report

An official or formal statement of facts or proceedings. A printed or vyritten account of the judicial determination of a case.

In this sense, the term is used ordinarily in the plural to denote the published volumes of reports of decisions. REPORTARE (Law Lat.)

In old English practice. To report.

An official or formal statement of facts or proceedings.

In practice. The formal statement in writing made to a court by a master in chancery, a clerk, or referee, as the result of his inquiries into some matter referred to him by the court. The name is also applied (usually in the plural) to the published volumes, appearing periodically, containing accounts of the various cases argued and determined in the courts, with the decisions thereon. Lord Coke defines "report" to be "a public relation, or a bringing again to memory cases judicially argued, debated, resolved, or adjudged in any of the king's couris of justice, together with such causes and reasons as were delivered by the judges of the same." Co.. litt. 293.

— Report of committee. The report of a legislative committee is tbat communication which the chairman of the committee makes to the house at the close of the investigation upon which it has been engaged. Brown.

— Report office. A department of the English court of chancery. The suitors' account there is discontinued by the 15 & 16 Viet. c. 87, § 36.

A formal statement cery, a clerk, or referee, a public account of a cluding a statement of the court; a published

1. (1) An official statement of the facts, or of the facts, proceedings, and law, in a case: as, the report of — an auditor, a commissioner, a master, a receiver, or viewers, qq. v. (2) A published volume of judicial decisions; a volume of reported cases; a judicial report. 0£Q.cial report. A report prepared and published under the authority of law, and by direction of the judge or judges of a court. Unofllcial report. A report published by an uncommissioned person. In most of the States, statutes have been passed providing for the selection of the cases, the size of volume, the printing by contract, the sale, etc., of the authorized reports. Reports may be of cases upon every branch of jurisprudence, or illustrative of the law of a particular subject. The expression State reports is contrasted with Federal or United States reports. Particular series take their names from the name of the court or courts; as. Supreme Court reports. Court of Appeals repeats. Circuit and District Court reports. They are sometimes spoken of as the higher and the lower reports; and, from the grade of the court, as law reports and equity reports, the former, too, being either civil or criminal reports, or of the nature of both species. -Side reports is occasionally used in contradistinction to the regular or official reports of a State. While foreign reports are designated by the name of the country in which they originate, or from which they come, as, English, Irish, Scotch, or Canadian, the reports of all countries, and of each of our States,— of any separate or special jurisdiction, are very frequently cited by the name of the person under whose special supervision they are, or have been, collated, indexed, and otherwise prepared. Again, some volumes or series of volumes have also been named after the name of the 1 Crogate's Case, 8 Coke. 138 (1609): 2Sm. L. C, H. & W., 247; Taylor v. Cole, 1 id. 262, 267-73, cases", Ersjudge whose opinions they preserve, chiefly or ex;clusively. A reported case comprises a summary of the points decided, called the syllabus or head-note; a statement of the essential facts in the case, and of the arguments of counsel; and the opinion of the court. Nothing can be so various, as respects grade of merit, as the English reports prior to 1775. Anterior to 1800, there were but two or three American reports.^ In the absence of express legislation to the contrary, the reporter of court decisions is entitled to a copyright on his volumes for whatever is the work of his Own mind and hand.^ The decisions of the court are public property, and may be published freely by any person whatever,' See Mantjsokipt. The decisions of the courts are the authorized expositions of the laws — unwritten and statutory. Every citizen, being bound to know the law, should have free access to the opinions; and it is against public policy to withhold the earliest knowledge of them, as it would be of the statutes. The opinions, after delivery, belong to the public* The judge who writes an opinion is not an " author " or " proprietor " within Eev. St. § 4952, so that the State can become his assignee and take out a copyright.' - Reporter. (1) A person who prepares decisions for publication. State reporter. An official who edits and publishes the decisions of the highest court of a State. (2) A periodical devoted to the publication of reports, perhaps with annotations from other cases. (3) A person who stenographs a witness's testimony or the charge of a judge. See Stenographee. Unreported.. Said of a decision either not printed in any law publication or else not officially so published. See AuTHOBiTT, 3; Case, 2; Decision; Precedent, 8. 3. As to reporting news, see Newspaper.

n. An official or formal statement of facts or proceedings. Report, V.: to make a statement of facts or Mailing a letter, prepaid and properly addressed, to an insurance company, if done by general direction of their agent, satisfies a condition in a policy that the facts stated in the letter shall be " reported " to the company. Edwards v. Mississippi Valley Ins. Co., 1 Mo. App. 192. ' Reports of committees. These pertain to legislative and parliamentary practice. Questions arising oii legisla^ tion, both of law and of fact, are constantly referred to committees for preliminary investigation; and the report of a committee is the usual basis upon •which a bill or measure is brought forward in the house for deliberate discussion and passage. Reports of the courts. Published volumes containing accounts of judicial decisions are termed the reports, or reports of cases. A full report of a case, in this sense, usually contains a brief statement of the important facts, an abridgment of the argument of counsel, and the opinion of the court, either as furnished by the judge or judges in writing, or as taken down by the reporter, when orally delivered; and these are preceded by a brief statement of the points decided, called head-notes. But the preparation and arrangement of these is purely a literaiy duty. The good sense and judgment of the reporter are his guides in the execution of the task, in most jurisdictions. In some of the states, he is directed in respect to what decisions shall be reported, and what features his reports shall contain, by statutes and rules of court. The series of reports compiled by Lord Coke have been veiy generally styled The Reports, par excellence, as it were, and cited without the author's name. Report of commissioner, master, receiver, or referee. The official statement drawn up by a commissioner of court, master in chanceiy, receiver, or judicial referee, to whom a cause or question has been referred, the evidence he has collected, or the decision or computation he has made, or of his dealings with property or funds committed to his charge. The similar statement of an arbitrator, as to his decision, is not person who is appointed or voluntarily assumes to edit and superintend the publication of reports of the courts, q. V. In England, this duty was formerly an individual or private undertaking. Since the commencement of 1866, the chief reporting has been done under the superintendence of a council styled the incorporated council of law reporting for England and Wales. In the courts of the United States, the reports ai-e, for the most part, prepared by or under the direction of the judges. The reporter to the supreme court, however, enjoys a legislative recognition of hia office, in a permanent appropriation of a sum in compensation of his furnishing to government three hundred copies of his reports; and there is usually a congressional appropriation in support of the reports of the court of claims. In many of the states, the reporter of the court of last resort (and in New York the supreme court reporter also) is a salaried officer of the state. But besides these authorized reports are many series, authorized only by appointment of the courts, and depending for pecuniary support only upon publishers' sales; and some compile without even a formal judicial appointment, and winning favor according to the value of the cases reported and merits of the reporter's inethod. As will be inferred from the above remarks, the term reporter is only applicable to one who prepares reports of courts. It is not in use in reference to legislative, or to master's or referee's, reports.

practice, is a certiftcate to the court made by a master in chancery, commissioner or other person appointed by the court, of the facts or matters to be ascertained by him, or of something of which it is his duty to inform the court. If the parties in the case accede to the report, and no exceptions are filed, it is in due time confirmed; if exceptions are filed to the report, they will, agreeably to the rules of the court, be heard, and the report will either be confirmed, set aside, or referred back for the correction of some error. 2 Madd. Ch. 505; Blake’s Ch. Pr. 230; Vin. Ab. h. t.