Case citation

Various case citations redirect here. If you are looking for The Internet brought with it the opportunity for courts to
the text of an opinion, you may find it in the external links publish their decisions on web sites. Decisions of many
at the bottom of the article on that case. For Wikipedia’s courts from all over the world can now be found through
template for citing cases, see Template:Cite court. the website WorldLII and its member institutes.[2]
Case citation is a system used in many countries to iden-
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 significant cases.
Internet publishing of court decisions resulted in a flood
of information. The result was that a medium-neutral ci-
tation system was adopted. This usually contains the fol-
lowing information:

• Year of decision

• Abbreviated title of the court

• Decision number (not the court file number)

Rather than utilizing page numbers for pin-point refer-

The United States Reports is the official reporter of the Supreme ences, which would depend upon particular printers and
Court of the United States. browsers, pin-point quotations refer to paragraph num-
bers.
tify past court case decisions, either in series of books
called reporters or law reports, or in a “neutral” style
that identifies a decision regardless of where it is re-
ported. Case citations are formatted differently in dif- 1 Australia
ferent jurisdictions, but generally contain the same key
information. Main article: Australian legal citation
A legal citation is a “reference to a legal precedent or au-
thority, such as a case, statute, or treatise, that either sub- The standard case citation format in Australia is:
stantiates or contradicts a given position.”[1] Where cases As in Canada, there has been divergence among cita-
are published in paper format, the citation usually con- tion styles. There exist commercial citation guides pub-
tains the following information: lished by Butterworths and other legal publishing com-
panies, academic citation styles and court citation styles.
• Report title Each court in Australia may cite the same case slightly
differently. There is presently a movement in conver-
• Volume number
gence to the comprehensive academic citation style of
• Page number the Australian Guide to Legal Citation published by the
Melbourne University Law Review.
• Year of decision

In some report series, for example in England and Aus- 1.1 Reports
tralia, the volumes are not numbered independently of
the year: thus the year and volume number (usually no 1.2 Neutral citation
greater than 4) are required to identify which book of the
series has the case reported within its covers. In citations Australian courts and tribunals have now adopted a neu-
of this type it is usual in these jurisdictions to apply square tral citation standard for case law. The format provides
brackets "[year]" to the year (which may not be the year a naming system that does not depend on the publication
that the case was decided: for example, a case decided in of the case in a law report. Most cases are now published
December 2001 may have been reported in 2002). on AustLII using neutral citations.[3]

1
2 3 GERMANY

The standard format looks like this: 791, is now [2005] 1 SCR 791. Most full stops are
So the above-mentioned Mabo case would then be cited also removed from styles of cause. The seventh edition
like this: Mabo v Queensland (No 2) [1992] HCA 23. also further highlights the significance of neutral cita-
tions (i.e., tribunal-assigned citations that are publisher-
There is a unique court identifier code for most courts. independent)
The court and tribunal identifiers include:

2.1 Reports
1.3 References
• Australian Guide to Legal Citation 2.2 Neutral citation

In 1999 the Canadian Judicial Council adopted a neu-

tral citation standard for case law. The format provides
2 Canada a naming system that does not depend on the publication
of the case in a law report.
There are a number of citation standards in Canada.
The standard format look like this:
Many legal publishing companies and schools have their
own standard for citation. Since the late 1990s, however, There is a unique court identifier code for most courts. A
much of the legal community has converged to a single list of the court identifiers include:
standard—formulated in The Canadian Guide to Uniform
Legal Citation, commonly known as the "McGill Guide"
after the McGill Law Journal, which first published it. 2.3 References
The following format reflects this standard:
• Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation, 6th edi-
Hunter v Southam, [1984] 2 SCR 145. tion (McGill Law Journal) ISBN 0-459-24393-4
(bound), ISBN 0-459-24394-2 (paperback). This
Broken into its component parts, the format is: is not available online.

The Style of Cause is italicized as in all other countries • Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation, 7th edi-
and the party names are separated by “v” (English) or “c” tion (McGill Law Journal) ISBN 978-0-7798-2799-
(French). Prior to 1984 the appellant party would always 2 (Softcover Cerlox or Spiral). Published 2010-08-
be named first. However, since then case names do not 20. This is not available online.
switch order when the case is appealed.
• Canadian Citation Committee A Neutral Citation
Undisclosed parties to a case are represented by initials Standard for Case Law
(e.g., R v RDS). Criminal cases are prosecuted by the
Crown, which is always represented by “R” for Regina
(queen) or Rex (king). Constitutional references are al-
ways entitled "Reference re" followed by the subject title. 3 Germany
If the year of decision is the same as the year of the report,
Main article: German legal citation
and the date is a part of the reporter’s citation then the
date need not be listed after the style of cause. If the date
of the decision is different from the year of the report, In Germany there are two types of citation, the full ci-
then both should be shown. tation of a case and its shortened form. In e.g. scien-
tific articles the full citation of a particular case is only
Where available cases should be cited with their neutral
used at its first occurrence, after that its shortened form
citation immediately after the style of cause and preceding
is used. In most law journals the articles themselves only
the print citation. For example,
use the shortened form, the full citations for all articles
sometimes are summarized at the beginning of that jour-
Chaoulli v Quebec (Attorney General), 2005
nals edition.
SCC 35, [2005] 1 SCR 791.

