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Various case citations redirect here. If you are looking for the actual text of an opinion, it is usually linked in the external links at the bottom of the article on that case.

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The United States Reports, the official reporter of the Supreme Court of the United States
The United States Reports, the official reporter of the Supreme Court of the United States

Case citation is the system used in many countries to identify the decisions in past court cases, either in special series of books called reporters or law reports, or in a 'neutral' form which will identify a decision wherever it was reported. The United States Reports are the official record of the rulings orders case tables and other proceeding of the Supreme Court of the United States. The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest judicial body in the United States and leads the federal judiciary. Law reports or reporters are series of books which contain judicial opinions from a selection of cases that have been decided by the courts. Law reports or reporters are series of books which contain judicial opinions from a selection of cases that have been decided by the courts. Although case citations are formatted differently in different jurisdictions, they generally contain the same key information.

Where cases are published in paper form the citation will usually contain:

In some report series, for example in England and Australia, the volumes are not numbered independently of the year: thus the year and volume number (usually no greater than 4) are required to identify which book of the series has the case reported within its covers. In citations of this type it is usual in these jurisdictions for square brackets "[year]" to be applied to the year (which may not be the year that the case was decided: for example, a case decided in December 2001 may have been reported in 2002). Brackets are Punctuation marks used in pairs to set apart or interject text within other text

The Internet brought with it the opportunity for courts to publish their decisions on web sites. Decisions of many courts from all over the world can now be found through the website WorldLII and its member institutes. The Free Access to Law Movement is the umbrella name for the collective of legal projects across several Common law countries to provide free online access to legal information [1]

Most decisions of courts are not published in printed law reports. The expense of typesetting and publishing them has limited the printed law reports to the significant cases. Internet publishing of court decisions resulted in a flood of information. The result was that a medium-neutral citation system had to be adopted. This usually contains the following information:

Rather than utilizing page numbers for pin-point references, which would depend upon particular printers and browsers, pin-point quotes refer to paragraph numbers.

Australia

Main article: Australian legal citation

The standard case citation format in Australia is:

Style of cause (year of decision) [year of report] volume report (series) page
Mabo v Queensland (No 2) (1992) 175 CLR 1. The definitive guide to Australian Legal citation is the Australian Guide to Legal Citation (commonly known as AGLC as published by Melbourne University Law Review Mabo v Queensland (No 2 (commonly known as Mabo) was a landmark Australian court case which was decided by the High Court

Like in Canada, there has been divergence between citation styles. There exists commercial citation guides published by Butterworths and other legal publishing companies, academic citation styles and court citation styles. Each court in Australia may cite the same cases slightly differently. There is presently a movement in convergence to the comprehensive academic citation style of the Australian Guide to Legal Citation published by the Melbourne University Law Review.

Reports

Abbreviation Report Years
AAR Administrative Appeals Reports -
ALJR Australian Law Journal Reports -
ALR Australian Law Reports 1983 -
CLR Commonwealth Law Reports 1903 -
FLC Family Law Cases
FLR Federal Law Reports -
NSWLR New South Wales Law Reports -
Qld R Queensland Reports -
VR Victorian Reports -

Neutral citation

Australian courts and tribunals have now adopted a neutral citation standard for case law. The format provides a naming system that does not depend on the publication of the case in a law report. Most cases are now published on AustLII using neutral citations. [2]

The standard format looks like this:

Year of decision Court identifier Ordinal number
[2005] HCA 1

So the above mentioned Mabo case would then be cited like this: [1992] HCA 23.

There is a unique court identifier code for most courts. The court and tribunal identifiers include:

Court Identifier Court
HCA High Court of Australia
FCA Federal Court of Australia
FCAFC Federal Court of Australia - Full Court (Appeals bench)
FamCA Family Court of Australia
FMCA Federal Magistrates' Court of Australia
FMCAfam Federal Magistrates' Court of Australia, family law decisions
AAT Administrative Appeals Tribunal of Australia

References

Canada

There are a number of citation standards in Canada. The High Court of Australia is the final court of appeal in Australia the highest court in the Australian court hierarchy. The Federal Court of Australia is the Australian court in which most civil disputes and some summary criminal matters governed by federal law are decided The Family Court of Australia is a federal Australian court created by the Family Law Act 1975 as a specialist court dealing with family law The Federal Magistrates Court (also known as the Federal Magistrates Service or the Federal Magistrates Court of Australia) is an Australian court established The Federal Magistrates Court (also known as the Federal Magistrates Service or the Federal Magistrates Court of Australia) is an Australian court established Many legal publishing companies and schools have their own practice for citation. Since the late 1990s, however, there has been a convergence among much of legal community to a single standard which has been formulated in the "The Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation", known as the "McGill Guide" after the McGill Law Journal that first published it. The following format reflects this standard.

The standard case citation in Canada looks like this:

Hunter v. Southam, [1984] 2 S. Hunter v Southam Inc 2 SCR 145 is a landmark Supreme Court of Canada privacy rights case and as well is the first Supreme Court decision to consider section C. R. 145.

The format can be broken into its component parts:

Style of cause (year of decision), [year of report] volume report (series) page jurisdiction/court
R. v. Big M Drug Mart Ltd., [1985] 1 S. R v Big M Drug Mart Ltd, 1 SCR 295 is a landmark decision by Supreme Court of Canada where the Court struck down the Lord's Day Act C. R. 295.
R. v. Oakes, [1986] 1 S. R v Oakes 1 SCR 103 is a case decided by the Supreme Court of Canada which established the famous Oakes test, an analysis of the limitations C. R. 103.
Re Canada Trust Co. and O. H. R. C. (1990), 69 D. L. R. (4th) 321 (Ont. C. A. ).

