of these together without further deliberation, especially given that so many other Wikipedias also have separate articles. But I suspect that any encyclopedic distinctions between case/lawsuit/litigation/proceeding would be jurisdiction- or tradition-specific, so one general BCA might be the way to go. -- Visviva (talk) 03:09, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree that a BCA is needed. Litigation can redirect to Legal proceeding, which can be the top level article. Then, Criminal litigation and Civil litigation can be separate BCAs that are summarized at Legal proceeding, and each of those articles can be BCAs for different jurisdictions. I think lawsuit could then appropriately redirect to civil litigation. Before these changes are made, however, I think we need a formal move request with notification to all affected page. voorts (talk/contributions) 03:35, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

My current thinking is to propose merging legal case into legal proceeding and retarget litigation to that. I'll go ahead and post a merge discussion for that and we'll see how it goes. Agree that separate articles on civil litigation (currently a bad redirect) and criminal litigation could also be good; there's certainly plenty of subject matter for all of those. After taking a closer look at lawsuit, I think that should probably just be moved to Lawsuit (United States law) and then the original page turned into a redirect to a hypothetical civil litigation BCA -- but that's probably another issue for another time. -- Visviva (talk) 00:22, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

I generally agree, but I'm not sure why Lawsuit (United States) needs a separate page. Lawsuit is a generic term that is used for any kind of case brought by one entity against another. voorts (talk/contributions) 01:13, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

I guess I would say that we should have a "Civil litigation in X"-type article (among many others) for every jurisdiction X for which adequate sources exist. Even when the broad principles are similar, every jurisdiction's law is its own specialized subject area with its own sources and history. The US is only unique in that, thanks to the heavy US slant of our existing legal coverage, that article is pretty much already written -- it just needs to be untangled from the global concept. But anyway, I'm not proposing to do that just now. -- Visviva (talk) 01:50, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

Notability of Kristina Baehr

There is a new article for an attorney Kristina Baehr. I'd welcome discussion of whether the article meets notability requirements. ScienceFlyer (talk) 15:56, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Can I get some help with Bathroom bill?

Hi all

I would really appreciate some help improving Bathroom bill, as far as I can see the main issues are

• It is extremely America focussed, there are many laws in the UK, France etc which are similarly aiming to exclude trans people
• There is no real historical context given, these kinds of arguments have been used for a long time (I added some more info on the talk page)

Thanks

John Cummings (talk) 14:01, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

Section on reasonable person article needs dire attention

Reasonable person#Personal circumstances needs attention, there is a lot of citation needed tags and blocks. Not all of these might be needed, I'm not an expert and wouldn't know any prominent cases or other sources to find, so I'll refrain from editing the section MarkiPoli (talk) 13:31, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

Weight of evidence

Should there be an article titled Weight of evidence? Michael Hardy (talk) 18:06, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Yes, as a broad-concept article. My understanding is that it's not just the law that uses "weight of evidence" as a term of art. See, e.g., this article on risk assessment: [2]. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:49, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Agree that a BCA covering both scientific and legal uses of the concept would be ideal. On the legal side, it would be nice to have a section covering the "manifest weight of the evidence" standard of review (of which our coverage is currently almost nonexistent). -- Visviva (talk) 02:08, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Weight of evidence (how convincing the evidence is) seems duplicative of Burden of proof (how convincing evidence needs to be). SilverLocust 💬 03:06, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

They're not the same concept. The burden of proof describes who has to prove what. The standard of proof (e.g., beyond a reasonable doubt, preponderance of the evidence, and clear and convincing evidence) describes how probable the facts described by a party need to be. Weight of evidence describes how convincing a particular fact or set of facts are. For example, a jury might weigh the testimony of one expert to be more credible than another. Weight of the evidence (or manifest weight of the evidence) is also a deferential standard of appellate review. For example, in some jurisdictions, an appellate court is required to uphold a jury verdict so long as the jury can rationally reach that conclusion based on the evidence presented. voorts (talk/contributions) 03:21, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Standard of proof/burden of persuasion and burden of production are not identical concepts, but they are sufficiently related to be covered in one article. I am suggesting that the same is true of weight of evidence. SilverLocust 💬 04:02, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

