Not that this is a particularly surprising result, but the Eight Circuit Court of Appeals isn’t too fond of using Wikipedia as proof. Essentially, the panel quoted large chunks of Wikipedia’s own disclaimers, and cited the following for support: “See also Campbell v. Sec’y of Health and Human Servs., 69 Fed. Cl. 775, 781 (Fed. Cl. 2006) (observing that a
review of the Wikipedia website ‘reveals a pervasive and, for our purposes, disturbing
set of disclaimers’); R. Jason Richards, Courting Wikipedia, 44 Trial 62 (Apr. 2008)
(‘Since when did a Web site that any Internet surfer can edit become an authoritative
source by which law students could write passing papers, experts could provide
credible testimony, lawyers could craft legal arguments, and judges could issue
precedents?’).” Badasa v. Mukasey, No. 07-2276 (8th Cir. 2008).
Now, I tend to think that it’s rather silly for the Department of Homeland Security to have offered up only a Wikipedia article in support of its claim. Honestly, reliance solely on Wikipedia is just not a smart idea.
But the Court’s sniffy disdain for Wikipedia’s type of information rings a little hollow when courts routinely make lawyers and their clients accept things like: “what we state as “facts’ in this opinion for purposes of reviewing the rulings on the summary judgment motion[] may not be the actual facts. They are, however, the facts for present purposes, and we set them out below.” Cox v. Administrator U.S. Steel & Carnegie, 17 F.3d 1386, 1400 (11th Cir. 1994) quoting Swint v. City of Wadley, 5 F.3d 1435, 1439 (11th Cir. 1993).
