1. Print and Online for Free

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

3.  Appellate Reports
• Commonwealth
• Superior
• State

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

13. Casemaker
Google Scholar
Unified Judicial System of Pennsylvania
• http://www.pacourts.us/
County websites
Local Bar Associations

14. Constitution
Session Laws
Statutes / Codifications
Administrative Decisions
Attorney General Opinions

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

26. Print
Online
• PA Supreme Court Briefs
• HeinOnline (with FastCase)
• LLMC
• Loislaw