This format was adopted as the standard in 2006, in the 3.1 Federal Constitutional Court of Ger-
sixth edition of the McGill Guide. Prior to this format, many
the opposite order of parallel citation was used.
The seventh edition of the McGill Guide, published The most important cases of the Federal Constitutional
2010-08-20, removes most full stop (".”) characters from Court of Germany are published by the court in its official
the citations, e.g., a citation to the Supreme Court Re- collection. This collection is abbreviated “BVerfGE”,
ports that previously would have been [2005] 1 S.C.R. whereas BVerfG is short for Bundesverfassungsgericht,
3.4 Other courts 3

the German court name, and E stands for Entscheidung The official collection of the Federal Finance Court of
(decision). Germany (Bundesfinanzhof, BFH) is BFHE.
Starting in 2004, the court also publishes the “BVerfGK” The official collection of the Federal Labor Court of Ger-
collection, containing decisions made only by a Kammer, many (Bundesarbeitsgericht, BAG) is BAGE.
a specific part of the court.
The official collection of the Federal Administrative
The so-called Volkszählungsurteil for example could be Court of Germany (Bundesverwaltungsgericht, BVerwG)
cited is BVerwGE.

BVerfGE 65, 1 (43), Urteil des Ersten Senats

vom 15. Dezember 1983 auf die mündliche
3.4 Other courts
Verhandlung vom 18. und 19. Oktober 1983,
For other courts, generally the same rules apply, though
Az. 1 BvR 209, 269, 362, 420, 440, 484/83.
most do not publish an official collection, so they must be
cited from a law journal.
in full and

BVerfGE 65, 1 (43). 4 India

in short.
India’s vast federated judicial system admits to a large
For the meaning of the different case numbers of the number of reporters, each with their own style of citation.
BVerfG see the German article. There are over 200 law reports in India – subject-wise and
If decisions are not yet published by the court, or will not state(province)-wise; authorized and unauthorized.
be published at all, law journals can be cited, e.g.,
4.1 Supreme Court of India
BVerfG, NJW 2009, 1234 (1235 f.).
The official reporter for Supreme Court decisions is the
Where NJW stands for the law journal Neue Juristische Supreme Court Reports. These reports however lag be-
Wochenschrift, 2009 is the year, 1234 the page of the hind other journals in the speed of reporting. Whilst de-
beginning and 1235 the cited page(s) – “f.” stands for cisions themselves are uploaded by the Supreme Court
“seq.”. In general, citations of the official collections are
itself on Template:Www.courtnic.nic.in, the edited ver-
preferred. sions 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
3.2 Federal Court of Justice of Germany (AIR) is an old and respected reporter that, in addition
to the Supreme Court, also reports decisions of the var-
The Federal Court of Justice of Germany (Bundes- ious State High Courts. Other popular reporters include
gerichtshof, short BGH) publishes the official collections Supreme Court Cases, which has become the most cited
BGHSt for decisions in penal law and BGHZ for those in report in the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court Almanac,
private law. and Judgements Today.
The Katzenkönigfall e.g. would be cited Sebastian Hongray v. Union of India:

BGHSt 35, 347 ff., Urteil des 4. Strafsenats • AIR 1984 SC 571 – where “AIR” is the All India Re-
vom 15. September 1988, Az. 4 StR 352/88. porter, “1984” is the year of judgement (AIR does
not use a volume-based classification), “SC” is the
in full and Supreme Court of India, and “571” is the page num-
ber;
BGHSt 35, 347 ff. • (1984) 1 SCC 339 – which corresponds to the Year
(of publication), Volume (of the reporter), Supreme
in short (in this example, not a specific page but the case Court Cases (name of the reporter)and Page Num-
as such is cited; “ff.” means “sqq.”). ber (within the volume);
• 1984 Cri LJ 289 (SC) – which corresponds to Year
3.3 Other federal courts (of publication), Criminal Law Journal (name of
reporter), and Page Number (within the 1984 vol-
The official collection of the Federal Social Court of Ger- umes). The forum is indicated in simple parenthe-
many (Bundessozialgericht, BSG) is abbreviated BSGE. ses.
4 5 NEW ZEALAND

4.2 High Courts

The All India Reporter (AIR) is the most popular na-

tionwide reporter for decisions of the High Courts. An
AIR High Court citation looks like: Surjya Kumar Das
v. Maya Dutta AIR 1982 Cal 222, where “Cal” refers to
the Calcutta High Court in Kolkata. This is a uniform
style for AIR High Court reports. Only the shortened in-
dicator of the forum changes for different High Courts.
The Calcutta Weekly Notes is the oldest continuously pub-
lished law journal in India having uninterrupted publica-
tion since 1896 reporting reportable decisions of the High
Court at Calcutta. Reports are cited in the style 105 CWN
345 where 105 refers to the volume number calculated at
one volume per year from the initial volume, which had
been published in 1896.

4.3 National Judicial Reference System

(NJRS)

National Judicial Reference System (NJRS) is a project

started by the Income-tax Department, Government of
India. It has been envisaged as a tool to achieve efficiency
in the tax litigation process of Income Tax Department
All India Reporter (ITD). Within this project the Judicial Research & Ref-
erence System (JRRS) – JRRS is a repository of judi-
A citation of the “Supreme Court Almanac": cial orders as a single, indexed, searchable, cross-linked,
database of Judgments / orders of ITAT, Authority of Ad-
• Additional Secretary, Government of India v. Alka vance Ruling (AAR), HC and SC.
Subhash Gadia (1990) 2 Scale 1352 The Citation nomenclature followed within NJRS :

A citation in “Judgements Today":

• Chandra Ranganathan & Ors. v. Commissioner of
• Premium Granites v. State of Tamil Nadu JT (1994) Income-tax 2009-LL-1021, which refers to NJRS
1 SC 374 citations.