The Style of Cause is italicized as in all other countries and the party names are separated by "v. " (English) or "c. " (French). Prior to 1984 the appellant party would always be named first. However, since then case names do not switch order when the case is appealed.

Undisclosed parties to a case are represented by initials (eg. R. v. R.D.S.). R v RDS 3 SCR 484 is a leading Supreme Court of Canada decision on establishing the rules for determining Reasonable apprehension of bias in the court system Criminal cases are prosecuted by the Crown which is always represented by "R. " for Regina (queen) or Rex (king). Constitutional references are always entitled "Reference re" followed by the subject title. In Canadian law, a Reference Question is a submission by the federal or a provincial government to the courts asking for an opinion on a major

Usually either the year of the decision or the year of the report is cited, but not usually both. Only if they are different years can they both be cited at the same time. If they are the same, one should always use the report year.

Where available cases should be cited with their neutral citation immediately after the style of cause and preceding the print citation. For example,

Chaoulli v. Quebec (Attorney General), 2005 SCC 35, [2005] 1 S. Chaoulli v Quebec (Attorney General 1 SCR 791 was a decision by the Supreme Court of Canada where the Court ruled that the Quebec Health Insurance Act C. R. 791.

This format was introduced in 2006. Prior to this format, the opposite order of parallel citation was used.

Reports

Abbreviation Report years
Admin. L. R. Administrative Law Reports 1983 - 1991
Admin. L. R. (2d) Administrative Law Reports (second series) 1992 - 1998
Admin. L. R. (3d) Administrative Law Reports (third series) 1999 -
A. N. W. T. Y. T. R. Alberta, Northwest Territories & Yukon Tax Reporter 1973 -
A. C. W. S. All Canada Weekly Summaries 1970-1979
A. C. W. S. (2d) All Canada Weekly Summaries (second series) 1980-1986
A. R. Alberta Reports 1976 -
C. C. L. T. (2d) Canadian Cases on the Law of Torts
D. L. R. Dominion Law Reports
D. L. R. (2d) Dominion Law Reports (second series)
D. L. R. (3d) Dominion Law Reports (third series) - 1984
D. L. R. (4th) Dominion Law Reports (fourth series) 1984 -
F. C. R. Federal Court Reports 1971 -
N. B. R. (2d) New Brunswick Reports 1969 -
N. R. National Reporter
N. S. R. (2d) Nova Scotia Reports 1969 -
O. R. (3d) Ontario Reports 1986 -
S. C. R. Supreme Court Reports 1970 -
W. W. R. Western Weekly Reports 1911 - 1950, 1971 -
W. W. R. (N. S. ) Western Weekly Reports (New Series) 1950 - 1971

Neutral citation

In 1999 the Canadian Judicial Council adopted a neutral citation standard for case law. The Canadian Judicial Council is the regulating body for Canadian Judges composed mostly of chief justices and associate chief justices of Canada's superior courts The format provides a naming system that does not depend on the publication of the case a law report.

The standard format look like this:

Year of decision Court identifier Ordinal number
2000 SCC 1

There is a unique court identifier code for most courts. There are a few courts in Quebec and Ontario that have yet to adopt the system. A list of the court identifiers include:

Court Identifier Court from year
SCC Supreme Court of Canada 2000
FCT Federal Court of Canada - Trial Division 2001
FCA Federal Court of Canada - Appeal Division 2001
TCC Tax Court of Canada 2003
CMAC Court Martial Appeal Court
Comp. The Supreme Court of Canada ( French: Cour suprême du Canada) is the highest court of Canada and is the final court of appeal in the Canadian The Federal Court of Canada is a defunct national court of Canada set up to resolve some types of disputes arising under the central government's legislative jurisdiction The Tax Court of Canada (TCC established in 1983 by the Tax Court of Canada Act, is a Federal court which deals with matters involving Companies The Court Martial Appeal Court of Canada hears appeals from military courts which are known as " courts martial. Trib. Competition Tribunal of Canada
BCCA British Columbia Court of Appeal
BCSC Supreme Court of British Columbia
BCPC Provincial Court of British Columbia
BCHRT British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal
BCSECCOM British Columbia Securities Commission
ONCA Ontario Court of Appeal
QCCA Quebec Court of Appeal

References

England and Wales

The standard case citation format in England and Wales is:

Style of cause (year of decision), [year of report] volume report (series) page jurisdiction/court
Donoghue v Stevenson, [1932] A. History The Roman occupation of Britain was the first period in which the area of present-day England and Wales was administered as a single unit (with the exception Donoghue (or M’Alister v Stevenson ( [1932] AC 562 1932 SC (H C. 562 (H. L. ).
R v Dudley and Stephens, (1884) 14 Q. R v Dudley and Stephens ( 14 QBD 273 DC is a leading English criminal case that established a Precedent, throughout the Common law B. D. 273.

In England and Wales as with certain Commonwealth countries, the abbreviation "R" for rex (king) or regina (queen), is used for cases in which the state is a party (typically criminal cases or judicial review cases). History The Roman occupation of Britain was the first period in which the area of present-day England and Wales was administered as a single unit (with the exception Judicial review is the power of the courts to annul the acts of the executive and/or the legislative power where it finds them incompatible with a higher norm

Square brackets "[ ]" are used when the year is essential to locating the report (e. g. the official law reports either - as with Donoghue v Stevenson, above - do not have volume numbers or, if there are multiple volumes in a single year, they are numbered 1, 2, etc. ). Round brackets "( )" are used when the year is not essential but is useful for information purposes, e. g. in reports which have a cumulative volume number such as R v Dudley and Stevens, above.

