A Minnesota Court of Appeals has cited a youtube video in an unpublished opinion.

The case is about a 14-year-old gymnast who tried this:

The girl (of course) landed on her head, was injured, and sued.

Now, it’s hard to explain the complicated vault, so this is what the court did:

Goetz began participating in gymnastics programs when she was five or six years old, and it appears from the record that she is a fairly skilled gymnast. She attempted the difficult Tsukahara vault for the first time in the autumn of 2001. When performing a Tsukahara vault, a gymnast runs along a long mat, jumps off a springboard, does a half twist, pushes off a pommel horse with her hands while upside down, does one and a half flips, and lands on her feet facing the horse.¹

[....]

¹ The school district cited a video of Mitsuo Tsukahara performing his namesake vault at the 1976 Olympics. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TmYqSOYZr0 (last visited Dec. 16, 2008). Goetz did not object to the citation. We found the video to be helpful.

I think this is brilliant. It would be terribly convenient for courts to create a youtube channel that contains videos of pertinent material, including depositions (instead of transcribing them in opinions)…

…heck, or even Westlaw – “Defendant robbed a bank…see the video here.”

… “Defendant cussed out judge and was thrown in jail for contempt of court…see video here.”

Sure, it might put TruTV out of business, but I still think it’s the business.