Disclaimer

1. Where the documents come from

Every judgment and order on Rhett Precedent comes from the official website of the court or tribunal that decided it. That is the only source. We add documents as the courts publish them, usually within a day, and we do not edit their text.

Courts publish on their own schedules, sometimes with delays, corrections or re-uploads. A judgment may appear on Rhett Precedent later than it was pronounced, and a corrected version may replace an earlier one. The court copy linked from each judgment page is the document as the court published it; the court’s own website and the certified copy from the court registry remain the authoritative record.

Rhett Precedent is operated by Foolscape Technologies Private Limited under the Rhett brand. This Disclaimer forms part of the Terms of Use.

2. Accuracy and completeness

We take care to keep the database reliable, but we do not warrant that it is complete, current or free of error. In particular:

• the index holds the documents the courts have published online; it does not hold every decision ever pronounced, and coverage varies by court and by period;
• text is extracted from the court’s document; where the source is a scanned image, extraction may introduce errors, and the court copy prevails;
• party names, dates, case numbers, judge names, neutral citations and document types shown in “Case details” are extracted or derived from the source and may be wrong or missing;
• some documents are interim orders, listing orders or adjournments rather than reasoned judgments, and are shown as the court published them;
• a document may have been reversed, modified, reviewed or recalled by a later order that is not yet in the index.

Before relying on any document, read it in full, check it against the court copy, and confirm its current status. We accept no liability for any inadvertent error in the database.

3. Citations and judicial treatment

“Cited by”, “Cites” and the treatment notes (such as followed, distinguished, overruled or referred) are generated by analysing the text of judgments in our index. They are an aid to research, not a statement of the law.

Citation links can be missed where a court cites a case in an unusual form, and can be mismatched where two cases share a name. Treatment labels are our reading of how a later court dealt with a judgment and may be incomplete or wrong. A judgment showing no citing decisions may still have been considered by courts whose decisions are not in the index. Always read the citing judgment yourself before describing a case as good or bad law.

4. Compass and artificial intelligence

Compass uses Datence, an artificial-intelligence model operated by Rhett, to find passages in judgments that support or go against a proposition you type. Its output is a selection of passages, not an answer, and not an opinion.

AI models can miss relevant authority, select passages that do not say what they appear to say out of context, surface judgments that have since been overruled or distinguished, and rank passages in an unhelpful order. Compass can be wrong in all of these ways without any indication that it is wrong.

Compass output is provided “as is” for research assistance only. It is not legal advice, it is not a substitute for reading the judgments, and it is not a substitute for the judgment of a qualified advocate. You are solely responsible for verifying every passage against the full judgment and the court copy, checking its current status, and deciding whether to rely on it. We accept no liability for any loss arising from reliance on Compass output.

5. No legal advice and no lawyer-client relationship

Rhett Precedent is a research tool and a publisher of public records. Nothing on it is legal advice, and nothing on it is a solicitation or advertisement for legal services.

Searching, reading, saving judgments, running Compass or writing to us does not create a lawyer-client, advocate-client or fiduciary relationship with Foolscape, with Rhett or with any advocate associated with Rhett. No information you enter into the service is privileged. Rhett’s legal services are offered only under a separate engagement through Rhett Workspace, and nothing on Rhett Precedent is part of such an engagement.

The law changes, and the application of a judgment depends on facts. If you need advice on your situation, consult a qualified advocate.

6. Copyright in judgments

Judgments and orders of courts and tribunals are public records. Section 52(1)(q)(iv) of the Copyright Act, 1957 provides that reproducing or publishing any judgment or order of a court, tribunal or other judicial authority does not infringe copyright, unless the court has prohibited its reproduction or publication. We publish judgments on that basis and we claim no copyright in their text. You are free to copy, quote and republish any judgment you obtain from Rhett Precedent, subject to any prohibition the court itself has imposed.

The search index, citation and judicial-treatment data, metadata, Compass, Datence and the design of Rhett Precedent are ours, as the Terms of Use explain. Links to court websites and other third-party sites are provided for convenience; we do not control them and are not responsible for their content.

7. Reporting errors and asking for removal

If a judgment page shows wrong metadata, a broken court copy, a mismatched citation or an extraction error, write to ask@rhett.legal with the page link and what is wrong. We correct metadata, citation and treatment errors as soon as we can; we do not alter the text of a judgment, which stays as the court published it.

If you want a judgment removed or a name redacted, read the Case Removal and Redaction Policy first. It explains the narrow circumstances in which we remove or redact (an order of a competent court, and the redaction of victims and children where the law requires it), the de-indexing we offer for family matters, and how to make a request. Requests that do not fall within that policy will be declined.