The “Supreme Court Cases (SCC)" published supple-

This Citation further allows to add the Authority where
mentary reports for a few years in the early 1990s. Those
the judgment / order was pronounced.
citations looked like this:

• Federation of Mining Associations v. State of Ra- • Chandra Ranganathan & Ors. v. Commissioner
jasthan 1992 Supp (2) SCC 239, which points to of Income-tax 2009-LL-1021-SC, which refers to
page 239 of the Second Supplementary Volume of NJRS citations.
the SCC reports in the year 1992. From 1996
the Supplementary Volumes were numbered in se-
quence after the regular volumes.
5 New Zealand
The SCC also have a separate series of subject-based re-
porting of the decisions of the Supreme Court: The standard case citation format in New Zealand is:
Several leading law reviews in New Zealand have also
• Rathinam Nagbhushan Patnaik v. Union of India
adopted the Australian Guide to Legal Citation (AGLC)
1994 SCC (Cri) 740, which refers to the SCC Crim-
such as the Canterbury Law Review. The AGLC style is
inal Reports
also rather similar to citation style in New Zealand. This
• Delhi Transport Corporation v. Mazdoor Congress is probably to aid exchanges in academic work between
1991 SCC (L&S) 1213, which refers to the SCC both sides of the Tasman Sea as opposed to any sort of
Labour & Services Reports sense of cultural inferiority.
 5

5.1 Reporters 7 The Philippines

Additionally, a number of other report series exist for spe- Despite the long-standing civil law tradition in the Philip-
cialist areas such as Family, Employment and Tax Law. pines, reliance on judicial precedents has become indis-
pensable since the period of American rule. Supreme
Court decisions are expressly recognized as part of the
5.2 Neutral citation internal law, and are thus frequently cited in court de-
cisions and legal pleadings. Though there is only one
New Zealand courts and tribunals have begun to adopt a Supreme Court in the Philippines, the citation of its deci-
neutral citation standard for case law. The format pro- sions varies, depending on which report of a case is relied
vides a naming system that does not depend on the publi- on by the person citing that case.
cation of the case in a law report. Most cases are now
published on AustLII using neutral citations, although
such formats are only used for Court of Appeal and 7.1 Official reporter
Supreme Court judgments.[3] Outside of AustLII, only
the Supreme Court uses such citations in relation to its The Philippine Reports is the official reporter of decisions
own judgments. of the Supreme Court of the Philippines. The standard
format for citation of the Philippine Reports is:
The standard format looks like this:
There is a unique court identifier code only for the People v. Flores, 442 Phil. 561 (2002)
Supreme Court and Court of Appeal. These identifiers
are: where:

• People v. Flores is the name of the case

• 442 is the volume number of the Philippine Reports
6 Norway where the case may be found

The Norwegian standard case citation format for pub- • Phil. is the standard abbreviation of Philippine Re-
lished court decisions is: ports
• 561 is the page number in the Philippine Reports that
Rt. 1952 s. 989 (Telefonsjikanedommen) contains the beginning of the decision. If this num-
ber is followed by a comma then another page num-
ber (i.e., 442 Phil. 561, 563), the latter number in-
where: dicates the particular page where the annotated text
can be found
• Rt. identifies the report series. • (2002) is the year the case was decided.

• All supreme court judgments are published in As of present, Philippine cases are contained in quarterly
Retstidende (Court Times), abbreviated Rt. issues. The Supreme Court Reports Annotated or SCRA
• Many judgments and decisions from lower are cited as such:
courts are published in Rettens gang (RG). Juarez v. Court of Appeals 214 SCRA 475
where 214 is the volume of the book, and 475 is the page
• 1952 is the year of reporter number. There are already over 600 SCRAs in circula-
tion.
• s. is the Norwegian abbreviation for page. This is
optional.
7.2 Unofficial reporter
• 989 is the first page number of the decision in the
reporter. In the last few decades, the Philippine Reports has suf-
fered from production problems, resulting in long delays
• Finally, one can add the popular name of the de- in publication, as well as significant gaps within its pub-
cision. It is unusual to refer to name of the plain- lished series. As a result, the privately published Supreme
tiff(s) and defendant(s), but often there is an unof- Court Reports Annotated (published by Central Profes-
ficial name. Telefonsjikanedommen refers to a 1952 sional Books, Inc.) has become more widely used than
case where the Supreme Court ruled that telephone the Philippine Reports, even by the courts. The proper
harassment (“telefonsjikane”) was not illegal under format for citation of the Supreme Court Reports Anno-
the current criminal code. tated is:
6 8 UNITED KINGDOM

