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SAMPLE BLUEBOOK CITATION

The Blue Book: A Uniform System of Citation, 18th ed., (2005)

Case Law Full Citation

A full case citation includes five basic components: (1) the name of the case; (2) the published source in which the case may be found; (3) a parenthetical indicating the court and year of decision; (4) other parenthetical information, if any; and (5) the subsequent history of the case, if any:

· Holland v. Donnelly, 216 F. Supp. 2d 227, 230 (S.D.N.Y. 2002), aff’d, 324 F.3d 99 (2d Cir. 2003).

· Green v. Georgia, 442 U.S. 95, 97 (1979) (per curiam) (holding that exclusion of relevant evidence at sentencing hearing constitutes denial of due process).

Case Law Short Form Citation

Once you have provided one full citation to an authority, you are free to use a “short form” in later citations to the same authority, so long as (i) it will be clear to the reader from the short form what is being referenced; (ii) the earlier full citation falls in the same general discussion; and (iii) the reader will have little trouble quickly locating the full citation. There are several acceptable short forms for case citations, illustrated below. What all these forms have in common is that they include a pincite, preceded by “at.” The general rule when choosing a short form is to avoid confusion—the short form will be useless if the reader cannot find the authority to which it refers.

The following are all acceptable short form citations to page 100 of Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co., 162 N.E. 99 (N.Y. 1928) (Cardozo, J.), provided the three conditions listed above are fulfilled:

· Palsgraf, 162 N.E. at 100.

· 162 N.E. at 100.

· Id. at 100.

When using only one party name in a short form citation, use the name of the first party, unless that party is a geographical or governmental unit or other common litigant.You may also shorten a long party name, for example from First Nat’l Trust & Inv. Corp. to First Nat’l, so long as the reference remains unambiguous.

For cases in which a parallel citation is required, short citations take a slightly different form. Thus, Chalfin v. Specter, 426 Pa. 464, 465, 233 A.2d 562, 563 (1967), becomes one of the following short forms:

· Chalfin, 426 Pa. at 465, 233 A.2d at 563.

· 426 Pa. at 465, 233 A.2d at 563.

Id.

“Id.” is the short form used to refer to the immediately preceding authority. Id.’s main purpose is to save space and reduce the amount of citation clutter in your writing. While these goals are important, especially when writing within strict page limits, remember that the overriding purpose of citation is to quickly and conveniently provide the reader with relevant information about the cited sources. To prevent id. from becoming a source of confusion, The Bluebook establishes a set of ground rules for its usage, the most significant of which are introduced here.

· Tip:  The “i” in “id.” is only capitalized when it begins a citation sentence. The underline always runs under the period.

(i) When used alone, id. refers to the identical pincite referenced in the immediately preceding citation:

· The Supreme Court has stated unequivocally that “apprehension by the use of deadly force is a seizure subject to the reasonableness requirement of the Fourth Amendment.” Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1, 7 (1985). By contrast, minimal police interference will not always constitute a “seizure” for Fourth Amendment purposes. Id.

(ii) To refer to a different page or footnote within the immediately preceding authority, add “at” and the new pincite:

· To determine whether a particular exercise of non-lethal police force was reasonable, courts engage in a balancing process that weighs the nature of the intrusion against the “governmental interests.” Id. at 8.

(iii) Id. may only be used when the preceding citation cites to only one source:

· This process weighs the nature of the exertion of force against the governmental interests at stake. See Heath, 854 F.2d at 9. This is an “objective reasonableness” test. Id.

In the example above it is clear that “Id.” refers to Heath. By contrast, the use of “id.” in the following example is improper because it is not clear to which authority “id.” refers:

· Not: To determine whether a particular exercise of non-lethal police force was reasonable, courts engage in a balancing process. Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1, 8 (1985); see also Heath v. Henning, 854 F.2d 6, 8 (2d Cir. 1988). This process weighs the nature of the exertion of force against the governmental interests at stake. See id. at 9.

· Tip:  Sources identified in explanatory parentheticals, explanatory phrases, or subsequent history are ignored for the purposes of this rule.

(iv) The id. form for cases requiring parallel citations is as follows:

· The Pennsylvania Supreme Court grappled with a similarly complicated issue in an election dispute in 1967. See Chalfin v. Specter, 426 Pa. 464, 477, 233 A.2d 562, 568 (1967). In Chalfin, the court was forced to reach decision under a severely rushed schedule. See id. at 468, 233 A.2d at 564.

(v) Id. can be used for all types of authorities—not only for cases. The sections below will provide illustrations of the correct usage of id. in citations to other types of authorities.

Legal Case Reference Within the Text

When referring to the full name of a case in a textual sentence, as opposed to a citation, underline the case name, and only abbreviate widely known acronyms and these eight words:  “&,” “Ass’n,” “Bros.,” “Co.,” “Corp.,” “Inc.,” “Ltd.,” and “No.” The first time you mention a case in the text, follow the case name with the remaining elements of a full citation, set off by commas:

· In Penn Central Transportation Co. v. City of New York, 366 N.E.2d 1271 (N.Y. 1977), the court applied a version of the diminution in value rule.

