The standard case citation format in the United States is: :
Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973) where: •
Roe v. Wade is the abbreviated name of the case. Generally, the first name (here,
Roe) is the surname of the
plaintiff, who is the party who filed the suit for an original case, or the
appellant, the party appealing in a case being appealed from a lower court, or the
petitioner when litigating in the
high court of 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 the appeal, or the
respondent, when defending in the high court of the jurisdiction. Litigants are generally referred to by their last name (when they are natural persons), and a case is generally referred to by the first named litigant on each side of the case. In this example,
Roe refers to "
Jane Roe," a pseudonym commonly used when it is appropriate to keep the identity of a litigant out of the public spotlight, and
Wade refers to
Henry Wade, the
Dallas County District Attorney at the time. • 410 is the volume number of the "
reporter" that reported the Court's written opinion in the case titled
Roe v. Wade. • U.S. is the abbreviation of the reporter, or printed book of court opinions. Here, "U.S." stands for
United States Reports. • 113 is the page number (in volume 410 of
United States Reports) where the opinion begins. • 1973 is the year when the court rendered its decision. • The abbreviated name of the court is included inside the parenthesis before the year if the name of the court is not obvious from the reporter. This rule comes into play because certain reporters, such as members of the West
National Reporter System, publish opinions originating from multiple courts. In this example, the name of the court (United States Supreme Court) is obvious (since only decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court are published in
United States Reports) and is thus omitted as a matter of convention. Case citations 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.
Supreme Court of the United States Cases from the
Supreme Court of the United States are officially printed in the
United States Reports. A citation to the
United States Reports looks like this: •
Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954). •
Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966). Many court decisions are published in 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 (abbreviated S. Ct.) and ''
United States Supreme Court Reports, Lawyers' Edition (commonly known simply as Lawyers' Edition'') (abbreviated 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: •
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.
Lower federal courts United States court of appeals cases are published in the
Federal Reporter (F., F.2d, F.3d, or F.4th).
United States district court cases and cases from some specialized courts 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, 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. (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.) 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).
State courts State court decisions are published in several places. 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 using the
traditional abbreviation for the state's name (i.e., 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." (or, for subsequent series, "Cal. 2d," "Cal. 3d", or "Cal. 4th"). •
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)). National Reporter System regions. 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. 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.)
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. 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. 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. 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.
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. A vendor-neutral citation movement 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).
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". Most judges do relegate
some citations to footnotes, but jurists such as Justice
Stephen Breyer and Judge
Richard Posner refuse to use footnotes in their opinions.
Types of citations There are two types of citations: proprietary and
public domain citations. There are many citation guides; the most commonly acknowledged is called
The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation, compiled by the
Columbia Law Review,
Harvard Law Review,
University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and
Yale Law Journal.
Public domain citations refer to the official reporters, rather than a publication service such as
Westlaw,
LexisNexis, particular legal journals, or specialization-specific reporters. 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. ==See also==