Lessons · Law foundations · reading a case citation
Reading a citation as a set of boxes
A case citation is always the same boxes in the same order: the parties, the volume, the reporter, the page the case starts on, the court, and the year.
Hone is a place to practise a career, one idea a day. This is one of its lessons, written out in full and free to read without an account.
In beta. This lesson was written for Hone and has not yet been checked by an attorney. Practice material, not professional advice. What that means.
What it is for
A cite is checked by pulling the case, and the cite is the instruction for pulling it. A paralegal who can read the boxes finds the case in a minute; one who cannot goes searching by name and comes back with three cases with the same surname in them.
How to think about it
Read it left to right and name each box out loud as you pass it. The parties come first, the numbers point at the shelf, and the bracket at the end says who decided it and when.
Worked example
Ramos v. Delgado Freight, 214 F.R. 88 (9th Cir. 2019)One line, six boxes. Every part of it is doing a job.
Parties first: Ramos v. Delgado Freight.Who the case was between, in the order the caption had them.
Then the numbers: 214 is the volume, F.R. names the reporter, 88 is where the case starts.Volume and page point at a shelf; the reporter says which shelf.
Then the bracket: the year, and the court before it unless the reporter already gave the court away.Which court matters more than the year, because it decides whether the case can bind -- so read the reporter and the bracket as one answer to that question.
Your turn
In Okonjo v. Halvern Mills, 7 S.C.R. 402 (2021), write the number that says which volume to pull.
Volume:
Solve one, graded on the server
The trap
Reading the second number as the page a quotation is on. The number after the reporter is where the case begins; a page inside the case is added after it, and mixing the two sends the reader to the wrong page of the right case.