Law Reports

The term "reporter", meaning a law report or a series of them, is not widely used in England and Wales.

Before 1865, English courts used a large number of privately-printed reports, and cases were cited based on which report they appeared in. (This system was also used in the United States and other common law jurisdictions during that period).

In 1865, many English cases were reprinted in a set of volumes called English Reports, abbreviated E. R. Between 1865 and 1875, decisions were published in a single series of law reports simply known as the "Law Reports" (L. R).

Since 1875 the official law reports have been split into a number of different series, the current series being the Appeal Cases (A. C. ), Chancery (Ch. ), Family (Fam. ) and Queen's Bench (Q. B. ) (or King's Bench—K. B. —depending on the monarch of the time). These 4 series are cited in preference to all others in court. There are two main unofficial law reports which report all areas of law, the Weekly Law Reports (W. L. R. ) and the All England Reports (All E. R. ). In addition there are a number of unofficial specialist law reports which focus on a particular area, e. g. the Entertainment and Media Law Reports (E. M. L. R. ) or the Criminal Appeal Reports (Cr. App. R. ). See the table below for a list of the most common current and past law reports.

Abbreviation Law Report years
A. & E. Admiralty and Ecclesiastical (L. R. ) 1865 -
A. C. Appeal Cases (L. R. ) 1890 -
All E. R. All England Law Reports 1936 -
B. C. L. C. Butterworths Company Law Cases 1983 -
B. H. R. C. Butterworths Human Rights Cases 1996 -
B. M. L. R. Butterworths Medico-Legal Reports ???? -
C. C. R. Criminal Cases Reserved (L. R. ) 1865 - 1875
Ch. Chancery (L. R. ) 1891 -
Ch. App. Chancery Appeal (L. R. ) 1865 - 1874
Ch. D. Chancery Division (L. R. ) 1875 - 1890
Con. L. R. Construction Law Reports 1985 -
C. P. Common Pleas (L. R. ) 1865 - 1876
Cr. App. Rep. Criminal Appeal Reports 1987 -
E. C. H. R. European Court of Human Rights Cases 1960 -
E. G. L. R. Estates Gazette Law Reports 1975 -
Eq. Equity Cases (L. R. ) 1865 - 1875
Ex. D. Exchequer Division (L. R. ) 1875 - 1890
F. C. R. Family Court Reports 1987 -
G. C. C. R. Goode Consumer Credit Reports 1882 -
H. L. House of Lords (L. R. ) 1866 - 1875
I. R. L. R. Industrial Relations Law Reports 1972 -
I. P. & T. Butterworths Intellectual Property and Technology Cases 1999 -
J. P. Justice of the Peace Law Reports 2003 -
I. T. L. R. International Tax Law Reports 1998 -
K. B. King's Bench 1901 - 1951
L. G. R. Butterworths Local Government Reports 1997 -
L. R. C. Law Reports of the Commonwealth 1995 -
O. P. L. R. Occupational Pensions Law Reports 1992 -
P. & D. Probate and Family 1850 -
P. C. Prive Council (L. R. ) 1865 - 1874
P. L. R. Estates Gazette Planning Law Reports 1988 -
Q. B. Queen's Bench (L. R. ) 1952 -
Q. B. D. Queen's Bench Division (L. R. ) 1875 - 1890
R. P. C. Reports of Patent Cases 1939 -
S. T. C. Simon's Tax Cases 1973 -
T. C. Official Tax Case Reports 1883 -
W. L. R. Weekly Law Reports 1953 -

Neutral citation

Since 2001, judgments in the House of Lords, Privy Council, Court of Appeal and Administrative Court have been issued with neutral citations. This system was extended to other parts of the High Court in 2002. Judgments with neutral citations are freely available on the British and Irish Legal Information Institute website (www. bailii. org). Neutral citations identify judgments independently of any series of reports, and cite only parties, year of judgment, court and case number. For example,
Rottman v MPC [2002] UKHL 20
identifies the 20th judgment in 2002 in the UK House of Lords. UKHL stands for UK House of Lords. EWHC and EWCA identify the England and Wales High Court and Court of Appeal respectively. These abbreviations are generally followed by an abbreviation indicating the court or division (eg Admin, Ch, Crim, Pat).

How to cite a case

If a neutral citation is available for a judgment, it should immediately follow the party names. If the judgment has also been reported in a law reports series, follow the neutral citation with the 'best report', which is usually from the official Law Reports series (Appeals Cases - AC, Chancery - Ch, Family - Fam, Queen’s Bench - QB etc).

The case of Rottman v MPC was reported in the Appeals Cases, so the citation should be:
Rottman v MPC [2002] UKHL 20, [2002] 2 AC 692.

This means that a report of the case and the judgment can be found in the 2002 volumes, vol 2, of the Law Reports series called Appeals Cases, beginning at page 692.

To cite a particular paragraph from the judgment, add the paragraph number in square brackets at the end of the citation: Rottman v MPC [2002] UKHL 20, [2002] 2 AC 692 [58].

If a case is not reported in the Law Reports, the next best report is the Weekly Law Reports (eg [2002] 2 WLR 1315), and then the All England Reports (eg [2002] 2 All ER 865). In some situations, it might be preferable to cite a specialist series, eg Rottman v MPC was also cited in the Human Rights Law Reports, at [2002] HRLR 32.

For cases before 2001, cite the best report. If referring to a particular page of the judgment, give that page number after the page number on which the report begins. The following citation refers to page 573 of the Donoghue v Stevenson judgment:

Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562, 573.

