Understanding case citations
About case citations
A case citation can refer to a "reported" or "unreported" full-text version of the case. A case may contain parallel citations, which means there is more than one full-text version of the case.
Reported cases are those that have been published in a law report series. Cases may be published in more than one report series.
Unreported judgments contain the text of the judgment but are not published in a law report series.
A case citation contains all the information needed to locate a particular case. The citation of a reported case refers to the law report series in which the judgment was published. An unreported citation identifies the case by reference to the court which decided the case.
Citing cases in AGLC4
See Chapter 2 in the AGL4 for rules and examples on how to cite cases.
Understanding case citations
This is an example of a reported case citation:
The elements of the citation are:
| Element | Example | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Case name | Allen v Chadwick | The parties to the case |
| Year | (2015) | The year in which the law report was published (this may differ to the year the case was decided) |
| Volume number | 256 | The volume number of the law report (not all reports have a volume number) |
| Law report abbreviation | CLR | The abbreviation of the law report title (in this instance it is the Commonwealth Law Reports) |
| Starting page number | 148 | The page number in the law report that this particular case starts |
This is an example of an unreported case with a medium neutral citation:
The elements of the citation are:
|
Element |
Example |
Description |
|---|---|---|
| Case name | R v Huni | The parties to the case |
| Year | [2014] | The year in which the case was decided |
| Court identifier | QCA | The unique identifier for the court, usually an abbreviation of the court or tribunal name (in this case it is the Supreme Court of Queensland - Court of Appeal) |
| Judgment number | 324 | The sequential judgment number for that year |
This is an example of an unreported case without a medium neutral citation:
The elements of the citation are:
Element |
Example |
Description |
|---|---|---|
| Case name | Bennett v Bennett | The parties to the case |
| Court | Supreme Court of Queensland | The court |
| Judge(s) | Dowsett J | The judge or judges - identified by surname and the abbreviation of their judicial office/s |
| Full Date | 2 February 1996 | The full date of the judgment |
Often a case will include parallel citations. A case should have an unreported version, and then it may also be reported in one or more law report series. Which case should you use and cite? A reported version of a case should be cited in preference to an unreported, and an authorised version of the report should always be used where available (see Rule 2.2.2 in the AGLC)
Tip - Use Lexis+ to find the CaseBase record of a case. In CaseBase, citations are listed from most authoritative (left) to least authoritative (right).
In the screenshot below, for the case Western Australia v Ward, you should consult and cite the CLR (Commonwealth Law Reports) version of the case. The CLR is the authorised report series for the High Court of Australia. The HCA (High court of Australia) is the unreported decision.
Note that the ‘BC’ version of a case (Butterworths Citation) is a unique citation to the Lexis databases and should not generally be cited.
- To access the full-text version of a case, check out the Law reports & cases: full text in this guide.