Fortich v. Corona, G.R. No. 131457, 24 April Judgments with neutral citations are freely available on
1998, 289 SCRA 624 the British and Irish Legal Information Institute website
(www.bailii.org).
where: Neutral citations identify judgments independently of any
series of reports, and cite only parties, year of judgment,
• Fortich v. Corona is the name of the case court and case number. For example,
Rottman v MPC [2002] UKHL 20
• G.R. No. 131457 is the case docket number origi- identifies the 20th judgment in 2002 in the UK House of
nally assigned by the Supreme Court at the time the Lords. UKHL stands for UK House of Lords. EWHC
action was filed with the Court and EWCA identify the England and Wales High Court
and Court of Appeal respectively. These abbreviations
• 24 April 1998 is the exact date the decision of this
are generally followed by an abbreviation indicating the
case was promulgated
court or division (e.g. Admin, Ch, Crim, Pat).
• 289 is the volume number of the Supreme Court Re-
ports Annotated where the case may be found
8.2 How to cite a case
• SCRA is the standard abbreviation of Supreme Court
Reports Annotated See also: Oxford Standard for Citation Of Legal Author-
ities
• 624 is the page number in the Supreme Court Reports
Annotated that contains the beginning of the deci-
sion. If this number is followed by a comma then If a neutral citation is available for a judgment, it should
another page number (i.e., 289 SCRA 624, 627), the immediately follow the party names. If the judgment has
latter number indicates the particular page where the also been reported in a law reports series, follow the neu-
annotated text can be found tral 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.).
Owing to the delays in the regular publication of the
Philippine Reports, reliance on the SCRA has been tol- The case of Rottman v MPC was reported in the Appeals
erated, although if a case may be found at the Philippine Cases, so the citation should be:
Reports, it is preferred that the official reporter be cited
in lieu of the SCRA. • Rottman v MPC [2002] UKHL 20, [2002] 2 AC
When citing cases not yet reported in the Philippine Re- 692.
ports or the SCRA, the above citation without reference
to the SCRA is preferred (i.e., Fortich v. Corona, G.R. This means that a report of the case and the judgment can
No. 131457, 24 April 1988) be found in the 2002 volumes, vol 2, of the Law Reports
series called Appeals Cases, beginning at page 692.

7.3 Lower court decisions To cite a particular paragraph from the judgment, add
the paragraph number in square brackets at the end of
As there are no official or unofficial reporters that regu- the citation:
larly publish decisions of the Court of Appeals and other
lower courts, citation of their decisions hews to the same • Rottman v MPC [2002] UKHL 20, [2002] 2 AC 692
format as cases not reported either in the Philippine Re- [58].
ports or the SCRA. Thus: (case name), (docket number),
(Exact date of promulgation of decision). If a case is not reported in the Law Reports, the next best
report is the Weekly Law Reports (e.g. [2002] 2 WLR
1315), and then the All England Reports (e.g., [2002] 2
8 United Kingdom All ER 865). In some situations, it might be preferable to
cite a specialist series, e.g., Rottman v MPC was also cited
8.1 Neutral citation in the Human Rights Law Reports, at [2002] HRLR 32.
For cases before 2001, cite the best report. If referring to
Main article: British and Irish Legal Information Institute a particular page of the judgment, give that page number
after the page number on which the report begins. The
Since 2001, judgments in the House of Lords, Privy following citation refers to page 573 of the Donoghue v
Council, Court of Appeal and Administrative Court have Stevenson judgment:
been issued with neutral citations. This system was
extended to other parts of the High Court in 2002. • Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562, 573.
 7

• See Oxford Standard for the Citation Of Legal Au- The Supreme Court has issued a practice note on the
thorities use of neutral citation. The Scots Law Times is cited as
“SLT”.[11]

8.3 England and Wales

The standard case citation format in England and Wales
9 United States
is:
The standard case citation format in the United States is:
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 Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973)
(typically criminal cases or judicial review cases).
Square brackets "[ ]" are used when the year is essential to where:
locating the report (e.g., the official law reports either—
as with Donoghue v Stevenson, above—do not have vol- • Roe v. Wade is the abbreviated name of the case.
ume numbers or, if there are multiple volumes in a single Generally, the first name (here, Roe) is the surname
year, they are numbered 1, 2, etc.). Round brackets "( )" of the plaintiff, who is the party who filed the suit
are used when the year is not essential but is useful for for an original case, or the appellant, the party ap-
information purposes, e.g., in reports that have a cumu- pealing in a case being appealed from a lower court,
lative volume number such as R v Dudley and Stephens, or the petitioner when litigating in the high court of
above. a jurisdiction; and the second name (here, Wade) is
the surname of the defendant, the party responding
to the suit, or the appellee, the party responding to
8.4 Law Reports the appeal, or the respondent, when defending in the
high court of the jurisdiction. Litigants are generally
The term “reporter”, meaning a law report or a series of referred to by their last name (when they are natu-
them, is not widely used in England and Wales. Before ral persons), and a case is generally referred to by
1865, English courts used a large number of privately the first named litigant on each side of the case. In
printed reports, and cases were cited based on which re- this example, Roe refers to "Jane Roe,” a pseudonym
port they appeared in. (This system was also used in the commonly used when it is appropriate to keep the
United States and other common law jurisdictions during identity of a litigant out of the public spotlight, and
that period.) Wade refers to Henry Wade, the Dallas County Dis-
Two main unofficial law reports report all areas of law: trict Attorney at the time.
the Weekly Law Reports (WLR) and the All England Re-
• 410 is the volume number of the "reporter" that re-
ports (All ER). In addition, a number of unofficial spe-
ported the Court’s written opinion in the case titled
cialist law reports focus on particular areas, e.g., Enter-
Roe v. Wade.
tainment and Media Law Reports (EMLR) or the Criminal
Appeal Reports (Cr App R). • U.S. is the abbreviation of the reporter, or printed
For the citation of “The Law Reports” of the Incorpo- book of court opinions. Here, “U.S.” stands for
rated Council of Law Reporting, see Law Reports. These United States Reports.
have been published since 1865. They have always been
• 113 is the page number (in volume 410 of United
split into a number of different series, the current se-
States Reports) where the opinion begins.
ries being the Appeal Cases (AC), Chancery (Ch), Fam-
ily (Fam), and Queen’s Bench (QB) (or King’s Bench— • 1973 is the year when the court rendered its deci-
KB—depending on the monarch of the time). These four sion.
series are cited in preference to all others in court.
The table below is an incomplete list of law reports other • The abbreviated name of the court is included in-
than “The Law Reports”, nominate reports and reprints. side the parenthesis before the year if the name of
the court is not obvious from the reporter. This
The table below is a list of series that are reprints of earlier rule comes into play because certain reporters, such
reports. as members of the West National Reporter System,
For nominate reports, see Nominate reports. publish opinions originating from multiple courts. In
this example, the name of the court (United States
Supreme Court) is obvious (since only decisions of
8.5 Scotland the U.S. Supreme Court are published in United
States Reports) and is thus omitted as a matter of
The standard case citation formats in Scotland are: convention.
8 9 UNITED STATES