[edit] References

Germany

Main article: German legal citation

In Germany there are two types of citation, the full citation of a case and its shortened form. As in most countries Germany has a standard way of citing its Legal codes and Case law; an essentially identical system of citation is also used in Austria In e. g. scientific articles the full citation of a particular case is only used at its first occurrence, after that its shortened form is used. In most law journals the articles themselves only use the shortened form, the full citations for all articles sometimes are summarized at the beginning of that journals edition.

Federal Constitutional Court of Germany

The most important cases of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany are published by the court in its official collection. The Federal Constitutional Court (in German: Bundesverfassungsgericht BVerfG) is a special Court established by the Basic Law for the Federal Republic This collection is abbreviated "BVerfGE", whereas BVerfG is short for Bundesverfassungsgericht, the German court name, and E stands for Entscheidung (decision).

Starting in 2004, the court also publishes the "BVerfGK" collection, containing decisions made only by a Kammer, a specific part of the court.

The so-called Volkszählungsurteil for example could be cited

BVerfGE 65, 1 (43), Urteil des Ersten Senats vom 15. Dezember 1983 auf die mündliche Verhandlung vom 18. und 19. Oktober 1983, Az. 1 BvR 209, 269, 362, 420, 440, 484/83.

in full and

BVerfGE 65, 1 (43).

in short.

official collection volume page of beginning page cited more detailed information and date case number
BVerfGE 65, 1 (43), Urteil des Ersten Senats
vom 15. Dezember 1983
[in case of a hearing:] auf die mündliche Verhandlung vom 18. und 19. Oktober 1983,		 Az. 1 BvR 209, 269, 362, 420, 440, 484/83

For the meaning of the different case numbers of the BVerfG see the German article.

If decisions are not published by the court yet or will not be published by it at all, law journals can be cited, e. g.

BVerfG, NJW 2009, 1234 (1235 f. ).

Where NJW stands for the law journal Neue Juristische Wochenschrift, 2009 is the year, 1234 the page of the beginning and 1235 the cited page(s) - "f. " stands for "seq. ". In general, citations of the official collections are preferred.

Federal Court of Justice of Germany

The Federal Court of Justice of Germany (Bundesgerichtshof, short BGH) publishes the official collections BGHSt for decisions in penal law and BGHZ for those in private law. The “ Federal Court of Justice of Germany ” ( German: “ Bundesgerichtshof ” or “ BGH ” is the highest court in the system of ordinary jurisdiction In the most general sense penal is the body of laws that are enforced by the State in its own name and impose penalties for their violation as opposed to civil law that seeks Private law (Civil law is that part of a Legal system that involves relationships between individuals

The Katzenkönigfall e. g. would be cited

BGHSt 35, 347 ff. , Urteil des 4. Strafsenats vom 15. September 1988, Az. 4 StR 352/88, 35, 347.

in full and

BGHSt 35, 347 ff.

in short (in this example, not a specific page but the case as such is cited; "ff. " means "sqq. ").

Other federal courts

The official collection of the Federal Social Court of Germany (Bundessozialgericht, BSG) is abbreviated BSGE. The Bundessozialgericht ( German for Federal Social Court) is the German federal court of Appeals for Social security cases

The official collection of the Federal Finance Court of Germany (Bundesfinanzhof, BFH) is BFHE. The Federal Finance Court ( Bundesfinanzhof) is one of the five federal supreme courts of Germany.

The official collection of the Federal Labor Court of Germany (Bundesarbeitsgericht, BAG) is BAGE. The Federal Labor Court ( Bundesarbeitsgericht) is the German federal court of appeals for cases of Labour law, both individual labour law (mostly concerning

Other courts

For the other courts generally the same rules apply, though most of them do not publish an official collection, so that they have to be cited from a law journal.

India

India's vast federated judicial system admits to a large number of reporters, each with their own style of citation. There are over 200 law reports in India – subject-wise and state(province)-wise; authorized and unauthorized.

Supreme Court of India

The official reporter for Supreme Court decisions is the Supreme Court Reports. These reports however lag behind other journals in the speed of reporting. Whilst decisions themselves are uploaded by the Supreme Court itself on www. courtnic. nic. in, the edited versions with headnotes in the official reporter take years to compile. However, some reporters have been authorised to publish the Court's decisions. The All India Reporter is an old and respected reporter that, in addition to the Supreme Court, also reports decisions of the various State High Courts. Other popular reporters include Supreme Court Cases, the Indian Law Reports, the Supreme Court Almanac and Judgements Today.

For instance, the case of Sebastian Hongray v. Union of India can be cited thus:

AIR 1984 SC 571 - where 'AIR' is the All India Reporter, '1984' is the year of judgement (AIR does not use a volume-based classification), 'SC' is the Supreme Court of India and '571' is the page number;

(1984) 1 SCC 339 - which corresponds to the Year (of publication), Volume (of the reporter), Supreme Court Cases (name of the reporter)and Page Number (within the volume);

1984 Cri LJ 289 (SC) - which corresponds to Year (of publication), Criminal Law Journal (name of reporter) and Page Number (within the 1984 volumes). The forum is indicated in simple parentheses.

A citation of the "Supreme Court Almanac" looks like this - Additional Secretary, Government of India v. Alka Subhash Gadia (1990) 2 Scale 1352; and, "Judgements Today" like this - Premium Granites v. State of Tamil Nadu JT (1994) 1 SC 374.

The "Supreme Court Cases (SCC)" published supplementary reports for a few years in the early 1990s. Those citations looked like this - Federation of Mining Associations v. State of Rajasthan 1992 Supp (2) SCC 239, which points to page 239 of the Second Supplementary Volume of the SCC reports in the year 1992.

