Policy

Governance & removal policy

OpenCaseLaw republishes only decisions that courts or public bodies have already published. The originating source remains the authoritative record for publication status, anonymization state, and corrections.

Scope

  • Code is licensed under MIT.
  • Dataset packaging and added metadata are released under CC0-1.0, to the extent any rights exist in those additions.
  • Underlying decision texts remain official published decisions sourced from the originating courts or public bodies.

Source-of-truth principle

If there is any conflict between an OpenCaseLaw copy and the source publication, the source publication controls. OpenCaseLaw aims to mirror the source, not supersede it.

Source withdrawals and re-anonymization

If a court or public body removes, replaces, or re-anonymizes a published decision at the source:

  • future scrapes should reflect that change
  • downstream build artifacts may be regenerated to remove or update the affected record
  • mirrors and derived exports may lag briefly behind the source while the next pipeline run or manual update completes

Correction and removal requests

Verified requests may be sent to team@jonashertner.com or filed via the project issue tracker when public discussion is appropriate.

Requests should include, where possible:

  • the docket number or decision_id
  • the source URL
  • the requested action: correction, re-sync with source, de-listing, or removal
  • the reason for the request
  • evidence that the requester is the originating court/public body, an authorized representative, or an affected person with a concrete privacy or publication concern

Review standard

Maintainers review requests case by case. Relevant factors include:

  • whether the source decision is still publicly available
  • whether the source has changed the anonymization state or withdrawn the publication
  • whether OpenCaseLaw metadata or packaging introduced an independent error
  • whether continued republication creates a material privacy or safety concern that outweighs the value of continued indexing

Typical outcomes

Depending on the facts, maintainers may:

  • update metadata or links
  • re-sync the record to the current source version
  • de-list the decision from public artifacts
  • remove the decision from future releases
  • decline the request when the source publication is unchanged and no independent OpenCaseLaw error is shown

Best-effort timing

OpenCaseLaw is maintained on a best-effort basis. Urgent requests should say why urgency matters. Removal from derived artifacts may require a rebuild cycle rather than an immediate edit in place.