In a subsequent reference to the case within the same general discussion, you may simply refer to the first party’s name, which you may shorten to save space:

· The Supreme Court’s recent takings jurisprudence has gradually moved away from the New York Court of Appeals’ formulation in Penn Central.

Federal Statutes

A full citation to a federal statute includes three basic elements: (1) the official name of the act; (2) the published source in which the act may be found; and (3) a parenthetical indicating either (i) the year the source was published (used for code citations); or (ii) the year the statute was passed (used for citations to session laws):

· Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 9601-9675 (2000).

· Department of Transportation Act, Pub. L. No. 89-670, § 9, 80 Stat. 931, 944-47 (1966).

· Tip:  Nothing is underlined in a statute citation. “Section” is indicated by the “§” symbol, the plural of which is “§§.”

Codes and Session Laws

Statutes may be cited to a current official or unofficial code, an official or privately published collection of session laws, or a secondary source.

Whenever possible, cite statutes currently in force to the current official code. A code is a set of books containing all of the statutes in force in a given jurisdiction, organized by subject matter. The current official code for federal statutes is the United States Code, which is abbreviated as “U.S.C.” Codes are frequently divided into “titles,” which are then further subdivided into “chapters” and “sections.” A statute citation to an official or unofficial code will tell the reader where the act can be found by listing: (1) the title number; (2) the abbreviated name of the code; (3) the section number(s) in which the act is codified; and (4) the year of the cited code edition (not the year the act was passed). Citations to an unofficial code, such as an “annotated code,” must also include the name of the publisher in the date parenthetical:

· 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (2000).

· 12 U.S.C.A. § 1426 (West 2000).

· Tip:  Note that the United States Code is only codified once every six years. The year that appears next to a code provision in electronic databases like Westlaw or LEXIS generally refers to the most recent unofficial code, such as the U.S.C.A.

To cite to an individual provision of a statute, rather than to the entire act, include the original section number of the provision you wish to cite following the statute name. Note that the “original section number” as used in this context refers to a particular section of the act, not to the section of the code in which that provision has been codified. Thus, in the first example below, “§ 6” refers to section 6 of the APA, while “§ 555” refers to section 555 of Title V of the United States Code:

· Administrative Procedure Act § 6, 5 U.S.C. § 555 (2000).

· National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 § 102, 42 U.S.C. § 4332 (2000).

There are certain circumstances in which the official or unofficial code is unavailable or insufficient. For example, when the statute does not yet appear in a code, or when you need to refer to the historical fact of the statute’s enactment, cite to the session laws instead. Session laws are a bound collection of all statutes enacted by a given legislature, arranged chronologically in the order they were passed. These session laws will later be “codified” and inserted into the official code, which is arranged by subject matter rather than by year of enactment.

The official compilation of federal session laws is the Statutes at Large, abbreviated as “Stat.” A citation to Statutes at Large includes the following elements: (1) the official or popular name of the statute; (2) the public law number, abbreviated “Pub. L. No.”; (3) the volume number, followed by “Stat.” and the page number; and (4) the year the statute was passed. Session law citations may also include pincites to the particular provision of the act cited and to the particular page of the session laws on which that provision appears:

· Department of Transportation Act, Pub. L. No. 89-670, § 9, 80 Stat. 931, 944-47 (1966).

· Health Professions Education Extension Amendments of 1992, Pub. L. No. 102-408, 106 Stat. 1992.

· Tip:  Notice in the second example above that the year parenthetical is omitted because the name of the statute includes its year of enactment.

State Statutes

Cite state statutes, like federal statutes, to an official code whenever possible. A full citation to most state codes includes the following elements: (1) the abbreviated name of the code, as listed in T.1; (2) the cited section number(s); and (3) the year of the cited code edition (not the year the act was passed). Citations to an unofficial state code must also include the name of the publisher in the date parenthetical:

· Fla. Stat. ch. 120.52 (2000).

· Cal. Fin. Code § 500 (West 2000).

· N.Y. Bus. Corp. Law § 717 (McKinney 2000).

Books, Treatises, Non-periodic Materials: Full Citation

Citations to books, treatises, pamphlets, and other nonperiodic materials should include the following elements: (1) the volume number (used only for multivolume sets); (2) the author’s full name as it appears on the publication; (3) the title of the publication (underlined); (4) a pincite; (5) a parenthetical indicating the year of publication, as well as the name of the editor and the edition, if any.

Two authors should appear separated by an ampersand (“&”) in the order in which they are listed on the publication. If a work has more than two authors, either use the first author’s name followed by “et al.” or list all authors’ names:

· 21 Charles Alan Wright & Arthur R. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1006 (2d ed. 1987).

· A. Leo Levin et al., Dispute Resolution Devices in a Democratic Society 77 (1985).

· AIDS and the Law 35 (Harlon L. Dalton et al. eds., 1987).

· Deborah L. Rhode, Justice and Gender 56 (1989).