Case citations are used to find a particular case, both 1874. Beginning in 1874, the U.S. government created
when looking up a case in a printed reporter and when ac- the United States Reports, and at the same time simul-
cessing it via the Internet or services such as LexisNexis taneously numbered the volumes previously published
or Westlaw. privately as part of a single series and began number-
This format also allows different cases with the same par- ing sequentially from that point. In this way, “5 U.S.
ties to be easily differentiated. For example, looking (1 Cranch)" means that it is the 5th overall volume of
for the U.S. Supreme Court case of Miller v. California the United States Reports series, but the first that was
would yield four cases, some involving different people originally published by William Cranch; four volumes of
opinions prior to that were (for example) published by
named Miller, and each involving different issues.
Alexander Dallas (for example, “4 U.S. (4 Dall.)"), and
after Cranch’s 9 volumes, 12 more were published by
9.1 Supreme Court of the United States Henry Wheaton (e.g., “15 U.S. (2 Wheat.)"). See the
Supreme Court of the United States Reporter of Deci-
Cases from the Supreme Court of the United States are sions for other edition names. The name of the reporter
officially printed in the United States Reports. A citation of decisions has not been used in citations since the U.S.
to the United States Reports looks like this: government began printing the United States Reports.
When a case has been decided, but not yet published in
• Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954). the case reporter, the citation may note the volume but
leave blank the page of the case reporter until it is de-
• Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966). termined. For example, Golan v. Holder, 565 U.S. ___
(2012).
Many court decisions are published in more than one re- In the caption of a Supreme Court case, the first name
porter. A citation to two or more reporters for a given listed is the name of the petitioning (appealing) party, fol-
court decision is called a “parallel citation”. For U.S. lowed by the party responding (respondent) to the appeal.
Supreme Court decisions, there are several unofficial re- In most cases, the appealing party was the losing party
porters, including the Supreme Court Reporter (abbrevi- in the prior court. This is no longer the practice used in
ated S. Ct.) and United States Supreme Court Reports, cases in the federal courts of appeal, in which the original
Lawyers’ Edition (commonly known simply as Lawyers’ alignment of parties from the lower court is preserved.
Edition) (abbreviated L. Ed.), which are printed by pri-
vate companies and provide further annotations to the
opinions of the Court. Although a citation to the latter 9.2 Lower federal courts
two is not required, some attorneys and legal writers pre-
fer to cite all three case reporters at once: United States court of appeals cases are published in the
Federal Reporter (F., F.2d, or F.3d). United States dis-
• Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 85 S. Ct. trict court cases and cases from some specialized courts
1678, 14 L. Ed. 2d 510 (1965) are published in the Federal Supplement (F. Supp., F.
Supp. 2d, or F. Supp. 3d). Both series are published by
Thomson West; they are technically unofficial reporters,
The “2d” after the L. Ed. signifies the second series of
but have become widely accepted as the de facto “offi-
the Lawyers’ Edition. United States case reporters are
cial” reporters of the lower federal courts because of the
sequentially numbered, but the volume number is never
absence of a true official reporter. (Of the federal appeals
higher than 999. When the 1,000th volume is reached
and district courts, only one, the D.C. Circuit, has an offi-
(the threshold in earlier years was lower), the volume
cial reporter, United States Court of Appeals Reports, and
number is reset to 1 and a “2d” is appended after the re-
even that one is rarely used today.)[12]
porter’s abbreviation. Some case reporters are in their
third series, and a few are approaching their fourth. When lower federal court opinions are cited, the citation
includes the name of the court. This is placed in the
Some very old Supreme Court cases have odd-looking ci-
parentheses immediately before the year. Some exam-
tations, such as Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch)
ples:
137 (1803). The "(1 Cranch)" refers to the fact that,
before there was a reporter series known as the United
• Geary v. Visitation of Blessed Virgin Mary School, 7
States Reports compiled by the Supreme Court’s Reporter
F.3d 324 (3d Cir. 1993) – a 1993 case in the U.S.
of Decisions, cases were gathered, bound together, and
Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
sold privately by the Court’s Reporter of Decisions. In
this example, Marbury was first reported in an edition • Glassroth v. Moore, 229 F. Supp. 2d 1290 (M.D.
by William Cranch, who was responsible for publishing Ala. 2002) – a 2002 case in the U.S. District Court
Supreme Court reports from 1801 to 1815. Such re- for the Middle District of Alabama
ports, named for the individual who gathered them and
hence called "nominative reports", existed from 1790 to U.S. circuit and district court cases from 1789 to 1880
9.3 State courts 9

were reported in Federal Cases, abbreviated F. Cas. An peals (an intermediate appellate court) published in
example of the citation form is: Wheaton v. Peters, 29 F. the South Eastern Reporter's 2nd series
Cas. 862 (C.C.E.D. Pa. 1832) (No. 17,486).
• Foxworth v. Maddox, 137 So. 161 (Fla. 1931) – a
case in the Florida Supreme Court published in the
9.3 State courts Southern Reporter

