The Effect of Opinion Readability on the Impact of US Supreme Court Precedents in State High Courts

Objective This article examines whether more readable U.S. Supreme Court opinions are cited with greater frequency in state courts of last resort. Methods We use random slope, random intercept multilevel models to analyze 30 years of state high court citations to U.S. Supreme Court majority opinions issued during the 1987-2006 terms. Results Our analysis reveals that opinion readability exerts a strong substantive impact on citation rates. This effect holds while accounting for a variety of factors previously shown to influence citation rates. Conclusion Institutional constraints, workload considerations, and audience costs should lead state high courts to find clearly written opinions more attractive than jargon-laden ones. This makes the readability of a U.S. Supreme Court precedent a useful heuristic for state courts when selecting among potential relevant precedents. As these courts play a major role in implementing U.S Supreme Court decisions, our findings indicate that the readability of U.S. Supreme Court opinions has a strong effect on their long-term impact.