Removal & corrections.
Federal court opinions are public records. Anyone — including commercial services like Westlaw and free archives like CourtListener — can republish them. Court, Explained adds plain-language summaries of those public opinions.
We take requests for removal and correction seriously. This page explains what we will and won’t do, and how to reach us.
Corrections to a summary
If a summary on this site is wrong — misstates what the court decided, gets a procedural detail backwards, attributes the wrong ruling to the wrong party, or contains any other factual error — we want to fix it.
- · The case ID or URL of the page in question
- · What the summary says now
- · What it should say, and where in the opinion you see the correct version
We aim to review correction requests within 48 hours. Verified errors are fixed immediately and the page is updated.
Requests to remove a case
Because federal court opinions are public records, we generally do not remove summaries of cases that the court itself has published. The same case is available on CourtListener, Justia, and PACER regardless of whether it appears here.
However, we will remove a summary if any of the following apply:
In whole or in part.
Minor, victim, witness, or party whose name the court protected.
Removed from the public record.
Material factual error we cannot fix.
Documented risk to physical safety.
Tell us what we missed.
To request removal, email removal@courtexplained.org with the case ID, your relationship to the case, and which condition above applies. Attach any sealing or expungement order you can.
What we will not do
We do not remove summaries because:
- You don’t like the outcome of the case.
- The case is embarrassing or shows up in a Google search of your name.
- The case is old.
- The opposing party complains about how their conduct was characterized in the opinion itself.
Defamation and legal threats
Our summaries describe what court opinions say. Court opinions are public records, and reporting on what a court wrote is protected by the fair report privilege. Summarizing an opinion is not defamation, even when the opinion is unfavorable to a party.