State court decisions are published in several places. • People v. Brown, 282 N.Y.S.2d 497 (N.Y. 1967) – a
Many states have their own official state reporters, which case in the New York Court of Appeals (New York’s
publish decisions of one or more of that state’s courts. highest court) published in West’s New York Supple-
Reporters that publish decisions of a state’s highest court ment's 2nd series. The case also appears in West’s
are abbreviated the same as the state’s name (note: this regional reporter: People v. Brown, 229 N.E.2d 192
is the traditional abbreviation, not the postal abbrevia- (N.Y. 1967). Note, in both forms, that “N.Y.” is
tion), regardless of what the actual title of the reporter is. placed in the parenthetical, because both West’s New
Thus, the official reporter of decisions of the California York Supplement and the North Eastern Reporter re-
Supreme Court (titled California Reports) is abbreviated port the opinions of more courts than only the New
“Cal.” (or, for subsequent series, “Cal. 2d,” “Cal. 3d”, or York Court of Appeals. A citation to the officially
“Cal. 4th”). published reports, People v. Brown, 20 N.Y.2d 238
(1967), however, does not require the court name in
the parenthetical, because the official New York Re-
• Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co., 248 N.Y. 339
ports only report opinions of the New York Court of
(1928), a case in the New York Court of Appeals,
Appeals.
reported in New York Reports. Note that the New
York Court of Appeals is the highest court in New
York. Because the New York Reports only report Abbreviations for lower courts vary by state, as each state
opinions of the New York Court of Appeals, there has its own system of trial courts and intermediate ap-
is no need to repeat the court designation before the pellate courts. When a case appears in both an official
year. reporter and a regional reporter, either citation can be
used. Generally, citing to the regional reporter is pre-
• Green v. Chicago Tribune Company, 286 Ill. App. ferred, since out-of-state attorneys are more likely to have
3d 1 (1996) – a case in the Illinois Appellate Court, access to these. Many lawyers prefer to include both cita-
reported in Illinois Appellate Court Reports. Note tions. Some state courts require that parallel citations (in
that, in contrast to New York, the Illinois Appel- this case, citing to both the official reporter and an unof-
late Court is only the intermediate court of appeals ficial regional reporter) be used when citing cases from
in Illinois; decisions of the Illinois Supreme Court any court in that state’s system.
are reported in Illinois Reports, abbreviated “Ill.” (or Like the United States Supreme Court, some very old
“Ill. 2d”). Because the Illinois Appellate Court Re- state case citations include an abbreviation of the name
ports are dedicated solely to reporting decisions of of either the private publisher or the reporter of deci-
the Illinois Appellate Court, there is no need to re- sions, a state-appointed officer who originally collected
peat the court designation before the year. and published the cases. For example, in Hall v. Bell, 47
Mass. (6 Met.) 431 (1843), the citation is to volume 47
In addition to the official reporters, Thomson West pub- of Massachusetts Reports, which, like United States Re-
lishes several series of “regional reporters” that cover sev- ports, was started in the latter half of the 19th century
eral states each. These are the North Eastern Reporter, and incorporated into the series a number of prior edi-
Atlantic Reporter, South Eastern Reporter, Southern Re- tions originally published privately, and began numbering
porter, South Western Reporter, North Western Reporter, from that point; “6 Met.” refers to the 6th volume that
and Pacific Reporter. California, Illinois, and New York had originally been published privately by Theron Met-
also each have their own line of Thomson West reporters, calf. An example of a case cited to a reporter that has
because of the large volume of cases generated in those not been subsequently incorporated into an officially pub-
states (titled, respectively, West’s California Reporter, Illi- lished series is Pierson v. Post, 3 Cai. 175 (N.Y. Sup. Ct.
nois Decisions, and West’s New York Supplement). Some 1804), reported in volume 3 of Caines’ Reports, page 175,
smaller states (like South Dakota) have stopped publish- named for George Caines, who had been appointed to re-
ing their own official reporters, and instead have certified port New York cases; the case was before the New York
the appropriate West regional reporter as their “official” Supreme Court of Judicature (now defunct). Most states
reporter. gave up this practice in the mid-to-late 19th century, but
Here are some examples of how to cite West reporters: Delaware persisted until 1920.
Some states, notably California and New York, have their
• Jackson v. Commonwealth, 583 S.E.2d 780 (Va. Ct. own citation systems that differ significantly from the
App. 2003) – a case in the Virginia Court of Ap- various federal and national standards.[13] In California,
10 9 UNITED STATES