But go ahead and create an article for it if you wish. SilverLocust 💬 05:54, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Kudos to everyone involved in burden of proof (law) for sure! It is a shining beacon of adequacy, at least as to the three closely-related legal systems it covers. (Check the legal systems covered in the altlangs to get a notion of how much larger an even partially globalized version of that article would be.) And I would agree that the burdens of persuasion and production, which are closely-related subtopics of the main topic of that article, are pretty decently covered there. In contrast, that article contains only a couple of brief mentions of evidence-weighing, and only in the context of a couple of specific US proof standards. Subtopics are one thing, but trying to squeeze in coverage of a merely related topic like this would IMO stretch that article to the breaking point.

I don't know if this is where you're coming from, but for me, there's an impulse to look at our coverage of legal topics, which in the cold light of day mostly runs the gamut from "literally nothing" to "somehow less informative than nothing", and think "I am an adequate Wikipedian and law-talking person, Wikipedia's coverage of legal topics is something I am part of, therefore our coverage of legal topics is also adequate." It hurts to confront the scale of what we're still missing, more than two decades on -- especially given that writing or revising even one core legal article is a bruising task. But even if we allow ourselves these comforting illusions from time to time, it's important to remember that they are illusions, that the work remains to be done, and that anyone seeking to do it should be encouraged. -- Visviva (talk) 02:15, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Hence why I am recommending it be expanded rather than starting another such article. SilverLocust 💬 03:57, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Leasehold estate § This article needs major improvements

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Leasehold estate § This article needs major improvements. This article is rated "High-importance" to WikiProject Law, but it is missing a lot of information, and the prose needs rewriting to be easily comprehensible to the average (non-lawyer!) reader. SmileySnail (talk) 23:53, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Request input on constitutional law topic: Content split proposal for 'separation of powers'

Valued fellow law contributors:

The separation of powers doctrine is a core principle of constitutional law in every Western-style legal order. As such, it is a shame that our article on the subject remains at 'start class' quality. It is deficient in legal analysis and generally unbalanced.

I have thus proposed splitting off what amounts to well over half the article into one titled 'branches of government' or similar. These parts are dedicated to describing the structure of individual governments, instead of analysis or a summary of the principle's manifestations (see Wikipedia essay: cargo cult editing for a description of the type of writing I mean). Also, there appears to be no comparative law analysis in the article, which is entirely focused on political thought; whereas, to my mind, an article called 'separation of powers' would mainly be about: (1.) the normative principle in political philosophy, (2.) its impact on political systems in reality, and (3.) its technical implementation through constitutional law.

(The second one of these certainly has its place in the article; but right now, the article just lists a number of countries in which government powers are divided, and what the bodies belonging to these branches of government are called. Yes, if the separation of powers principle had never been posited, we would not customarily sort bodies of government into mutliple branches. But each instance of a notionally divided government does not need to be listed in the article referring to the principle.)

I think creating a different article, focused on comparative government analysis of 'branched' governments, would allow both a fresh start for the separation of powers article (I may be able to provide a complete re-draft myself in a couple more years), and also drive qualitative improvments to the newly split article by putting it entirely in the scope of descriptive political science editors. The way things are, I think everyone is a little paralyzed by uncertainty on what the article is there for, since it is admittedly a huge topic with implications for many fields.

Readers will also have an easier time finding what they are looking for if we distinguish these differing focuses. There's clearly a lot of interest in institutions and branches of government as a topic in itself; it's probably worth its own article.

Please let me know what you think. If you agree with my assessment, I could really use your help building the necessary consensus to enact this change: I fear that all the POV editing going on in the WP:CARGO parts of the article might transform into obstructionism upon enactment of the change.

Thanks. —§§ LegFun §§ talk §§ 18:31, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Israel has an RfC on the topic: mention apartheid in the lead?

Talk:Israel has an RfC. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. starship.paint (RUN) 05:17, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Prosecution of Donald Trump in New York#Requested move 31 May 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Prosecution of Donald Trump in New York#Requested move 31 May 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. RodRabelo7 (talk) 18:49, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

One of your project's articles has been selected for improvement!