· Richard H. Fallon, Jr., Daniel J. Meltzer & David L. Shapiro, Hart and Wechsler’s The Federal Courts and the Federal System 685 (5th ed. 2003).

There are special citation forms for a few frequently cited works:

· Black’s Law Dictionary 712 (7th ed. 1999).

· 17 Am. Jur. 2d Contracts § 74 (1964).

· 88 C.J.S. Trial § 192 (1955).

Consecutively Paginated Journals

Most law journals are paginated consecutively throughout an entire volume (i.e., individual “issues” or “books” within a given volume do not begin at page “1,” but rather pick up where the previous issue left off). To cite material appearing in a consecutively paginated periodical, follow this format: [Author(s)], [Title of Work], [Vol. Number] [Abbreviated Periodical Name] [First page of article], [Pincite] [(Year of publication)]:

· Kenneth R. Feinberg, Mediation—A Preferred Method of Dispute Resolution, 16 Pepp. L. Rev. 5, 14 (1989).

· Patricia J. Williams, Alchemical Notes: Reconstructed Ideals from Deconstructed Rights, 22 Harv. C.R.-C.L.L. Rev. 401, 407 (1987).

Newspaper Articles

· Andrew Rosenthal, White House Tutors Kremlin in How a Presidency Works, N.Y. Times, June 15, 1990, at A1.

· Cop Shoots Tire, Halts Stolen Car, S.F. Chron., Oct. 10, 1975, at 43.

Block Quotations

Quotations of fifty or more words should be single spaced, indented left and right, justified, and without quotation marks. This is known as a block quotation. Quotation marks within a block quotation should appear as they do in the original. The citation following a block quotation should not be indented but should begin at the left margin on the line following the quotation, as shown in this example:

[T]his presumptive privilege must be considered in light of our historic commitment to the rule of law. This is nowhere more profoundly manifest than in our view that “the twofold aim [of criminal justice] is that guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer.” We have elected to employ an adversary system of criminal justice in which the parties contest all issues before a court of law. . . . To ensure that justice is done, it is imperative to the function of courts that compulsory process be available for the production of evidence needed either by the prosecution or by the defense.

United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 708-09 (1974) (citation omitted). The Court then balanced this interest against the evils of forced disclosure. Id. at 710.

Direct Citations to Internet Sources

(a) Generally.

An Internet source may be cited directly when it does not exist in a traditional printed format or on a widely available commercial database, or when a traditional printed source, such as a letter or unpublished dissertation, exists but cannot be found and is so obscure that it is practically unavailable. In either case, the title, pagination, and publication date should be reported as they appear on the Internet. The Internet URL should then be appended directly to the end of the citation (i.e., not preceded by “available at” or “at”). Below is an example of a direct citation to an internet source:

· Yonatan Lupu, The Wiretap Act and Web Monitoring: A Breakthrough for Privacy Rights?, 9 Va. J.L. & Tech. 3, ¶ 7 (2004), http://www.vjolt.net/vol9/issue1/v9i1_a03-Lupu.pdf.

(b) Author and title.

The author and title of the piece, and the title of any periodical publishing the piece, should appear as they do in the window of a browser viewing the site. If the “title bar” at the top of the browser window is unwieldy, long, uninformative, or confusing, an alternative title that better describes the source should be used. Follow standard rules for capitalizing the titles of sources, even if the title bar uses nonstandard capitalization:

· JusticeDaily.com, Weird and Dumb International Laws, http://www.justicedaily.com/weird/part2.html (last visited May 21, 2004).

· Not: JusticeDaily.com, Weird Law and Dumb Law – Legal Jokes, Lawyer Jokes, Humor, Law, http://www.justicedaily.com/weird/part2.html (last visited May 21, 2004).

· Antonin Scalia: 10 of Hearts, http://www.deal-with-it.org/hearts/scalia.htm (last visited Sept. 28, 2004).

· Not: Deal-With-It.org | The Cards | Hearts | Antonin Scalia, http://www.deal-with-it.org/hearts/scalia.htm (last visited Sept. 28, 2004).

Many web pages, especially those maintained by institutions, do not have “authors” or “titles” as conventionally understood. When authorship is not conspicuously attributed at the top of the site, a title alone may be used as long as it clearly identifies the site. But if the site is headed by a bare corporate logo, or if no serviceable title can be discerned, a description of the site may be used instead:

· Dunkin’ Donuts, http://www.dunkindonuts.com (last visited Dec. 18, 2003).

· Welcome to the Unofficial Pennsylvania Railroad Homepage, http://www.vetmed.auburn.edu/~smithbf/BFSpages/PRR.html (last visited Aug. 15, 2003).

· Archive of Columns by William Safire, http://www.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/williamsafire/ (last visited Jan. 17, 2004).

· WestlawRewards Frequently Asked Questions, http://www.westlawrewards.com/main/faq.htm (last visited Jan. 5, 2004).

· Review of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Collector’s Edition, http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/HitchhikersGuidetotheGalaxyTheCollectorsEdition-1040605/preview.php (last visited Jan. 6, 2004).