Case citation

 ( Case Law Reporters ) 

Sebastian Hongray v. Union of India:

• AIR 1984 SC 571 – "AIR" refers to the All India Reporter, "1984" is the year of judgement (AIR does not use a volume-based classification), "SC" refers to the Supreme Court of India, and "571" is the first page number of the report within the volume;
• (1984) 1 SCC 339 – "1984" is the year of publication, "1" is the volume number of the reporter, "SCC" stands for Supreme Court Cases (the name of the reporter), and "339" is the first page number of the report within the volume; and
• 1984 Cri LJ 289 (SC) – "1984" is the year of publication, "Cri LJ" is an abbreviation for the Criminal Law Journal (the name of the reporter), and "289" is the first page number of the report within the volume. The "SC" in parentheses indicates that the case was heard by the Supreme Court.

A citation of the "Supreme Court Almanac":

• Additional Secretary, Government of India v. Alka Subhash Gadia (1990) 2 Scale 1352

A citation in "Judgements Today":

• 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. From 1996 the Supplementary Volumes were numbered in sequence after the regular volumes.

The SCC also have a separate series of subject-based reporting of the decisions of the Supreme Court:

• Rathinam Nagbhushan Patnaik v. Union of India 1994 SCC (Cri) 740, which refers to the SCC Criminal Reports
• Delhi Transport Corporation v. Mazdoor Congress 1991 SCC (L&S) 1213, which refers to the SCC Labour & Services Reports

• Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 85 S. Ct. 1678, 14 L. Ed. 2d 510 (1965)

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.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. 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. 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.S. (4 Dall.)"), and after Cranch's 9 volumes, 12 more were published by Henry Wheaton (e.g., "15 U.S. (2 Wheat.)"). See the Supreme Court of the United States Reporter of Decisions for other edition names. The name of the reporter of decisions has not been used in citations since the U.S. government began printing the United States Reports.

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, Golan v. Holder, 565 U.S. 302 (2012) was properly cited as Golan v. Holder, before publication.

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 no longer the practice used in cases in the federal courts of appeal, in which the original alignment of parties from the lower court is preserved.

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:

• Geary v. Visitation of Blessed Virgin Mary School, 7 F.3d 324 (3d Cir. 1993) – a 1993 case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
• Glassroth v. Moore, 229 F. Supp. 2d 1290 (M.D. Ala. 2002) – a 2002 case in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama

U.S. circuit and district court cases from 1789 to 1880 were reported in Federal Cases, abbreviated F. Cas. An example of the citation form is: Wheaton v. Peters, 29 F. Cas. 862 (C.C.E.D. Pa. 1832) (No. 17,486).

• Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co., 248 N.Y. 339 (1928), a case in the New York Court of 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 opinions of the New York Court of Appeals, there is no need to repeat the court designation before the year.
• Green v. Chicago Tribune Company, 286 Ill. App. 3d 1 (1996) – a case in the Illinois Appellate Court, reported in Illinois Appellate Court Reports. Note that, in contrast to New York, the Illinois Appellate Court is only the intermediate court of appeals in Illinois; decisions of the Illinois Supreme Court are reported in Illinois Reports, abbreviated "Ill." (or "Ill. 2d"). Because the Illinois Appellate Court Reports are dedicated solely to reporting decisions of the Illinois Appellate Court, there is no need to repeat the court designation before the year.
• Harte v. Hand, 438 N.J. Super. 545 (Ch. Div. 2014). Note that although all published opinions of the New Jersey Superior Court are published in the New Jersey Superior Court Reports, the organization of the Superior Court into three divisions (the Law Division, the Chancery Division, and the Appellate Division) means the citation must specify which division issued the opinion. This is especially salient as the Appellate Division hears appeals from the Law and Chancery Divisions, as occurred with the example case (a rehearing on remand of Harte v. Hand, 433 N.J. Super. 457 (App. Div. 2013)).

In addition to the official reporters, Thomson West publishes several series of "regional reporters" that cover several states each. 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). 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.

