A General Guide To Reading Legal Citation Forms

by Dennis P. McNamee, J.D.

When you look at a legal "citation," that is the location description of the legal publication in which the case or article is located, you will see only two type faces in them. Citations are used in the bodies of legal briefs (formal filings of any type such as replies, answers, or orders) or memoranda. The type faces used are: italics, shown by underlining in some formats, and the plain type face, just like this sentence is written. Generally, law review text (the body of a report) or articles, and consequently most college reports with legal references, contain no citations. These written materials prefer footnotes and use: ordinary type, italics, and large and small capitals. This page will give a few examples of the citation form and example of usage for various written materials. Upon occasion you will come upon material not necessarily illustrated here or in any other system of citation. When this occurs it is wise to assume that the author chose a format similar to one with which he or she was familiar and adapted it as the circumstances required.

Citations are written as if they were either clauses or sentences of their own. Citations will use punctuation which generally follow their own rules of grammar. The rules are not hard to learn and you will find yourself understanding them very quickly. Citations either support or contradict a full sentence or a part of a sentence. Citations which are either supportive of, or contradictive of an entire sentence, are structured as sentences beginning with capital letters, and ending with periods. If a citation supports or contradicts only a portion of a sentence (and is not put in a footnote by the author) the citation will be between commas immediately following the clause it supports or contradicts. A number of citations following one another is referred to as a "string citation."

Reading Case Citations: (all case names and numbers are fictitious and are for illustration only)

For State Courts in general:

Green v. Doe, 256 Ohio St. 2d. 424, 576 N.E.2d 78 (1995). The case name may also be written as, Green v.Doe, 256 Ohio St. 2d.. 424, 576 N.E.2d 78 (1995). The case name is always either in italics or underlined.

In this example, the name of the plaintiff was Green and the name of the defendant was Doe. On the face of the complaint it was probably written with the full names of the parties as John N. Green v. Peter M. Doe, (this is known in legal jargon as the "style" of the case) with the appropriate case number, the court's docketing number and the name of the Judge. For the purposes of citation we eliminate these items and include only those which will allow us to find the opinion of the court and use its findings in our own case pleadings.

The number, 256 Ohio St. 424 indicates that this case came from the official Ohio reporter of its highest court, volume 256 and began on page 424. The following citation "576 N.E. 2d. 78 (1995)," illustrates where to find this same case in the West Reporter System 2d. series for the northeast region which includes Ohio. In this case I would go to the law library and look for the West Northeast Reporter Series 2d, volume 576. I would turn to page 78 and look for the beginning of the case to find the information I needed to check or verify. The "1995" in parentheses indicates the court's opinion was published in 1995.

In general, the official reporter of the state in which the case was litigated will be the first citation, with the unofficial West Reporter, or another commercial company's reporter series, following the official report. In some cases, a state will not have an official reporter of its own, or the state citation may be unknown. In this case the commercial company citation will directly follow the case name (style). For example, the State of Alaska does not publish its own case opinions. When citing one of these opinions, the commercial reporter should be treated as the official reporter, ie. Green v. Doe, 656 P.2d 1854 (Alaska. Ct. App. 1998). The West Reporter series is Pacific 2d., volume 656 and the case begins on page 1854. Every case citation must include which court decided the case. In this case, because there was no state official reporter the commercial reporter was cited to include the state and court of jurisdiction as well as the date of the decision.

Be careful when reading the source of a case opinion. In New York, for example, the Supreme Court, which in other states is the highest court of a state, is the appellate court and takes appeals from the trial court level (court of original jurisdiction). The New York Court of Appeals, on the other hand, is not the appellate court directly above the trial court, but is what would be the supreme court in another state. Most reported opinions on which future cases are built come from the appeals of trial courts. It is rare that a trial court opinion is used in a case, and these are not reported.

Locating exact page numbers of statements or passages:

If we have a citation which reads, " Green v. Doe, 256 Ohio St. 2d. 424, 428," it means that the passage we are reading is in the Ohio State Reporter, volume 256, with the decision beginning on page 424, but with the passage we are reading located on page 428. If the citation reads, " Green v. Doe, 256 Ohio St. 2d. 424, 428 to 430," the citation refers to three entire pages of the opinion and we will need to read them all to obtain the material we need. If the citation read, " Green v. Doe, 256 Ohio St. 2d. 424, at p. 428," the information in the passage we are reading is located precisely on page 428 of the reporter.

