The facts on the ground: That is where investigation starts, and that is what the court will have to deal with during the trial. And beyond: if the case goes up to an appellate court, those facts will be retold in an effort to judge whether the law has been correctly applied to them—whether the facts were appropriately formalized, one might say. So the statement of facts is a genre within a genre, one that doesn't much interest legal scholars since it is supposed to be neutral, factual indeed—it's there so the more interesting legal work can go forward. But surely this genre within a genre is interesting in itself.