The SCC also have a separate series of subject-based reporting of the decisions of the Supreme Court. For instance - Rathinam Nagbhushan Patnaik v. Union of India 1994 SCC (Cri) 740, which refers to the SCC Criminal Reports, and Delhi Transport Corporation v. Mazdoor Congress 1991 SCC (L&S) 1213, which refers to the SCC Labour & Services Reports.

High Courts

All India Reporter is the most popular nation-wide reporter for decisions of the High Courts. An AIR High Court citation looks like this - Surjya Kumar Das v. Maya Dutta AIR 1982 Cal 222, where 'Cal' refers to the High Court of Calcutta (the capital of the State of West Bengal). This is a uniform style for AIR High Court reports. Only the shortened indicator of the forum changes for different High Courts.

New Zealand

The standard case citation format in New Zealand is:

Style of cause (year of decision) [year of reporter] volume reporter page
Taylor v New Zealand Poultry Board [1984] 1 NZLR 394
R v Howse (2005) 21 CRNZ 823

Several leading law reviews in New Zealand have also adopted the Australian Guide to Legal Citation such as the Canterbury Law Review. The AGLC style is also rather similar to citation style in New Zealand. This is probably to aid exchanges in academic work between both sides of the Tasman as opposed to any sort of sense of cultural inferiority.

Reporters

Abbreviation Reporter Years
NZLR New Zealand Law Reports 1881 -
CRNZ Criminal Reports of New Zealand 1983 -
NZAR New Zealand Administrative Reports 1976-
NZFLR New Zealand Family Law Reports 1981-
DCR District Court Reports 1981-

Additionally, a number of other report series exist for specialist areas such as Family, Employment and Tax Law.

Neutral citation

New Zealand courts and tribunals have begun to adopt a neutral citation standard for case law. The format provides a naming system that does not depend on the publication of the case in a law report. Most cases are now published on AustLII[2] using neutral citations, although such formats are only used for Court of Appeal and Supreme Court judgments. The Court of Appeal of New Zealand, located in Wellington, is New Zealand ’s principal intermediate Appellate court. The Supreme Court of New Zealand is the highest court in the land and the Court of last resort in New Zealand, having formally come into existence at the beginning Outside of AustLII, only the Supreme Court uses such citations in relation to its own judgments.

The standard format looks like this:

Year of decision Court identifier Ordinal number
[2005] NZSC 1

There is a unique court identifier code only for the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal. These identifiers are:

Court Identifier Court
NZSC Supreme Court of New Zealand
NZCA New Zealand Court of Appeal

The Philippines

Despite the long-standing civil law tradition in the Philippines, reliance on judicial precedents has become indispensable since the period of American rule. The Supreme Court of New Zealand is the highest court in the land and the Court of last resort in New Zealand, having formally come into existence at the beginning The Court of Appeal of New Zealand, located in Wellington, is New Zealand ’s principal intermediate Appellate court. Civil law or Romano-Germanic law or Continental law is the predominant system of law in the world. Decisions of the Supreme Court are expressly recognized as part of the internal law, and are thus cited with frequency in court decisions or legal pleadings. The Supreme Court of the Philippines ( Filipino: Kataas-taasang Hukuman ng Pilipinas or Korte Suprema) is the country's highest judicial court as well Even as there is only one Supreme Court in the Philippines, the citation of its decisions varies depending on which reporter of the case is relied upon.

Official reporter

The Philippine Reports is the official reporter of decisions of the Supreme Court of the Philippines. The Supreme Court of the Philippines ( Filipino: Kataas-taasang Hukuman ng Pilipinas or Korte Suprema) is the country's highest judicial court as well The standard format for citation of the Philippine Reports is:

People v. Flores, 442 Phil. 561 (2002)

where:

Unofficial reporter

In the last few decades, the Philippine Reports has suffered from production problems, resulting in long delays in publication, as well as significant gaps within its published series. As a result, the privately published Supreme Court Reports Annotated (published by Central Professional Books, Inc. ) has become more widely used than the Philippine Reports, even by the courts. The proper format for citation of the Supreme Court Reports Annotated is:

Fortich v. Corona, G. R. No. 131457, 24 April 1998, 289 SCRA 624

where:

Owing to the delays in the regular publication of the Philippine Reports, reliance on the SCRA has been tolerated, although if a case may be found at the Philippine Reports, it is preferred that the official reporter be cited in lieu of the SCRA.

When citing cases which have not yet been reported in the Philippine Reports or the SCRA, the above citation without reference to the SCRA is preferred (i. e. , Fortich v. Corona, G. R. No. 131457, 24 April 1988)

Lower court decisions

As there are no official or unofficial reporters that regularly publish decisions of the Court of Appeals and other lower courts, citation of their decisions hews to the same format as cases not reported either in the Philippine Reports or the SCRA. The Philippine Court of Appeals ( Filipino: Hukumang Paghahabol ng Pilipinas) is the country's second highest judicial court just after the Supreme Court Thus: (case name), (docket number), (Exact date of promulgation of decision).

Scotland

The standard case citation formats in Scotland are:

Name of parties Year of decision, Year of report Volume Series Court Page
HM Advocate v Megrahi, 2000 JC 555
McFarlane v Tayside Health Board, 2000 SC (HL) 1
Forbes v Underwood, (1886) 13 R (or ‘Rettie’) 465
Smith v Brown, [2005] CSIH 1

The Supreme Court has issued a practice note on the use of neutral citation. Scotland ( Gaelic: Alba) is a Country in northwest Europethat occupies the northern third of the island of Great Britain. The Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial began on May 3, 2000, which was 11 years four months and 13 days after the blowing up of Pan Am Flight 103 on

United States

The standard case citation format in the United States is:

Roe v. Wade, 410 U. Roe v Wade, 410 US 113 (1973 is a controversial United States Supreme Court case that resulted in a Landmark decision regarding S. 113 (1973)

where:

These numbers are used to find a particular case, both when looking up a case in a printed reporter and when accessing it via the Internet or services such as LexisNexis or Westlaw.

