A memorandum opinion is a court’s written decision that announces a ruling with only brief reasoning, skipping the extended statutory and case-law analysis found in a full published opinion. Federal appellate courts resolve roughly 80 to 90 percent of their cases this way. Because these decisions are typically designated “unpublished” or “nonprecedential,” they resolve the dispute between the parties but do not bind future courts the way a published opinion does.
Why Courts Use the Short Form
The point is efficiency. When the governing legal principles are already well settled, a court does not need to write twenty pages restating rules that appear in dozens of published decisions. It confirms what law applies, notes how the facts line up, and announces the result. Some appellate memorandum opinions run only a few paragraphs. Others are as short as a single sentence affirming “for the reasons stated by the district court.”
The labels vary. You may see “memorandum opinion,” “memorandum disposition,” “memorandum decision,” or simply “unpublished opinion.” The function is the same: resolve the case without adding to the body of precedent-setting law.
Trial courts use the format too. A judge ruling on a routine discovery dispute, a procedural motion, or a motion for summary judgment where the key facts are not genuinely contested may issue a memorandum opinion rather than a fully developed written decision. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56 requires the court to state its reasons for granting or denying summary judgment, but it does not demand exhaustive analysis when the law is straightforward.1Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 56
The volume explains why the format exists. Unpublished dispositions account for well over 80 percent of federal appellate decisions. The courts of appeals could not function at their current caseload if every decision required a full opinion.
How It Differs From a Published Opinion
A full published opinion walks through the relevant statutes, analyzes how prior cases apply, and often addresses competing interpretations of the law. It is structured to guide future courts and litigants. It may include concurrences or dissents. It appears in official case reporters and is indexed in legal research databases.
A memorandum opinion does almost none of that. It may cite a controlling case or two without extended discussion. The opinion resolves the dispute but is not designed to serve as a roadmap for anyone else.
That changes how easy the opinion is to find. Published opinions appear readily in Westlaw, LexisNexis, and free legal databases. Memorandum opinions are increasingly available electronically through systems like PACER, but they are not indexed the same way and can be harder to locate. Older unpublished opinions, particularly those issued before federal courts adopted electronic filing, may require a direct request to the clerk’s office.
Can You Cite a Memorandum Opinion?
Yes, in federal court. This is where the rules trip people up. “Nonprecedential” is not the same as “secret” or “uncitable.”
Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 32.1, effective December 1, 2006, prohibits any federal court from banning or restricting citation to unpublished opinions issued on or after January 1, 2007.2Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure Rule 32.1 – Citing Judicial Dispositions Before that rule, circuits had a patchwork of restrictions. Some flatly banned citation of their own unpublished decisions; others allowed it only for narrow purposes like establishing double jeopardy or res judicata.
Rule 32.1 guarantees your right to cite. It says nothing about the weight a court must give the citation. A court can read the unpublished opinion, acknowledge it, and still decline to follow its reasoning. The rule also does not require any court to publish an opinion or stop designating opinions as nonprecedential in the first place.2Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure Rule 32.1 – Citing Judicial Dispositions
If you cite an unpublished opinion that is not available in a publicly accessible electronic database, you must file and serve a copy of it along with your brief. That requirement matters most for older decisions predating electronic filing.
Persuasive, Not Binding
Several circuits frame unpublished opinions as carrying “persuasive value” even though they lack precedential force. The Tenth Circuit’s local rule states that unpublished decisions “are not precedential, but may be cited for their persuasive value.” The Eighth Circuit allows citation when the unpublished opinion “has persuasive value on a material issue and no published opinion of this or another court would serve as well.”3Federal Judicial Center. Citing Unpublished Federal Appellate Opinions Issued Before 2007
So a memorandum opinion can help your argument, especially when no published opinion addresses your exact fact pattern. But courts treat these citations as suggestions, not authorities they must follow. If you are building a case strategy around an unpublished opinion, treat it as supplemental support rather than the foundation of your argument.
A Different Meaning in Tax Court
The U.S. Tax Court uses the term “memorandum opinion” as a formal designation with a specific meaning, and it is worth separating from the general concept. The Tax Court issues three types of written decisions: regular opinions, memorandum opinions, and summary opinions. Federal law requires the court to report all three in writing.4U.S. Tax Court. Opinion Citation and Style Manual
A regular Tax Court opinion (cited as “T.C.”) addresses cases involving important or novel legal questions and carries full precedential weight. A memorandum opinion (cited as “T.C. Memo”) typically applies well-settled principles to a particular taxpayer’s facts. The Tax Court’s own citation hierarchy places regular opinions above memorandum opinions.4U.S. Tax Court. Opinion Citation and Style Manual
Summary opinions are issued in small cases where the amount in dispute does not exceed $50,000. Taxpayers can elect this streamlined process with the court’s agreement, but summary opinions cannot be appealed and cannot be cited as precedent.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 7463 – Disputes Involving $50,000 or Less If someone references a “memo opinion” in a tax matter, they are talking about a T.C. Memo, not the general concept of a short-form court decision.
Appeal Deadlines Still Apply
A memorandum opinion is a final judgment like any other court order. The same appeal deadlines apply regardless of whether the opinion is published or unpublished. Missing these deadlines can permanently forfeit your right to appeal, so treat them as hard walls.
In federal civil cases, you have 30 days from the entry of judgment to file a notice of appeal. The window extends to 60 days if the United States government, a federal agency, or a federal officer sued in an official capacity is a party. In federal criminal cases, the deadline is 14 days from the entry of judgment.6Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure Rule 4 – Appeal as of Right When Taken State court deadlines vary but follow the same principle: the clock starts when judgment is entered on the docket, not when you receive a copy of the opinion.
The brevity of a memorandum opinion does not buy you extra time to decide whether to appeal. If anything, a short opinion can make it harder to identify specific errors, which is reason to consult an attorney promptly after an unfavorable ruling.
Asking the Court to Publish
If you win a case and the court issues a memorandum opinion that you believe establishes a useful legal principle, you can ask the court to redesignate it as a published opinion. This is not common, but the mechanism exists. The Eleventh Circuit allows any party to file a motion to publish before the court’s mandate has issued. If the three-judge panel unanimously agrees, the opinion gets published, and the deadlines for rehearing petitions start running fresh from the date of the publication order.7U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. FRAP 36 Entry of Judgment – 11th Circuit Rule 36-3 Other circuits have similar procedures with their own timing rules.
The practical challenge is convincing a panel that its unpublished opinion deserves wider application. Courts designate opinions as nonprecedential for a reason, and they do not often reverse that judgment. If the opinion fills a genuine gap in published case law, the request is still worth making.