Here are some examples of how to cite West reporters:

• Jackson v. Commonwealth, 583 S.E.2d 780 (Va. Ct. App. 2003) – a case in the Virginia Court of Appeals (an intermediate appellate court) published in the South Eastern Reporter's 2nd series
• Foxworth v. Maddox, 137 So. 161 (Fla. 1931) – a case in the Florida Supreme Court published in the Southern Reporter
• People v. Brown, 282 N.Y.S.2d 497 (N.Y. 1967) – a case in the New York Court of Appeals (New York's highest court) published in West's New York Supplement's 2nd series. The case also appears in West's regional reporter: People v. Brown, 229 N.E.2d 192 (N.Y. 1967). Note, in both forms, that "N.Y." is placed in the parenthetical, because both West's New York Supplement and the North Eastern Reporter report the opinions of more courts than only the New York Court of Appeals. A citation to the officially 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 Reports only report opinions of the New York Court of Appeals.

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. Generally, citing to the regional reporter is preferred, since out-of-state attorneys are more likely to have access to these. 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.

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. 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 into the series a number of prior editions originally published privately, 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. 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). Most states gave up this practice in the mid-to-late 19th century, but Delaware persisted until 1920.

Some states, notably California and New York, have their own citation systems that differ significantly from the various federal and national standards. "New York Law Reports Style Manual" In California, the year is placed between the names of the parties and the reference to the case reporter; in New York, the year is wrapped in brackets instead of parentheses, while California uses brackets for parenthetical explanations of a case's holding or relevance. Both New York and California styles wrap an entire citation in parentheses when used as a stand-alone sentence to support the preceding sentence, although New York places the terminating period outside the parentheses, whereas California places 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:

• ( People v. Brown, 20 NY2d 238 1967).

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

• ( Greenman v. Yuba Power Products, Inc. (1963) 59 Cal.2d 57.) Greenman v. Yuba Power Products, Inc. (1963) 59 C2d 57

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 .

Attorneys have several options in citing "unpublished" decisions:

• For cases that have not been published or put in an electronic database, or very recently decided cases that have not yet been published or put in an electronic database, a citation to the case's docket number before the court that decided it is required.
• Groucho Marx Prods. v. Playboy Enters., No. 77 Civ. 1782 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 30, 1977) – a decision of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York; the docket number and specific date allow a researcher to track down the printed copy maintained by the court if needed (legal citation forms strongly prefer citations to traditional printed resources).
• Even though only some decisions of the U.S. Courts of Appeal are considered "published" (those appearing in Federal Reporter), Thomson West has recently started making available all decisions officially considered "unpublished" in a separate publication called Federal Appendix (abbreviated "F. App'x").
• Cases intentionally left officially unpublished are nonetheless often "published" on computer services, such as LexisNexis and Westlaw. These services have their own citation formats based on the year of the case, an abbreviation indicating the computer service (or a specific database of that computer service), and an identification number; citations to online databases also usually include the case's docket number and the specific date when it was decided (due to the preference for citation to traditional printed resources). Examples include:
• Fuqua Homes, Inc. v. Beattie, No. 03-3587, 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 Eighth Circuit; the citation includes the case's original docket number (No. 03-3587), and a citation to the electronic database that indicates the date of decision, the database (WL for Westlaw) and a unique serial number in that database (2495842).
• Chavez v. Metro. Dist. Comm'n, No. 3:02CV458(MRK), 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11266 (D. Conn. June 1, 2004) – a case decided by the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut; the citation includes the case's original docket number (No. 3:02CV458(MRK)), the date of decision, the database (U.S. Dist. LEXIS, indicating the LexisNexis database for U.S. District Court cases), and a unique serial number in that database (11266).

Some court systems—such as the California state court system—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". 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. 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.

A vendor-neutral citation movement AALL Citation Formats Committee ; accessed May 31, 2014. 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:

• Equal. Found. of Greater Cincinnati, Inc. v. City of Cincinnati, 1997 FED App. 0318P (6th Cir.) – a 1997 case decided by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit; the citation to the numbering system adopted by the court ("1997 FED App. 0318P") eliminates the need to cite to a specific vendor's product, in this case Thomson West's Federal Reporter (i.e., 128 F.3d 289).

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