This format also allows different cases with the same parties to be easily differentiated. For example, looking for the U.S. Supreme Court case of Miller v. California would yield four cases, some involving different people named Miller, and each involving different issues. The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest judicial body in the United States and leads the federal judiciary. Miller v California, was an important United States Supreme Court case involving what constitutes unprotected Obscenity for First Amendment

Supreme Court of the United States

Cases from the Supreme Court of the United States are officially printed in the United States Reports. The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest judicial body in the United States and leads the federal judiciary. A citation to the United States Reports looks like this:

Many court decisions are published by more than one reporter. A citation to two or more reporters for a given court decision is called a "parallel citation". For U. S. Supreme Court decisions, there are several unofficial reporters, including the Supreme Court Reporter (S. Ct. ) and United States Supreme Court Reports, Lawyers' Edition (commonly known simply as Lawyer's Edition) (L. Ed. ), which are printed by private companies and provide further annotations to the opinions of the Court. Although a citation to the latter two is not required, some attorneys and legal writers prefer to cite all three case reporters at once:

The "2d" after the L. Ed. signifies the second series of the Lawyers' Edition. United States case reporters are sequentially numbered, but the volume number is never higher than 999. When the 1,000th volume is reached (the threshold in earlier years was lower), the volume number is reset to 1 and a "2d" is appended after the reporter's abbreviation. Some case reporters are in their third series, and a few are approaching their fourth.

Some very old Supreme Court cases have odd-looking citations, such as Marbury v. Madison, 5 U. Marbury v Madison, is a Landmark case in United States law. It formed the basis for the exercise of Judicial review in the United States under S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803). The "(1 Cranch)" refers to the fact that, before there was a reporter series known as the United States Reports compiled by the Supreme Court's Reporter of Decisions, cases were gathered, bound together, and sold privately by the Court's Reporter of Decisions. The Reporter of Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States is the official charged with editing and publishing the Court's opinions both when announced and In this example, Marbury was first reported in an edition by William Cranch, who was responsible for publishing Supreme Court reports from 1801 to 1815. William Cranch ( July 17, 1769 &ndash September 1, 1855) was an American Judge and the second reporter of decisions Such reports, named for the individual who gathered them and hence called "nominative reports," existed from 1790 to 1874. Beginning in 1874, the U. S. government created the United States Reports, and at the same time simultaneously numbered the volumes previously published privately as part of a single series and began numbering sequentially from that point. In this way, "5 U. S. (1 Cranch)" means that it is the 5th overall volume of the United States Reports series, but the first that was originally published by William Cranch; four volumes of opinions prior to that were (for example) published by Alexander Dallas (for example, "4 U. William Cranch ( July 17, 1769 &ndash September 1, 1855) was an American Judge and the second reporter of decisions Alexander James Dallas ( June 21, 1759 &ndash January 16, 1817) was an American statesman who served as the U S. (4 Dall. )"), and after Cranch's 9 volumes, 12 more were published by Henry Wheaton (e. Henry Wheaton ( November 27, 1785 - March 11, 1848) American Lawyer and Diplomat, was born at Providence g. , "15 U. S. (2 Wheat. )").

When a case has been decided, but not yet published in the case reporter, the citation may note the volume but leave blank the page of the case reporter until it is determined. For example, Bowles v. Russell, 551 U. Bowles v Russell, 551 U S ___ ( 2007) is a Supreme Court of the United States case in which the Court determined that the Federal Courts of S. ___ (2007).

See the Supreme Court of the United States Reporter of Decisions for other edition names. The Reporter of Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States is the official charged with editing and publishing the Court's opinions both when announced and

In the caption of a Supreme Court case, the first name listed is the name of the petitioning (appealing) party, followed by the party responding (respondent) to the appeal. In most cases, the appealing party was the losing party in the prior court. This is the same practice used in cases in the federal courts of appeal.

Lower federal courts

United States court of appeals cases are published in the Federal Reporter (F. The United States courts of appeals (or circuit courts) are the intermediate appellate courts The Federal Reporter is a Case law reporter in the United States that is published by West Publishing. , F. 2d, or F. 3d). United States district court cases and cases from some specialized courts are published in the Federal Supplement (F. The United States district courts are the general Trial courts of the United States federal court system. The Federal Supplement is a Case law reporter published by West Publishing in the United States that includes select opinions Supp. or F. Supp. 2d). Both are published by Thomson West; they are technically unofficial reporters, but have become widely accepted as the de facto "official" reporters of the lower federal courts because of the absence of a true official reporter. West (also known by its original name West Publishing) is the largest business unit of Thomson Reuters North American Legal group of Thomson Reuters. (Of the federal appeals and district courts, only one, the D.C. Circuit, has an official reporter, United States Court of Appeals Reports, and even that one is rarely used today. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, known informally as the D )

When lower federal court opinions are cited, the citation includes the name of the court. This is placed in the parentheses immediately before the year. Some examples:

State courts

State court decisions are published in several places. The United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama is the Federal district court whose jurisdiction comprises the following counties Autauga, Many states have their own official state reporters, which publish decisions of one or more of that state's courts. Reporters that publish decisions of a state's highest court are abbreviated the same as the state's name (note: this is the traditional abbreviation, not the postal abbreviation), regardless of what the actual title of the reporter is. Thus, the official reporter of decisions of the California Supreme Court (titled California Reports) is abbreviated "Cal. The Supreme Court of California is the State supreme court in California. " (or, for subsequent series, "Cal. 2d," "Cal. 3d" or "Cal. 4th").

