Can you cite a headnote?
The headnotes at the top of a case in a research database state the rule in one tidy sentence, often tidier than anything in the opinion. Can you quote one, or cite it, in a memo or brief? And what about the syllabus that opens a Supreme Court opinion?
If your court treats its syllabus as part of the law, reply below with the rule. That is exactly what members should be able to compare.
The team’s answer
Short answer. No. Cite and quote the opinion itself. A headnote is a summary written by the publisher, not by the court, and it is not part of the decision. Let it point you to the passage you need, read that passage, and cite the page where the court's own words appear.
Two kinds of summary, neither of them the opinion
A syllabus is an official summary printed before the opinion; at the U.S. Supreme Court, the Reporter of Decisions prepares it. Headnotes, key numbers and case summaries are added by commercial publishers. Outside the exception below, both are finding aids.
What the Supreme Court says about its own summaries [Convention]
The Court's prints carry the warning themselves. The Reporter's Note in the preliminary print of Loper Bright Enters. v. Raimondo, 603 U.S. 369 (2024), says the syllabus was prepared by the Reporter of Decisions "for the convenience of the reader" and "constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court." A publisher's headnote is one more step away from the court: an editor's summary of the opinion, which can be wrong. The opinion is what binds.
What to do instead [House style]
Treat the headnote as a map. It tells you roughly where in the opinion the point is discussed.
Go to that part and read enough to know what it is: the holding, a side remark, a dissent, or the court describing an argument it then rejects.
Quote the court's words and pinpoint the page or paragraph where they appear, never the headnote's wording.
If the opinion does not say what the headnote says, follow the opinion, or drop the point.
A citator's flag is publisher work too. Treat a red or yellow flag as a reason to open the later case and read it, not as the answer.
The exception: a syllabus that is part of the law [Jurisdiction-specific]
Some states treat an official syllabus differently. Ohio does, by court rule: the law stated in a Supreme Court of Ohio opinion is in its text, "including its syllabus, if one is provided," and its footnotes. Ohio Rep.Op.R. 2.2. Other introductory material is "merely a research and indexing aid." Ohio Rep.Op.R. 2.4.
The court's Writing Manual, which governs its own opinions, cites one paragraph of a multi-paragraph syllabus in this pattern:
[Case name], [year]-Ohio-[number], paragraph two of the syllabus.
Even in Ohio, that covers the court's syllabus, not a database's headnotes. If you write in a state whose high court issues its own syllabus, check that court's rules before you rely on it.
Common mistakes
Quoting a headnote's neat sentence as if the court wrote it.
Citing a case's opening page for a point that appears only in the syllabus or headnotes printed there.
Describing a case as "overruled" because of a flag, without reading the later decision.
Read more
The Check Your Citation chapter (free to read), on reading the passage you cite and checking whose words they are: https://citationcode.com/book/check (opens in a new tab)
Briefing a case from the opinion, not the headnote: https://citationcode.com/cases/how-to-brief-a-case (opens in a new tab)