Wikipedia:Wikipedia in judicial opinions



This project seeks to compile quotes of instances of Wikipedia being relied upon as a source in significant judicial opinions. Please note that judicial opinions are edicts of government: U.S. Federal court decisions are &#8220;works of the United States government,&#8221; which are exempted by statute from copyright protection ; in addition, some courts in the United States have held that, as a consequence of the requirements of due process, edicts of state governments are not copyrightable either. In the vast majority of cases, however, citations to Wikipedia are minor footnotes fleshing out points tangential to the litigation at issue.

For a table of a much larger selection of opinions which have used Wikipedia as a source, see Wikipedia as a court source.

Lands Council v. McNair, 494 F.3d 771, 785 (9th Cir. 2007)
Milan D. Smith, Jr., Circuit Judge, specially concurring:

Crawford v. Marion County Election Bd., 484 F.3d 436, 438 (7th Cir. 2007)
Hon. Diane P. Wood, Circuit Judge, dissenting:

Bourgeois v. Peters, 387 F.3d 1303, 1312 (11th Cir. 2004)
Note: This is the earliest instance of a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals citing Wikipedia.

Ferguson v. Comm'r, T.C. Summary Opinion 2007-30 (TNT Tax Court Summaries 2007)
[Opinion of the United States Tax Court.]

Campbell v. Sec'y of Heath & Human Servs., 69 Fed. Cl. 775, 781 (Ct. Cl. 2006)
[Opinion of the United States Court of Federal Claims.]

United States v. Lawson
In United States v. Lawson, no. 10-4831 (4th Cir. Apr. 20, 2012), the defendant Lawson appealed a conviction where a juror had used Wikipedia to look up the definition of "sponsor":