2. Pennsylvania Case Reporters
• Appellate Reports
Commonwealth, Superior, Supreme – published in
official case reporters, in West’s Atlantic Reporter, or on
the internet
• Side Reports
Various county reporters publishing trial decisions from
the Courts of Common Pleas, District and County,
Administrative Agencies, Topical Reports, and
Miscellaneous Reporters
4. Established in 1970
Appeals for which the state is a party
• Examples: Worker’s Compensation,
Unemployment Compensation
No advance sheets
Discontinued in print in 1995
• Last volume is 168
Available online from 1997 – present on
Unified Judicial System of PA website
5. Both criminal and civil appeals
First published in 1895
No advance sheets
Discontinued in print in 1997
• Last volume is 456
Left Atlantic Reporter as only
comprehensive print source for these
decisions
Available online from 1998 – present on
Unified Judicial System of PA website
6. First 52 volumes are nominative – cited by
the name of the person who compiled the
reports
Several different publishers – West is current
No advance sheets – but will appear two to
three months after the date of the decision in
the Atlantic Reporter
Available online on Unified Judicial System of
PA website
7. Not all counties
Selective trial level
decisions
Do publish weekly
advance sheets
Some availability
online on county
website or part of
local bar association
website
8. Changes in volume
numbers between
advance sheets and
bound volumes
Shepard’s dropped
coverage in 1970s
West stopped indexing
in 1976 in the
Pennsylvania Digest 2d
• Still covers:
Fiduciary Reporter
District and County Reports
– most significant decisions
from trial level courts
9. Vale Pennsylvania
Digest
West’s Pennsylvania
Digest 2d
•Uses topic and key number
system
•Appellate and Side Reports
•Published beginning 1980s
•Uses topic and key number system;
Descriptive Word Index, Words and
Phrases, Table of Cases
•Appellate 1938 – present
•Side Reports 1938 – 1976
•District and County Reports
•Fiduciary Reporter
10. Each issue summarizes
recent trial and
appellate decisions
January and July has
6 month index
• Still have to go to each
issue to get reporter
citation
• Copy service for a fee
Best for Landlord
Tenant cases
11. Regional case law reporter; part of
National Reporter System
Select opinions of Supreme Courts
and lower appellate courts:
• Connecticut
• Delaware
• DC
• Maine
• Maryland
• New Hampshire
• New Jersey
• Pennsylvania
• Rhode Island
• Vermont
A = 1895 to 1938
A2d = 1939 to 2010
A3d = 2010 to present
12. Large academic or county law libraries
State library
Microfilm or CD-ROM
Jenkins Law Library
Widener Law Library
15. Annotated in Purdon’s
Constitutions of Pennsylvania published in
1967
Debates of conventions in multi-volume
sets
Online from Duquesne University of Law
16. Chronological order by date
of passage
18th and 19th century
referred to as Smith’s or
Dallas’ Laws
Subject index
Bill numbers
Includes:
• Appropriation Acts
• Veto Messages
• Reorganization Plans
Limited online at
Pennsylvania Legislative
Reference Bureau
17. Process of creating
consolidated statutory
code is ongoing
Pa Consolidated
Statutes came about in
the late 1960s
Purdon’s arrangement
did not suit, new
arrangement proposed
West agreed to
republish Purdon’s
reflecting the change
18. Only 2/3 have been republished
Purdon’s is a hybrid, reflecting two different
organizational schemes
Several instances where two different
statutes share same title number, one
consolidated, one Purdon’s
19. Two volume index with
Popular Names Table
Updated by pocket part
supplements
• New statutes,
amendments, notices of
repealed statutes,
annotations
Legislative Service
pamphlets
Cumulative Interim
Update
20. Cases from 1970s or older cite titles 12,
17, and 19
• In late 1970s those titles were repealed and
material recodified in title 42
Renumbering of sections in a given title
• To go from old to new – use Disposition Table
(front of hardbound volumes, or beginning of
chapter, first volume)
• Master Disposition Table
21. Convert session law into Purdon’s citation
• Use volumes labeled Tables
• Look up session law by date; then locate the page
or PL number where the statute begins
• Each section will have corresponding Purdon’s
citation
Index “Words and Phrases” list every term
defined by a statute in Purdon’s
Index of Popular Names of statutes
22. Very few PA agencies publish their decisions
Those that do:
• Public Utilities Commission
• Environmental Hearing Board
• Department of Education (teacher tenure and special
ed)
• Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board
• Workmen’s Compensation Board of Appeals
• Liquor Control Board
• Ethics Commission
• Securities
23. Irregular publication by the Justice
Department from 1887
Most recent volume ends at 1992
Found in PA Bulletin
Some availability online at the Attorney
General’s website
24. Unofficial Purdon's Pennsylvania Statutes West
• http://government.westlaw.com/linkedslice/default.asp?SP=pac-1000
• Note: These are the unofficial, unannotated version of the
complete set of Purdon's Statutes.
Pennsylvania’s consolidated statues on the
website of the Pennsylvania General Assembly
• http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/LI/Public/cons_index.cfm
• Browse by title, PDF, word, or HTML formats
• Note: These are the official, unannotated version of the
Consolidated Statutes.
25. Duquesne University of Law
PA Legislative Bureau
PUC
EHB
Department of Education
PA Labor Relations Board
Workemen’s Compensation Board of Appeals
Liquor Control Board
PA State Ethics Commission
PA Department of Banking and Securities
Attorney General
PA Bulletin