The last blog was about the primary source legislation; now, we will be looking at another primary source, cases. Legal cases are all of the court’s decided cases once the judgement has been passed. Each case has one accuser and one or more defendant and may be criminal or civil.
In criminal cases, charges are brought by the country as a whole, but traditionally, this was done in the name of the monarch, represented by Rex for a king or Regina for a queen. This is abbreviated to simply “R”, so criminal case names appear in the form of R v Defendant(s).
In a civil case, the accusing is done by individuals, whether this is a specific person, organisation or governing body (such as that of a school). The accuser is called the claimant, so civil case names take the form Claimant v Defendant(s). There may be more than one claimant, for example, a town of people affected by a factory’s pollution.
The Basics of Citing a Case
Neutral citations were introduced in 2001 as a way to make identifying cases easier. They have the basic format:
Case name | [Year] | Court | Number, | [Year] OR (Year) | Volume | Report abbreviation | First page
This is then followed by a comma, then the citation of a law report where the case has been recorded. Remember that the year should be inside square brackets.
An example of just the neutral citation is:
Corr v IBC Vehicles Ltd [2008] UKHL 13.
This indicates that the judgement was issued in 2008, from the UK House of Lords and that it was the 13th judgement that year.
The neutral citation is then followed by a law report citation, which we will now look at in more detail. A basic law report citation is:
Case name | [Year] OR (Year) | Volume | Report abbreviation | First page | (Court)
Here, the case name is followed by [Year] or (Year), which is the year the law report was published. It should be in square brackets if the year also identifies the volume or round brackets if not.
You do not need to include the volume number if the year identifies the volume and there is only one volume of the series issued in that year. This is the situation with the following example:
Page v Smith [1996] AC 155 (HL).
If the year identifies the volume but there has been more than one in the series issued that year, put the volume number after the year in square brackets and before the report abbreviation. For example:
Barrett v Enfield LBC [2001] 2 AC 550 (HL).
However, if the year does not identify the volume, put the year in round brackets followed by the volume number. So, it appears as:
Barrett v Enfield LBC (1999) 49 BMLR 1 (HL).
The next element needed for the citation is the report abbreviation. There is a list of these on pages 45–46 of the OSCOLA Referencing Guide. As these abbreviations are standard, they do not need to be explained in your writing. If the law report you are using is not listed, there is a list of suggested, standard abbreviations on page 45. For example, Criminal is Crim and International is Intl. Remember that abbreviations in OSCOLA do not take full stops! If you are not sure what abbreviation to use, it is always acceptable to write the full title.
The next element in a case citation is the number of the page on which the report begins. Only the first page should be included, not the full range of pages.
Finally, the first page number should be directly followed (with no comma) by the court in which the case was heard, in brackets. For example, the Barrett v Enfield LBC case above was heard in the House of Lords, which is abbreviated to HL and placed inside brackets at the end of the citation.
However, if the case has a neutral citation, there is no need to do this as the neutral citation already gives the court. In the Corr v IBC Vehicles Ltd case above, this was also heard in the House of Lords, as the neutral citation says UKHL, meaning the UK House of Lords.
Subsequent Citation of Cases
If you are referring to the same case multiple times in your writing, there is no need to write out the full citation every time. Choose a reasonable abbreviation for the case, such as Barrett instead of Barrett v Enfield LBC or just Cunningham instead of R v Cunningham. If you are referring back to an earlier footnote, put the number of the original footnote with the full citation after the new citation in the form (n X), where X is the original footnote number. For example:
3 Barrett v Enfield LBC [2001] 2 AC 550 (HL).
8 Barrett (n 3).
Pinpointing a Quote
Sometimes, you may need to quote part of the judgement or case transcript. To do this, you will need to pinpoint where you got the quote from so readers can easily find it for themselves. If you are using a case with a neutral citation, then there will be an official transcript with numbered paragraphs. Here, you would put the relevant paragraph number in square brackets at the end of the citation, before the full stop in a footnote:
Case name | [Year] | Court | Number, | [Year] OR (Year) | Volume | Report abbreviation | First page | [Paragraph number]
So, the full reference would be:
Callery v Gray [2001] EWCA Civ 1117, [2001] 1 WLR 2112 [42].
If there is more than one quote used, pinpoint all paragraphs with a comma between the numbers, in separate square brackets:
Callery v Gray [2001] EWCA Civ 1117, [2001] 1 WLR 2112 [42], [44].
If you need to pinpoint a range of paragraphs, insert an en dash between the first and last paragraphs pinpointed, keeping separate square brackets:
Callery v Gray [2001] EWCA Civ 1117, [2001] 1 WLR 2112 [42]–[44].
If you are pinpointing a case that does not have numbered paragraphs, you will instead need to pinpoint the page. This doesn’t need to go in brackets but should also go at the end of the citation. If it comes after a court identification in brackets, you can simply put it after this and before the full stop in a footnote:
Case name | [Year] OR (Year) | Volume | Report abbreviation | First page | (Court) | Page pinpoint
For example:
Beattie v E & F Beattie Ltd [1938] Ch 708 (CA) 720.
If the court is not identified, insert a comma between the first page number and the page pinpoint to make the citation clear. Treat multiple page pinpoints and ranges of pages in a similar way to paragraphs above:
Beattie v E & F Beattie Ltd [1938] Ch 708 (CA) 720, 722.
Beattie v E & F Beattie Ltd [1938] Ch 708 (CA) 720–23.
Remember the rules for writing ranges of numbers, which can be found in my OSCOLA Referencing Introduction. Also, bear in mind that you do not need to include case pinpoints in the bibliography.
Finally
Cases are another area that can be a bit tricky, if only because there are so many different special cases. In fact, there will be another blog on the law report hierarchy and subsequent citations of cases, as there is not enough room here! Remember the basics though, and it is easy to adjust as necessary.
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