Also known as: verbatim
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A maxim requiring that language be reproduced or quoted in identical words.
Federal agents arrested Ivan Ivanov in a hotel lobby and advised him he could remain silent and that if charges reached court and he could not afford counsel one would be appointed. Ivan later moved to suppress his statements claiming the warning omitted required language. The court denied the motion because the agents conveyed the substance of the rights without reproducing any fixed script in haec verba.
Ivy Ibarra sued Inertia Dynamics under the ADEA alleging a hiring test had a disparate impact on older workers. The company argued the claim failed because the statutory text was not identical to Title VII. The court rejected the argument because Congress had derived the ADEA prohibition in haec verba from Title VII and therefore the same interpretive rule applied.
Petitioners are a group of police and public safety officers employed by the city of Jackson, Mississippi. On October 1, 1998, the City adopted a pay plan granting raises to all City employees. The stated purpose of the plan was to attract and retain qualified people, provide incentive for performance, maintain competitiveness with other public sector agencies and ensure equitable compensation to all employees regardless of age, sex, race and/or disability. On May 1, 1999, a revision of the plan, motivated at least in part by the City's desire to bring the starting salaries of police officers up to the regional average, granted raises to all police officers and police dispatchers. Those who had less than five years of tenure received proportionately greater raises when compared to their former pay than those with more seniority. Although some officers over the age of 40 had less than five years of service, most of the older officers had more. Petitioners filed suit under the ADEA claiming both that the City deliberately discriminated against them because of their age and that they were adversely affected by the plan because of their age. The District Court granted summary judgment to the City on both claims. The Court of Appeals held that the ruling on the former claim was premature because petitioners were entitled to further discovery on the issue of intent, but it affirmed the dismissal of the disparate-impact claim. The Supreme Court granted the officers' petition for certiorari.
View caseIsrael Irving petitioned for federal habeas relief after his state conviction was affirmed. The state argued he had not pursued every available state procedure listed in the statute. The court examined the legislative history showing that the exhaustion language had been presented to Congress in haec verba and therefore carried the meaning intended by the Judicial Conference draft.
In 1950 petitioner Brown, a Negro, was convicted of rape in Forsyth County, North Carolina, and sentenced to death. Petitioner Speller, also a Negro, was convicted of rape in Bertie County after two prior convictions were set aside, and sentenced to death. Petitioners Daniels, two Negroes aged seventeen at the time of arrest, were convicted of murder in Pitt County and sentenced to death. In each case the defendants raised claims of racial discrimination in the selection of grand and petit juries and, in some instances, the use of coerced confessions. The defendants appealed their convictions through the North Carolina courts, presenting their federal constitutional claims to the state trial and supreme courts. The Supreme Court of North Carolina affirmed the convictions. Petitions for certiorari to the United States Supreme Court raising the same federal issues were denied. The defendants then filed petitions for writs of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, again raising the claims of jury discrimination and coerced confessions. The district court in each case examined the records from the state proceedings. The district court adopted findings from the state trial courts regarding jury composition and voluntariness of confessions, and in two cases heard additional evidence. The district court denied the writs of habeas corpus. The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed the denials. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the judgments. The records before the district courts included transcripts of the state trials showing the methods of jury selection from tax lists in the respective counties, with evidence of the percentages of Negroes on jury panels and in the population. In the Daniels case, the state supreme court had refused to consider the appeal on the merits because the statement of the case on appeal was served one day late.
View caseImperial Motors sued Ironwood Capital in federal court and lost on the merits. When Imperial filed a second action in state court raising the same theory, Ironwood moved to dismiss. The court held the second suit barred because the prior judgment had been entered in haec verba on the identical claim.
In 1976 the United States brought an antitrust action against petitioners, owners of various department stores, alleging that they had violated § 1 of the Sherman Act by agreeing to fix the retail price of women's clothing sold in northern California. Seven parallel civil actions were subsequently filed by private plaintiffs seeking treble damages on behalf of proposed classes of retail purchasers. These included the action of respondent Moitie in state court (Moitie I) and respondent Brown (Brown I) in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Each of these complaints tracked almost verbatim the allegations of the Government's complaint, though the Moitie I complaint referred solely to state law. The District Court dismissed all of the actions in their entirety on the ground that plaintiffs had not alleged an injury to their business or property within the meaning of § 4 of the Clayton Act. Plaintiffs in five of the suits appealed that judgment to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The single counsel representing Moitie and Brown chose not to appeal and instead refiled the two actions in state court. Although the complaints purported to raise only state-law claims, they made allegations similar to those made in the prior complaints, including that of the Government. Petitioners removed these new actions to the District Court for the Northern District of California and moved to have them dismissed on the ground of res judicata. The District Court denied respondents' motion to remand, holding that the complaints were properly removed because they raised essentially federal law claims. The court then concluded that because Moitie II and Brown II involved the same parties, the same alleged offenses, and the same time periods as Moitie I and Brown I, the doctrine of res judicata required that they be dismissed. Pending the appeal of the dismissals of the refiled actions, the Supreme Court decided Reiter v. Sonotone Corp., holding that retail purchasers can suffer an injury to their business or property as those terms are used in § 4 of the Clayton Act. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded the five cases which had been appealed for further proceedings in light of Reiter. When the refiled actions came before the Court of Appeals, the court reversed the District Court's dismissals on res judicata grounds. It asserted that non-appealing parties may benefit from a reversal when their position is closely interwoven with that of appealing parties. The court concluded that the doctrine must give way to public policy and simple justice. Moitie II was voluntarily dismissed, leaving Brown II as the subject of the petition. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider the validity of the Court of Appeals' novel exception to the doctrine of res judicata.