In addition to the official reporters, Thomson West publishes several series of "regional reporters" which cover several states each. West (also known by its original name West Publishing) is the largest business unit of Thomson Reuters North American Legal group of Thomson Reuters. These are the North Eastern Reporter, Atlantic Reporter, South Eastern Reporter, Southern Reporter, South Western Reporter, North Western Reporter, and Pacific Reporter. California, Illinois, and New York also each have their own line of Thomson West reporters, because of the large volume of cases generated in those states (titled, respectively, West's California Reporter, Illinois Decisions, and West's New York Supplement). California ( is a US state on the West Coast of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. The State of Illinois ( roughly ill-i-NOY is a state of the United States of America, the 21st to be admitted to the Union. New York ( is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous Some smaller states (like South Dakota) have stopped publishing their own official reporters, and instead have certified the appropriate West regional reporter as their "official" reporter. South Dakota ( is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States of America.

Here are some examples of how to cite West reporters:

Abbreviations for lower courts vary by state, as each state has its own system of trial courts and intermediate appellate courts.

When a case appears in both an official reporter and a regional reporter, either citation can be used. Many lawyers prefer to include both citations. Some state courts require that parallel citations (in this case, citing to both the official reporter and an unofficial regional reporter) be used when citing cases from any court in that state's system.

Some states, notably California and New York, have their own citation systems that differ significantly from the various federal and national standards. California ( is a US state on the West Coast of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. New York ( is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous Citations in California style put the year between the names of the parties and the reference to the case reporter. Citations in New York style wrap the year in brackets instead of parentheses. Both New York and California wrap an entire citation in parentheses when it is used as a stand-alone sentence. New York puts the terminating period outside the parentheses, but California puts it inside. New York wraps just the reporter and page references in parentheses when the citation is used as a clause.

Either way, both state styles differ from the national/Bluebook style of simply dropping in the citation as a separate sentence without further adornment. Both systems use less punctuation and spacing in their reporter abbreviations.

For example, assuming that it is being placed as a stand-alone sentence, the Brown case above would be cited (using the official reporter) to a New York court as:

And, again, as a stand-alone sentence, the famous Greenman product liability case would be cited to a California court as:

Like the United States Supreme Court, some very old state case citations include an abbreviation of the name of either the private publisher or the reporter of decisions, a state-appointed officer who originally collected and published the cases. The Reporter of Decisions (sometimes known by other titles such as Official Reporter or State Reporter) is the official responsible for publishing the decisions of For example, in Hall v. Bell, 47 Mass. (6 Met. ) 431 (1843), the citation is to volume 47 of Massachusetts Reports, which, like United States Reports, was started in the latter half of the 19th century and incorporated a number of prior editions originally published privately into the series, and began numbering from that point; "6 Met. " refers to the 6th volume that had originally been published privately by Theron Metcalf. An example of a case cited to a reporter that has not been subsequently incorporated into an officially-published series is Pierson v. Post, 3 Cai. Pierson v Post, 3 Cai R 175 2 Am Dec 264 ( NY 1805) is a famous Supreme Court of New York case about a disagreement over a 175 (N. Y. Sup. Ct. 1804), reported in volume 3 of Caines' Reports, page 175, named for George Caines, who had been appointed to report New York cases; the case was before the New York Supreme Court of Judicature (now defunct). George Caines (born in 1771 died in Catskill New York, July 10 1825 was the first official reporter of cases in the United States appointed by the Court Most states gave up this practice in the mid- to late-1800s, but Delaware persisted until 1920. Delaware ( is a state located on the Atlantic Coast in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States.

Unpublished decisions

A growing number of court decisions are not published in case reporters. For example, only 7% of the opinions of the California intermediate courts (the Courts of Appeal) are published each year. The California Courts of Appeal are the state intermediate appellate courts in the U This is mainly because judges certify only significant decisions for publication, due to the massive number of frivolous appeals flowing through the courts and the importance of avoiding information overload. [4] It is also argued that this is in part because in many states, especially California, the legislature has failed to expand the judiciary to keep up with population growth (for various political and fiscal reasons). To deal with their crushing caseloads, many judges prefer to write shorter-than-normal opinions that dispose of minor issues in the case in a sentence or two. They avoid publishing such abbreviated opinions, however, so as not to risk creating bad precedents. In Common law legal systems, a precedent or authority is a Legal case establishing a principle or rule that a Court or other judicial

Attorneys have several options in citing "unpublished" decisions:

Some court systems—such as the California state court system and the federal Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit—forbid attorneys to cite unpublished cases as precedent. Other systems allow citation of unpublished cases only under specific circumstances. For example, in Kentucky, unpublished cases from that state's courts can only be cited if the case was decided after January 1, 2003 and "there is no published opinion that would adequately address the issue before the court. The Commonwealth of Kentucky ( is a state located in the East Central United States of America. New Year See also New Year The Ancient Romans began their consular year on January 1st since 153 BC Year 2003 ( MMIII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. "[5] From 2004 to 2006, federal judges debated whether the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure (FRAP) should be amended so that unpublished cases in all circuits could be cited as precedent. The Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure ( FRAP) are a set of rules promulgated by the Supreme Court of the United States on recommendation of an advisory committee In 2006, the Supreme Court, over the objection of several hundred judges and lawyers, adopted a new Rule 32. 1 of FRAP requiring that federal courts allow citation of unpublished cases. The rule took effect on January 1, 2007. New Year See also New Year The Ancient Romans began their consular year on January 1st since 153 BC Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. [6]