the year is placed between the names of the parties and • Groucho Marx Prods. v. Playboy Enters., No.
the reference to the case reporter; in New York, the 77 Civ. 1782 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 30, 1977) –
year is wrapped by in brackets instead of parentheses. a decision of the U.S. District Court for the
Both New York and California styles wrap an entire cita- Southern District of New York; the docket
tion in parentheses when used as a stand-alone sentence, number and specific date allow a researcher
although New York places the terminating period out- to track down the printed copy maintained
side the parentheses, whereas California places it inside. by the court if needed (legal citation forms
New York wraps just the reporter and page references in strongly prefer citations to traditional printed
parentheses when the citation is used as a clause. resources).
Either way, both state styles differ from the • Even though only some decisions of the U.S. Courts
national/Bluebook style of simply dropping in the of Appeal are considered “published” (those appear-
citation as a separate sentence without further adorn- ing in Federal Reporter), Thomson West has re-
ment. Both systems use less punctuation and spacing in cently started making available all decisions offi-
their reporter abbreviations. cially considered “unpublished” in a separate pub-
For example, assuming that it is being placed as a stand- lication called Federal Appendix (abbreviated “F.
alone sentence, the Brown case above would be cited (us- App'x”).
ing the official reporter) to a New York court as:
• Cases intentionally left officially unpublished are
nonetheless often “published” on computer services,
• (People v Brown, 20 NY2d 238 [1967]).
such as LexisNexis and Westlaw. These services
And, again, as a stand-alone sentence, the famous Green- have their own citation formats based on the year
man product liability case would be cited to a California of the case, an abbreviation indicating the com-
court as: puter service (or a specific database of that com-
puter service), and an identification number; cita-
• (Greenman v. Yuba Power Products, Inc. (1963) 59 tions to online databases also usually include the
Cal.2d 57.)[14] case’s docket number and the specific date when it
was decided (due to the preference for citation to
traditional printed resources). Examples include:
9.4 Unpublished decisions
• Fuqua Homes, Inc. v. Beattie, No. 03-3587,
Main article: Non-publication 2004 WL 2495842 (8th Cir. Nov. 8, 2004) – a
case found on the Westlaw electronic database,
decided by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
A growing number of court decisions are not published Eighth Circuit; the citation includes the case’s
in case reporters. For example, only 7% of the opinions original docket number (No. 03-3587), and
of the California intermediate courts (the Courts of Ap- a citation to the electronic database that indi-
peal) are published each year. This is mainly because cates the date of decision, the database (WL
judges certify only significant decisions for publication, for Westlaw) and a unique serial number in
due to the massive number of frivolous appeals flowing that database (2495842).
through the courts and the importance of avoiding infor-
• Chavez v. Metro. Dist. Comm'n, No.
mation overload.[15]
3:02CV458(MRK), 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS
It is also argued that this is in part because in many states, 11266 (D. Conn. June 1, 2004) – a
especially California, the legislature has failed to expand case decided by the U.S. District Court for
the judiciary to keep up with population growth (for vari- the District of Connecticut; the citation in-
ous political and fiscal reasons). To deal with their crush- cludes the case’s original docket number (No.
ing caseloads, many judges prefer to write shorter-than- 3:02CV458(MRK)), the date of decision, the
normal opinions that dispose of minor issues in the case database (U.S. Dist. LEXIS, indicating the
in a sentence or two. They avoid publishing such abbre- LexisNexis database for U.S. District Court
viated opinions, however, so as not to risk creating bad cases), and a unique serial number in that
precedents. database (11266).
Attorneys have several options in citing “unpublished” de-
cisions: Some court systems—such as the California state court
system and the federal Court of Appeals for the Second,
• For cases that have not been published or put in an Seventh, and Ninth Circuits—forbid attorneys to cite un-
electronic database, or very recently decided cases published cases as precedent. Other systems allow ci-
that have not yet been published or put in an elec- tation of unpublished cases only under specific circum-
tronic database, a citation to the case’s docket num- stances. For example, in Kentucky, unpublished cases
ber before the court that decided it is required. from that state’s courts can only be cited if the case was
9.7 Types of citations 11

decided after January 1, 2003, and “there is no pub- And a parallel cite to all three U.S. Supreme Court re-
lished opinion that would adequately address the issue be- porters, combined with pin cites for all three, would pro-
fore the court”. From 2004 to 2006, federal judges de- duce:
bated whether the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure
(FRAP) should be amended so that unpublished cases • Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 158, 93 S. Ct. 705,
in all circuits could be cited as precedent. In 2006, the 729, 35 L. Ed. 2d 147, 180 (1973).
Supreme Court, over the objection of several hundred
judges and lawyers, adopted a new Rule 32.1 of FRAP But in its opinions, the Court usually provides a direct
requiring that federal courts allow citation of unpublished pin cite only to the official reporter. The two unoffi-
cases. The rule took effect on January 1, 2007. cial reporters, when they reprint the Court’s opinions, add
on parallel cites to each other, but do not add pin cites.
Therefore, a citation to Roe v. Wade in a later Supreme
9.5 Vendor-neutral citations Court decision as viewed on Lexis or Westlaw would ap-
pear as follows:
With the rise of the web, many courts placed new cases
on websites. Some were published while others never lost • Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 158, 93 S. Ct. 705, 35
their “unpublished” status. The major legal citation sys- L. Ed. 2d 147 (1973).
tems required cites to the officially published page num-
bers, in which publishers such as West Publishing claimed Even then, such citations are still quite lengthy, and
a copyright interest. (In view of the decision of the U.S. may look quite mysterious and intimidating to laypersons
Supreme Court in Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone when they read court opinions. Since the 1980s, there
Service, that the mere alphabetical listing of telephone has been an ongoing debate among American judges as
subscribers was an inadequate amount of effort to be valid to whether they should relegate such lengthy citations to
to obtain copyright, the claim of copyright on page num- footnotes to improve the readability of their opinions, as
bering of court decisions is probably not valid.) strongly urged by Bryan A. Garner, one of the leading
[16]
A vendor-neutral citation movement led to provisions authors on legal writing and style. Most judges do rele-
being made for citations to web-based cases and other le- gate some citations to footnotes, but jurists such as Justice
gal materials. A few courts modified their rules to specif- Stephen Breyer and Judge Richard Posner refuse to use
ically take into account cases “published” on the web. footnotes in their opinions.