View caseIdris Ives sued Innovate Pharmaceuticals under a federal statute that did not expressly create a private remedy. The company moved to dismiss arguing Congress had not used the same wording found in other statutes that do create such rights. The court examined whether the statutory language had been copied in haec verba from provisions known to authorize private suits.
In August and September 1972, an advertisement captioned “I say let's keep the campaign honest. Mobilize ‘truth squads' ” appeared in national publications including Time, Newsweek, and U. S. News and World Report, as well as nineteen local newspapers in communities where Bethlehem Steel Corp. maintained plants. Reprints of the advertisement, which featured quotations from a speech by petitioner Stewart S. Cort, chairman of the board of directors of Bethlehem, accompanied the September 11, 1972, quarterly dividend checks mailed to the corporation's stockholders. The costs of the advertisements and mailings were paid entirely from Bethlehem’s general corporate funds. Respondent, who owned fifty shares of Bethlehem stock and was qualified to vote in the 1972 Presidential election, filed suit on September 28, 1972, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on behalf of himself and derivatively on behalf of Bethlehem. Count I of the complaint invoked jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 1331 and sought relief under 18 U. S. C. § 610. Count II asserted a pendent claim under Delaware law alleging that the expenditures constituted an ultra vires act and a breach of duty by the defendants. The District Court denied respondent’s request for a preliminary injunction on October 25, 1972. On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed the denial solely on the ground that irreparable harm had not been shown. After the affirmance, petitioners moved for an order requiring respondent to post security for expenses under Pennsylvania law. The District Court declined to require security for the federal claim but ordered $35,000 security for the pendent state claim. Respondent then filed an amended complaint that eliminated Count II. The District Court granted petitioners’ motion for summary judgment. The Court of Appeals reversed that judgment, holding that a private cause of action existed under § 610 for both injunctive relief and derivative damage relief. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the decision.
View caseIsabella Ingram refused a substitute acting role offered by Parker Productions after her original contract was canceled. She sued for breach and the studio defended on failure to mitigate. The court compared the offered role to the original contract language reproduced in haec verba and concluded the substitute was not substantially similar.
Plaintiff Shirley MacLaine Parker, a well-known actress, entered into a written contract with defendant Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation dated August 6, 1965, under which she was to play the female lead in the contemplated motion picture production of 'Bloomer Girl'. The contract specified that defendant would pay plaintiff a minimum guaranteed compensation of $53,571.42 per week for fourteen weeks commencing May 23, 1966, for a total of $750,000. The production was to be a musical filmed in California. On April 4, 1966, defendant notified plaintiff by letter that it had decided not to produce 'Bloomer Girl' and would not comply with its obligations under the contract. In the same letter, defendant offered plaintiff the leading role in a different film tentatively entitled 'Big Country, Big Man,' which was to be a dramatic western-type motion picture produced in Australia with identical compensation. The substitute offer eliminated or impaired plaintiff's rights to approve the director and screenplay that had been included in the original contract, and it did not require a dance director. Plaintiff was given one week to accept the substitute offer, but she did not do so and the offer lapsed. Plaintiff commenced this action seeking recovery of the agreed guaranteed compensation, setting forth causes of action for money due under the contract and for damages resulting from defendant's breach. In its answer, defendant admitted the existence and validity of the contract, that plaintiff had complied with all conditions and stood ready to perform, and that it had breached and anticipatorily repudiated the contract, but denied that any money was due and asserted as an affirmative defense that plaintiff had deliberately failed to mitigate damages by unreasonably refusing the substitute employment offer. Plaintiff moved for summary judgment under Code of Civil Procedure section 437c, which the trial court granted, entering judgment in plaintiff's favor for $750,000 plus interest. Defendant appealed from the summary judgment to the Supreme Court of California.
View caseNo. The Supreme Court has held that warnings need not be given in a rigid verbatim form so long as they reasonably convey the substance of the required rights.
Courts presume Congress intended the copied language to carry the same meaning it had in the source statute especially when the statutes share similar purposes and were enacted close in time.
The court compares the text of the two provisions directly and considers legislative history showing that the later provision was presented to Congress using the identical wording of the earlier statute.
…not be a “ ‘sustainable economic model.’ ” Never mind that — as anyone ever interviewed knows — a newspaper article is hardly a verbatim transcript; the writer selects quotes to package his story, not to record a subject’s views for posterity. But more importantly the District Court was required at this stage of the…