For Federal Courts:

Reading federal court citations follows the same basic rules as reading state court citations. The name of the case is followed by: the sources in which it was published, what circuit court was jurisdictional, the date of the decision (at least the year), any further history of the case, and any further pertinent information. For example: Green v. Doe, 80 F.3d. 906 (4th Cir. 1995), cert. granted, 60 U.S.L.W. 3562 (U.S. Mar. 14, 1996) (No. 96-1245). This citation is from the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals which covers the states of Virginia, North and South Carolina and Maryland. It is a case which was decided in 1995 and from the citation, was appealed to the United States Supreme Court (cert. granted). The appeals case opinion is found in the 3d series of Federal Reporters, volume 80 at page 906. The appeal to the United States Supreme Court is pending. This is noted from the appearance of case number 96-1245, which is the Supreme Court case (docket) number. If the case were resolved and a Supreme Court opinion issued the citation would read, Green v. Doe, 834 U.S. 1127, 93 S.Ct. 89, 102 L.Ed. 1655 (1998). The case number 834 is the volume in the U.S. reporter, the official United States Supreme Court reporter, beginning on page 1127. Other reporters in which it can be found is the Supreme Court reporter, and the Lawyers Edition (L.Ed.), a commercial publication.

Short form citations:

When you read some legal documents and articles a shorter form of the citations I have already discussed will be used. It will appear as: Green v. Doe, 834 U.S. at 1130; or Green, at 1130; or even 834 U.S. at 1130. It is the same case, but the author has chosen this form to show the page and case but save space. You may also see several other short forms. Among them are " Id." which refers to the citation immediately preceding the new quote or piece of information; " supra," which refers to a citation on a previous page of the document being read, for example, Black, supra note 7 at 61 ( the case is Black, the citation was previously given in note 7 on page 61); and hereinafter, which usually illustrates two different cases or authorities appearing in the same footnote.

A quote within a quote:

Occasionally, the author of a document will quote a case that has another case quoted in the paragraph or paragraphs chosen. It may appear something like: "The court in Green stated that the power of the Legislature 'is subject to a system of checks and balances set forth in the Constitution of the State of Tennessee' and thus the power to make law is subject to judicial review." Green v. Doe, 3 Tenn. 867, 910 (Cooke) (quoting Pearl v. Kirkendahl, 48 Tenn. 206 (1 Heisk. 1875)). As a general rule, the original document or decision must be cited when it is taken from another document in which it is cited. This rule makes it possible to verify the original citation as well as its use in the subsequent document and attempt to show it is similar or different from the context which you are researching. The citations I have used for Tennessee in this paragraph illustrate an antiquated form in which each state supreme court justice issued their own decision volumes. This makes the volume numbers and individuals important and must be placed together to find the correct material. Such formats existed in many states prior to 1886. After 1886, the West Reporter series standardized the volume numbers for the states that each covers.

West Regional Reporters and the states they cover:

Atlantic; Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland.

South Eastern: West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia.

North Eastern: Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois.

South Western: Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, Texas.

Southern: Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida.

North Western: North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan.

Pacific: Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, California, Alaska, Hawii.

Examples of other citations commonly found in documents and articles:

State constitutions are commonly written with the state abbreviation first, the article abbreviation second, the article number and the section within the article. Such a constitution would be cited as, "Tex. Const. art IV § 7."

Statutes are written with the title of the statute followed by the section and the complete volume citations and code volume names they are listed in. An example is, "Tennessee Uniform Administrative Procedures Act § 5 §§ 310, Tenn. Code Ann. § 4- 5-310 (1995). A short form of this citation can be written, "Tenn. Code Ann. § 4- 5-310 (1995)."

Bills in the Congress or state legislature are written in a form similar to, "H.R. 3055, 94th Cong., 2d. Sess. § 2, 122 Cong. Rec. 16,870 (1976). In plain English this is House Resolution number 3055, from the 94th Congress second session and can be found in section 2. The official record of this action can be found at volume 122 of the Congressional Record on page 16,870 from 1976.

For a legislative hearing the title should always read as the cover of the hearing transcript reads. An example would be, " Hearing on Discrimination on the Basis of Age, 1985: Hearings on S. 8765 Before the Human Services Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Heath, Education and Welfare, 87th Legislative Session (1995) (statement of Chairman Michael Mieleson, EEOC).

Federal rules and regulations can be written as 47 C.F.R. § 41.1001. This is title 47 of the Code of Federal Regulations section 41.1001. Each title of the C.F.R. is revised annually. The citations when written should be up to date, however, on an older citation it may be necessary to do a key word search on a computerized database such as through the Library of Congress' internet library to find the most recent set of rules.

Citation for for court decisions and opinions from internet sources should follow the standard legal style of the case name followed by the state reporter number, if the case has been reported, or the case number if the case was not reported, followed by the court's docket (case number)in which the decision is rendered plus the date, all in parentheses. If it is not possible to find the reporter number use the case number first followed by the URL designation of the case in similar fashion to a commercial reporter. Such a citation may read something like, “Green v. Doe, 256 Ohio St. 2d. 424, http://www.ohiocourts/franklin/CV-01234-467 (Ohio Ct. App. March,1995); or “Green v. Doe, Ohio Ct. App. No. CV-01234-467, http://www.ohiocourts/franklin/CV-01234-467 (Ohio Ct. App. March, 1995).

I hope this brief overview of the way to read citations has been helpful. If you have any questions or find you are having trouble with a particular citation, e-mail me and I will help you.

DENNIS P. McNAMEE, J.D.- ALL RIGHTS RESERVED