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Property Keyed to French
Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co.
Citation:
499 U.S. 340 (1991)
ProfessorTodd Berman
CaseCast™ – "What you need to know"
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*Case Brief Anatomy includes: Brief Prologue, Complete Case Brief, Brief Epilogue
- The Brief Prologue provides necessary case brief introductory information and includes:
- Topic: Identifies the topic of law and where this case fits within your course outline.
- Parties: Identifies the cast of characters involved in the case.
- Procedural Posture & History: Shares the case history with how lower courts have ruled on the matter.
- Case Key Terms, Acts, Doctrines, etc.: A case specific Legal Term Dictionary.
- Case Doctrines, Acts, Statutes, Amendments and Treatises: Identifies and Defines Legal Authority used in this case.
- The Case Brief is the complete case summarized and authored in the traditional Law School I.R.A.C. format. The Pro case brief includes:
- Brief Facts: A Synopsis of the Facts of the case.
- Rule of Law: Identifies the Legal Principle the Court used in deciding the case.
- Facts: What are the factual circumstances that gave rise to the civil or criminal case? What is the relationship of the Parties that are involved in the case. Review the Facts of this case here:
The plaintiff, Rural, is a telephone service provider that also publishes telephone directories. Rural obtained the information for its white page listings directly from customers when they called Rural to request telephone service. Rural offers its telephone directories free of charge, but makes money by selling ad-space to companies in the yellow pages of those directories. The defendant, Feist, decided to offer a telephone directory covering an expanded geographic area. Feist is not a telephone company, so it could not get information for telephone directories directly. As a result, Feist had to approach the other eleven telephone companies in the area to acquire the information for its white page listings. Every telephone company, except Rural agreed to let Feist use their listings in exchange for compensation. Feist used Rural’s listings anyway. Rural sued.
- Issue(s): Lists the Questions of Law that are raised by the Facts of the case.
- Holding: Shares the Court's answer to the legal questions raised in the issue.
- Concurring / Dissenting Opinions: Includes valuable concurring or dissenting opinions and their key points.
- Reasoning and Analysis: Identifies the chain of argument(s) which led the judges to rule as they did.
- The Brief Prologue closes the case brief with important forward-looking discussion and includes:
- Policy: Identifies the Policy if any that has been established by the case.
- Court Direction: Shares where the Court went from here for this case.
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