For information about Appellate level caselaw, see the Pennsylvania Cases - Appellate Level guide.
Select county decisions are included in print reporters, including the District & County Reports series, the Fiduciary Reporter, and individual county reporters (frequently call Side Reports). More information about these resources is listed below.
Please note that not all opinions will be available in print reporters and the other resources in this guide should be consulted. In many cases, the opinion will have to be obtained from the court.
The Pennsylvania District & County Reports series (Pa. D.&C.) includes select opinions from all Pennsylvania judicial districts. The first series began in 1922 and the 5th series continues today. The complete D.&.C. series are available in print and on Lexis and Bloomberg Law. Select cases may also be available on Westlaw. Member databases HeinOnline and LLMC Digital include the older series only.
Pennsylvania District and County Reports: and the Philadelphia County Reporter, 5th (Pa. D.&C. 5th)
Library has vol. 1 (2008) - present.
Pennsylvania District and County Reports, 4th (Pa. D.& C. 4th)
Library has vol. 1 (1990) - vol. 83 (2008).
Pennsylvania District and County Reports, 3rd (Pa. D.&C. 3rd)
Library has vol. 1 (1977) - vol. 50 (1989).
District and County Reports, 2d (Pa. D.&C. 2d)
Library has vol. 1 (1955) - vol. 75 (1977).
District and County Reports (Pa. D.&C.)
Library has vol. 1 (1922) - vol. 89 (1954).
Pennsylvania District Reports (Pa. Dist. Rep.)
Library has vol. 1 (1892) - vol. 30 (1921).
Pennsylvania County Court Reports (Pa.C.C.)
Library has vol. 1 (1886) - vol. 50 (1921).
Pennsylvania Fiduciary Reporter (Pa. Fiduc.) Bisel
Library has vol. 1 (1951) - v. 30 (1980); 2nd series v. 1 (1981) - v. 30 (2010); 3rd series v. 1 (2011) - present.
Includes select decisions from the Orphans' Courts of Pennsylvania involving trusts and decedents' estates. Other materials, like Appellate decisions, may also be included. The Fiduciary Reporter is not available electronically.
Many counties in Pennsylvania publish their own reporters which contain select trial court opinions for that county. These are frequently called Side Reports. Use the Jenkins' catalog to search for a particular reporter. More recent volumes may be available in print and older years on microfiche in our collection.
The county reporters are not currently indexed in West's Pennsylvania Digest 2d. For many years the cases are not available on Lexis or Westlaw, unless they were selected to be published in the Pa. D.&C. series. Member databases HeinOnline and LLMC Digital include volumes of the county reporters. Coverage for each county varies.
In Philadelphia, the Philadelphia County Reporter (Phila. Reports) ceased publication in 1998. Published Philadelphia cases are now in the PA. D.&C. series.
Digests are a compilation of caselaw summaries organized by topic. Because digests are compiled by legal editors, researchers can sometimes find cases under a specific digest topic that a database search may have missed. For more information about digests, see Kent C. Olson, Principles of Legal Research § 12.2 West Key Number Digests (3rd ed., 2020).
The Pa. D.&C. series is indexed in the Pennsylvania Digests. County reporters are indexed through 1976.
West's Pennsylvania Digest 2d West/Thomson Reuters
Covers state and federal cases decided since 1938.
Vale Pennsylvania Digest West
Library has vol. 1 - vol. 46. Use to locate cases by topic from 1682-1937 (topics may include cases decided after 1937, but from 1938 forward West's Pennsylvania Digest 2d should be consulted). Vale Pennsylvania Digest indexed county reporters as well as the D.&C. series.