Zip Files Help

This website offers zip files as a way to group and distribute COA opinions and Supreme Court opinions and orders for a given release date. These zip files may contain one or more files and are compressed to save space and enable an efficient file transfer operation, or "download."  NOTE: You must have an unzip utility on your PC in order to use this service. Otherwise, you may go to the Search Options page and get all opinions and orders, one at a time, for a given release date.

Keep in mind that this page is intended to facilitate the process of downloading recent opinions and orders. For Court of Appeals opinion releases, the page has a 28-day history; after 28 days, the links for the zip file are no longer available. For Supreme Court opinion releases, the page has a 90-day history. For Supreme Court orders, the page has a 28-day history.

Release Date

The Michigan Court of Appeals typically releases opinions on Tuesdays and Thursdays, except on Court Holidays. The zip files are generated and made available on-line on the next business day by approximately 9:00 a.m.

The Michigan Supreme Court releases opinions and orders on a random schedule. Decisions are released throughout the term, following oral arguments. Again, the zip file would be generated and made available on-line on the next business day by approximately 9:00 a.m.

Type

For any specific release date in the Court of Appeals section, several download options are available, which may include All, Published, and Unpublished. These options determine which related files are included in the zip file. You can select which option you would like to use for the download.

• All - downloads the full set of opinions for a release date.
• Published - downloads only published opinions for a release date.
• Unpublished - downloads only unpublished opinions for a release date.

It is possible to have only Unpublished opinions for a release date. In that case, the Unpublished and All zip files are identical and a zip file is not available for Published opinions.

Size

This field indicates the size of the zipped file. The size varies with the number of opinions that are grouped together and compressed to create the zip file. In general, the zip files are fairly small and will not take long to download.

File Created

This column lists the date the zip file was created. This is typically the day after the release date.

Working on the Zip Files Page

Sort the list of Zip Files

The list of zip files can be sorted according to the Release Date or Type columns. The column heading for these columns includes the Sort buttons. This might be a helpful way to locate files you want to download. Click the up arrow to sort in ascending order. Click the down arrow to sort in descending order.

Download the Zip File

If you have identified a release date, and determined the type of zip file you would like, then you are ready to download the zip file. You can either click on the Release Date link or the Type link; either link goes to the same file.

Procedure

1. To download the zip file, click on the desired hyperlink.
2. The File Download dialog box displays. If necessary, select the Save This File To Disk option. Click OK.
3. The Save As dialog box displays. Specify a location for the zipped file and click OK.
4. If necessary, close the Download Complete dialog box.
5. Unzip the file using an unzip utility. Once unzipped, the individual opinions are available in Adobe Acrobat PDF File format. The filename includes the 6-digit docket number.