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Collection United States Reports (Official opinions of the U.S. Supreme Court)

About this Collection

The United States Reports is a series of bound case reporters that are the official reports of decisions for the Supreme Court of the United States. A citation to a U. S. Supreme Court decision includes several elements that are needed to retrieve the case. For example, Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837 (1984). In this example, the 467 indicates the volume in which the case is reported, U.S. indicates the abbreviation for the U.S. Reports publication, 837 indicates the initial page number of the case, and 1984 indicates the year the case was decided.

Early volumes of reports of U.S. Supreme Court decisions were named for the clerk or reporter who compiled them. The U.S. Reports includes the content from these nominative reporters (e.g., volume 5 of U.S. Reports might also be referenced as volume 1 of Cranch, as William Cranch was the reporter). You can translate a citation from a nominative reporter to a volume of the U.S. Reports using the online early U.S. Reports citation conversion chart. Volumes 1-4 of the U.S. Reports, also known by the nominative reporter name Dallas volumes 1-4, include select cases from several courts of the U.S. and Pennsylvania in addition to cases from the U.S. Supreme Court.

This digital collection of the U.S. Reports contains volumes 1-570, covering the years 1754-2012. This collection will continue to grow as the Supreme Court digitizes more volumes of the U.S. Reports. To locate volumes of the U.S. Reports not currently available in this collection, see the Supreme Court’s U.S. Reports website. For additional free online resources for case law, including decisions of the Supreme Court, see the How to Find Free Case Law Online guide. For a general overview of federal and state case law research, see Legal Research: A Guide to Case Law.