Can You Recognize When A Court Opines, Asserts or Declares?

This article, Curb Your Editorial Urges When Describing a Court’s Actions, Kenneth Oettle (NJLJ) (10/5/050) finally clarified for me the subtle differences in verbs like recognized, observed, ruled, held and others that describe how a court acted. As a general rule of thumb, here’s how the author feels about some of these verbs:

Affirmed — double meaning

* Asserted — too forceful; Court has no need to assert

* Averred — word is rarely used

* Declared — grandiose

* Explained — didn’t, really

* Opined — true, but probably too formal

* Remarked — too casual

So, just another thing to obsess over in writing a brief.