Are you or were you thinking about citing Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, in your memo, essay, report, or not to mention in your legal document, such as a brief? Hm, take a moment and think twice.
A New Jersey judge who allowed a lawyer to plug an evidentiary gap with a Wikipedia page has been reversed on the ground that the online encyclopedia that “anyone can edit” is not a reliable source of information.
As stated in the ruling of Palisades Collection, L.L.C. v. Graubard, No. L-3394-06, 2009 WL 1025176 (N.J. Super. A.D. April 17, 2009),
[I]t is entirely possible for a party in litigation to alter a Wikipedia article, print the “article and thereafter offer it in support of any given position,” an appeals court held. “Such a malleable source of information is inherently unreliable and clearly not one ‘whose accuracy cannot reasonably be questioned,” such as would support judicial notice under New Jersey Evidence Rule 201(b)(3).
Read more about this at:
Wikipedia Too Malleable to Be Reliable Evidence
Jersey Court Rejects Wikipedia Evidence
Wikipedia is not reliable?
The Whacking of Wikipedia, 123
Wikipedia Too Malleable…