Vendor-neutral citations

With the rise of the web, many courts placed new cases on websites. Some were published while others never lost their "unpublished" status. The major legal citation systems required cites to the officially published page numbers, in which publishers such as West Publishing claimed a copyright interest. West (also known by its original name West Publishing) is the largest business unit of Thomson Reuters North American Legal group of Thomson Reuters. (In view of the decision of the U. S. Supreme Court in Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service, that the mere alphabetical listing of telephone subscribers was an inadequate amount of effort to be valid to obtain copyright, the claim of copyright on page numbering of court decisions is probably not valid. Feist Publications Inc v Rural Telephone Service Co, 499 US 340 ( 1991) commonly called just Feist v )

A vendor-neutral citation movement[7] led to provisions being made for citations to web-based cases and other legal materials. A few courts modified their rules to specifically take into account cases "published" on the web.

An example of a vendor-neutral citation:

Pinpoint citations

In practice, most lawyers go one step farther, once they have developed the correct citation for a case using the rules discussed above. Most court opinions contain holdings on multiple issues, so lawyers need to cite to the page that contains the specific holding they wish to invoke in their own case. Such citations are known as pinpoint citations, "pin cites," or "jump cites. "

For example, in Roe v. Wade, the U. S. Supreme Court held that the word "person" as used in the Fourteenth Amendment does not include the unborn. That particular holding appears on page 158 of the volume in which the Roe decision was published. A full pin cite to Roe for that holding would be as follows:

And a parallel cite to all three U. S. Supreme Court reporters, combined with pin cites for all three, would produce:

But in its opinions, the Court usually provides a direct pin cite only to the official reporter:

Even then, such citations are still quite lengthy, and obviously look quite mysterious and intimidating to laypersons when they try to read court opinions. Since the 1980s, there has been an ongoing debate among American judges as to whether they should relegate such lengthy citations to footnotes to improve the readability of their opinions, as strongly urged by Bryan Garner, one of the leading authors on legal writing style issues. Bryan A Garner (born November 17, 1958, in Lubbock Texas) is a U Most judges do relegate some citations to footnotes (though the refusal of jurists such as Justice Stephen Breyer and Judge Richard Posner to use footnotes in their opinions is well-known). Stephen Gerald Breyer (born August 15 1938 is an American Attorney and Jurist. Richard Allen Posner (born January 11 1939 in New York City) is currently a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago

Types of citations

There are two types of citations: proprietary and public domain citations. The public domain is a range of abstract materials &ndash commonly referred to as Intellectual property &ndash which are not owned or controlled by anyone There are many citation guides; the most commonly acknowledged is called the Bluebook, published by students at several eminent law schools, namely Columbia Law Review, Harvard Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review and Yale Law Journal. The Bluebook A Uniform System of Citation, a Style guide, prescribes the most widely used Legal citation system in the United States. A law school (also known as a school of law or college of law) is an institution specializing in Legal education. Public domain citations are those which usually refer to the official reporters and not some kind of publication service such as Westlaw or LexisNexis or some particular legal journal or specialization specific reporter. Westlaw is one of the primary online Legal research services for Lawyers and legal professionals in the United States and is a part of West and LexisNexis (sometimes simply called "Lexis" or "Nexis" among users is a popular searchable Archive of content from Newspapers Magazines

States with their own unique style for court documents and case opinions also publish their own style guides which include information on their citation rules.

External links

Law by state

See also

References

  1. ^ World Legal Information Institute (WorldLII)
  2. ^ a b http://austlii.edu.au
  3. ^ Greenman v. Yuba Power Products, Inc. (1963) 59 C2d 57
  4. ^ Schmier v. The Bluebook A Uniform System of Citation, a Style guide, prescribes the most widely used Legal citation system in the United States. In Legal research, a citator is a Citation index of legal resources the best-known of which in the United States is Shepard's Citations. As in most countries Germany has a standard way of citing its Legal codes and Case law; an essentially identical system of citation is also used in Austria Law reports or reporters are series of books which contain judicial opinions from a selection of cases that have been decided by the courts. Legal research, according to one source is "the process of identifying and retrieving information necessary to support legal decision-making Supreme Court, 78 Cal. App. 4th 703 (2000). The plaintiff in this case unsuccessfully challenged the selective publication policy as unconstitutional. The court retorted: "Appellant either misunderstands or ignores the realities of the intermediate appellate process. " The court went on to describe the variety of frivolous appeals regularly encountered by the Courts of Appeal, and concluded: "Our typical opinions in such cases add nothing to the body of stare decisis, and if published would merely clutter overcrowded library shelves and databases with information utterly useless to anyone other than the actual litigants therein and complicate the search for meaningful precedent. "
  5. ^ CR 76.28(4). Kentucky Rules of Civil Procedure. Kentucky Court of Justice. Retrieved on 2008-04-12. 2008 ( MMVIII) is the current year in accordance with the Gregorian calendar, a Leap year that started on Tuesday of the Common Events 467 - Anthemius is elevated to Emperor of the Western Roman Empire.
  6. ^ McDonald, Molly, "Door slowly opens for unpublished opinions", ABA Journal eReport, April 21, 2006. The American Bar Association ( ABA) founded August 21 1878 is a voluntary Bar association of Lawyers and law students which is not specific
  7. ^ AALL Citation Formats Committee

External links

Dictionary

case citation

-noun

  1. (law) A combination of numbers and abbreviations used in common law countries to identify the opinion of a court, including the names of the parties, case reporter, name of the court, year of the decision, and sometimes the page of the opinion that is cited.
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