Hello, Please note that State of emergency, which is within this project's scope, has been selected as one of the Articles for improvement. The article is scheduled to appear on Wikipedia's Community portal in the "Articles for improvement" section for one week, beginning today. Everyone is encouraged to collaborate to improve the article. Thanks, and happy editing! Delivered by — MusikBot talk 00:05, 3 June 2024 (UTC) on behalf of the AFI team

Requested move at Talk:Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards Program Authorization and Accountability Act of 2014#Requested move 27 May 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards Program Authorization and Accountability Act of 2014#Requested move 27 May 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Safari Scribe^{Edits! Talk!} 19:07, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Right of way#Requested move 14 May 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Right of way#Requested move 14 May 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Safari Scribe^{Edits! Talk!} 14:22, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:2024 Taiwanese legislative reform protests#Requested move 7 June 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:2024 Taiwanese legislative reform protests#Requested move 7 June 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Векочел (talk) 12:21, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Sexual and gender-based violence in the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel#Requested move 4 June 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Sexual and gender-based violence in the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel#Requested move 4 June 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. ASUKITE 15:19, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

I would like some help understanding something apparently invlolving the US Justice Department

Please comment at Talk:Simon_Ekpa#The_US_Justice_Department_thing if you can help. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:34, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Jacobson v. United States

Jacobson v. United States has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 19:08, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Which notability criteria apply to decisions by the Bundesverfassungsgericht?

I'm looking to create articles on some of the more significant decisions, which (to the best of my knowledge) do not yet exist. Would media coverage and scientific literature be sufficient to establish notability (along the lines of Wikipedia:THREE) or do they need something special? FortunateSons (talk) 16:22, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

GNG. We don't have specific notability criteria for court cases. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:45, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. Wikipedia:GNG would mean that almost all “standard cases” are notable, is that an issue? FortunateSons (talk) 21:05, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Most modern SCOTUS cases are probably notable, so it doesn't surprise me that most of the BverfG cases would be. I'm shocked that we don't have articles on most of the cases in Federal Constitutional Court#Landmark decisions. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:32, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, and even that list is lacking many of the “core” cases regarding free speech, freedom of assembly etc. Might work my way through some of them, it’s good practice for me anyway. Thank you! FortunateSons (talk) 22:51, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Constitution of the People's Republic of China#Requested move 4 July 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Constitution of the People's Republic of China#Requested move 4 July 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. ASUKITE 14:53, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Free Press (organization)#Requested move 14 July 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Free Press (organization)#Requested move 14 July 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. 98𝚃𝙸𝙶𝙴𝚁𝙸𝚄𝚂 • [𝚃𝙰𝙻𝙺] 22:42, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Proposal: Jurisdiction-specific task forces?

Would it be useful to have jurisdiction-specific taskforces? We have some subprojects listed—Wikipedia:WikiProject Canadian law and Wikipedia:WikiProject Australian law. Both are marked inactive. Articles are put in the Australian and Canadian projects respectively by adding law=yes to the WikiProject Australia/Canada talk page template. In the past we had an "EW" parameter for England and Wales—it no longer works, so I removed the documentation for it earlier in the year.

Module:WikiProject banner allows the creation of taskforces in a fairly simple way, and it seems like a reasonable use case for jurisdiction-specific articles. I'm keen on setting one up for England and Wales where I think I can reasonably contribute. —Tom Morris (talk) 09:04, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

If people are interested, I'd be fine with that and would participate in a US one. Otherwise, I think we'd just end up with a bunch of inactive task forces. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:47, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks - the inactivity is less of a concern for me than the benefit of being able to say "I'd like to see stuff I can improve that's relevant to my interests". I'm reasonably confident about improving, say, articles on English topics but not on ones related to other jurisdictions.

