PE 425: Cases, Legal Citations, and More

Decoding a Case Citation

A case citation usually consists of the following items:

• The case parties -- usually the names of the plaintiff and defendant. For example:  Roe v. Wade
• The volume number of the "reporter," or the book series in which the case is published.
• An abbreviation of the reporter title. For example:  U.S. stands for United States Reports, the government's official publication of Supreme Court decisions.
• The page number on which the case appears within that reporter.

For example, the citation Florida v. Royer 460 U.S. 491 (1983) means that the case of Florida v. Royer was published in volume 460 of United States Reports on page 491. The case decision was issued in 1983, as noted in the parentheses.

Parallel Citations

It's important to note when the same case is printed in different book series (i.e. reporters), more than one citation may be given. These additional citations are known as parallel citations.

Example: 460 U.S. 491, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 75 L.Ed.2d 229.

In the above example, there are three parallel citations to the same case:

• U.S. refers to the United States Reports (published by the federal government)
• S.Ct. refers to Supreme Court Reporter (published by West)
• and L.Ed.2d. refers to the Lawyer's Edition, Second Series (published by LexisNexis)

The text of the opinion will be identical in all three sources.  Any additional commentary or editorial material will differ with each publisher.

Typically, ANY one of these parallel citations may be used to locate a case within the LexisNexis database.

When you find an article that may be useful for your assignment, do not start by reading the entire article from start to finish! Follow these steps:

1. Start at the top - read the abstract or skim the introduction if there is no abstract. This will summarize the article and key findings.

2. Move to the end - read the conclusion of the article. The authors will summarize the findings and weigh the impact on the topic.

3. Determine if the article is relevant to your topic, and how it relates to your other sources. If it is still appropriate, be sure to download the PDF and save the citation.

Key questions:

- What is the author's position or argument? How does that relate to my argument?

- What other articles, cases, opinions does the author use to support their argument?