An example of a vendor-neutral citation:

9.7 Types of citations
• Equal. Found. of Greater Cincinnati, Inc. v. City
of Cincinnati, 1997 FED App. 0318P (6th Cir.) – There are two types of citations: proprietary and public
a 1997 case decided by the U.S. Court of Appeals domain citations. There are many citation guides; the
for the Sixth Circuit; the citation to the number- most commonly acknowledged is called The Bluebook:
ing system adopted by the court (“1997 FED App. A Uniform System of Citation, compiled by the Columbia
0318P”) eliminates the need to cite to a specific ven- Law Review, Harvard Law Review, University of Pennsyl-
dor’s product, in this case Thomson West's Federal vania Law Review, and Yale Law Journal. Public domain
Reporter (i.e., 128 F.3d 289). citations refer to the official reporters, rather than a pub-
lication service such as Westlaw, LexisNexis, particular
legal journals, or specialization-specific reporters. States
9.6 Pinpoint citations with their own unique style for court documents and case
opinions also publish their own style guides which, in-
In practice, most lawyers go one step farther, once they clude information on their citation rules.
have developed the correct citation for a case using the
rules discussed above. Most court opinions contain hold-
ings on multiple issues, so lawyers need to cite to the page
that contains the specific holding they wish to invoke in
10 See also
their own case. Such citations are known as pinpoint ci-
tations, “pin cites”, or “jump cites”.[17] • Oxford Standard for Citation Of Legal Authorities
(OSCOLA)
For example, in Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court
held that the word “person” as used in the Fourteenth • Category:Case law reporters
Amendment does not include the unborn. That partic- • Citator
ular holding appears on page 158 of the volume in which
the Roe decision was published. A full pin cite to Roe for • German legal citation
that holding would be as follows: • Law report
• Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 158 (1973). • Legal research
12 13 EXTERNAL LINKS

11 External links went on to describe the variety of frivolous appeals regu-

larly encountered by the Courts of Appeal, and concluded:
“Our typical opinions in such cases add nothing to the
• American Association of Law Libraries Legal Cita-
body of stare decisis, and if published would merely clut-
tion Guide
ter overcrowded library shelves and databases with infor-
• Introduction to Basic Legal Citation by Peter Martin mation utterly useless to anyone other than the actual lit-
igants therein and complicate the search for meaningful
• FindLaw for Legal Professionals precedent.”

[16] AALL Citation Formats Committee; accessed May 31,

2014.
11.1 Law by state
[17] Using Pinpoints, Tulane University Law School, Legal Ci-
• State Laws, Code, & Statutes tation Guide.

• State Statutes by Topic

• State Statutes by Jurisdiction 13 External links

• Oxford Standard Citation Of Legal Authorities
12 Notes • Screencast introduction to OSCOLA

[1] Bryan A. Garner, editor in chief, ed. (2012). Black’s Law • Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations
Dictionary (9th Abridged ed.). St. Paul, MN: West. p.
221. ISBN 978-0-314-26578-4. • WorldLII

[2] World Legal Information Institute (WorldLII)

[3] Austlii.edu.au

[4] Archbold abbreviates it to Cox, which is also used for

Cox’s Chancery Cases

[5] Archbold Criminal Pleading, Evidence and Practice.

1999. p xvi.

[6] Carries summary reports that can be used if, and only if,
a verbatim report is not available

[7] Carries summary reports, see note to the Criminal Law

Review

[8] Archbold Criminal Pleading, Evidence and Practice,

1999, p.xix

[9] It is also abbreviated “Sol Jo”

[10] Archbold Criminal Pleading, Evidence and Practice

(1999), p. xx

[11] Archbold Criminal Pleading, Evidence and Practice

(1999), p. xix.

[12] D.C. Circuit Rule 32.1 provides: “Citations to decisions

of this court must be to the Federal Reporter. Dual or
parallel citation of cases is not required.”

[13] “New York Law Reports Style Manual”

[14] Greenman v. Yuba Power Products, Inc. (1963) 59 C2d

57

[15] Schmier v. Supreme Court, 78 Cal. App. 4th 703 (2000).

The plaintiff in this case unsuccessfully challenged the se-
lective publication policy as unconstitutional. The court
retorted: “Appellant either misunderstands or ignores the
realities of the intermediate appellate process.” The court
 13

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Dreftymac, Shoeofdeath, Newyorkbrad, Mpoulshock, Eastlaw, Dgw, The Little Blue Frog, Jeff.Mortimer, Anyo Niminus, Darklilac,
Wl219, GSTQ, Eliza-A, PBot, Frankie816, 1995hoo, STBot, CommonsDelinker, Pomte, Kazzay, TheOtherJesse, Chimpex, NoBiggie,
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Vincentvangolf, DrFleischman, AnomieBOT, Eph86, Bluerasberry, James500, RevelationDirect, LilHelpa, PraeceptorIP, Srich32977,
Shadowjams, FrumpyTheClown, Haeinous, Wikiain, Wordwriter123456789, Tisane, ZéroBot, Ida Shaw, H3llBot, Uinen, Neil P. Quinn,
Andrew Gwilliam, Da5id403, BG19bot, Lexhobbs, Curiosity1982, Hukamsinghyadavn, Melonkelon, Eric Corbett, BethNaught, Jordans
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