I'll wait for more feedback, but once there's consensus, I'll try and kick off an E&W one, and hopefully that can be a model for doing likewise for others. —Tom Morris (talk) 12:12, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Concurrent use registration

Concurrent use registration has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 18:20, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Law broker

The article Law broker has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

I am not sure that this is a real and widespread term even in the claimed regions. The previously removed external links seem to point to one person (with a company with "law broker" in the name), who uses the term to describe lawyer referral services. I don't think any validation of this as a term that is used will ever be discovered in the future.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Gnisacc (talk) 19:53, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Indictment and arrest of Julian Assange#Requested move 17 July 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Indictment and arrest of Julian Assange#Requested move 17 July 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. RodRabelo7 (talk) 16:13, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Allbirds checking

Hello WP Law. I recently finished the page for Allbirds, which includes some litigation and summary of legal scholarship, namely in "Corporate Affairs." I would appreciate it if anyone could give it a quick glimpse to see if it meets quality standards and is generally correct since I am not a lawyer. Ornov Ganguly TALK 00:46, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

1852 Georgia (U.S.) Supreme Court decision help

Greetings! I'm not sure if this is an appropriate place to ask, but I have no legal background and I find appeals cases especially confounding bc they're about law and process not facts etc. Anyway, I would like to briefly summarize the decision in Bibb Co. Inferior Court v. Orrs for User:Jengod/Slavetraderbio (to be published as A. J. Orr and D. W. Orr or similar). Is there anyone here with a background in American law who can take a look and tell me what the practical outcome was? I really can't figure out if they were going to get money or not. I'm interested for two reasons: (1) D. W. Orr was on a county grand jury a couple of times, and (2) they were slave traders and they may well have accepted these jury payment coupons in exchange for a slave but then were unable to turn it into some other form of money. If this is the wrong place to ask, I would love pointers to any other resource that might be helpful, either within Wikipedia or on the wider web. Thanks in advance. jengod (talk) 21:38, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

The Georgia Supreme Court affirmed the Superior Court order, which directed the justices of the Bibb County Court to pay the Orrs out of the County Treasury. The Court also held that if the Bibb County Court justices refused to pay, the Orrs could make a motion to attach their property as a means of executing the judgment that they won.

Whether the Orrs ever actually got paid the full amount, or whether they settled for some lesser amount, would have to be determined from some other source. I would also note that if you intend to summarize the court decision in the article, you should find a secondary source describing it. In my view and the views of many others here, summarizing a court decision is OR. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:53, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

1. TY so much @Voorts -- very helpful.

2. Plot twist! OK I'll see if I can find other mention of the decision. Hoo boy now I have to learn the secret code of case names! All grist for the mill, I suppose.

Seriously tho, thanks again for translating the legalese. I truly appreciate it. jengod (talk) 22:04, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

The full Bluebook citation for this case would be: Justices of the Inferior Court v. Orr, 12 Ga. 137 (1852). Google Scholar turns up nothing about this case, which is unsurprising. I would try Bibb County newspapers, as this likely would have been big political news in the local area. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:14, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Probably unimportant for your purposes, but I forgot to note that the Court also held that the statute of limitations didn't start to run until the inferior court refused to pay the Orrs. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:17, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Excellent. I mostly just do bios and try to set up some general who-what-when-where-why-how boundaries on their exploits, but all the legal shenanigans these guys got into are very valuable to actual Scholars and I know this info will someday slot into an academic paper on, like, "financial instruments of the antebellum south" or "American slave traders and Georgia state law" etc. Appreciate you. Warmly, jengod (talk) 22:27, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

My pleasure. I've worked on a couple of legal bios recently (Cora Agnes Benneson and Addie Viola Smith). If you come across any interesting legal characters that you would like help with, I'd be happy to collaborate. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:33, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Oooh loooove those. If I find anyone notable and cool, I'll definitely flag you. :) jengod (talk) 23:11, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Too much advice? Potato cannon legality

Surely there must be a rule to prevent articles like this. It's so sloppily written that it could endanger people, legally or physically. Luckily it's so bad that maybe no one would who pay any attention to it. It's like a medical article telling people the dosage of medicine to take, only without any sources. Can it be saved or should it be deleted? WestRiding24 (talk) 07:14, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm getting a strong feeling that it might be original research... —Tom Morris (talk) 13:27, 24 July 2024 (UTC)