When filing a brief or writing a memorandum and using a case not yet published in an official or unofficial reporter, be sure to follow Rule 18 and the general guidelines below.
Basic Structure of a Legal Citation to an Unpublished Court CaseIn a basic citation to a case found in a service such as Westlaw or Lexis, a lawyer must efficiently convey four basic pieces of information:
- The name of the case;
- Where the case can be found;
- The court that decided the case;
- The precise date the case was decided.
The name of the case comes first, followed by where it can be found. The court and the year come last in parentheses.
Party Names in an Unpublished Court Case Citation
When a party is a person, use only the last name of the person. When there are multiple plaintiffs or multiple defendants in a case, use the name of the first one.
For example, take the following fictitious citation:
Page v. Anthony, No. 12-17262, 2009 Westlaw 163829, at *1 (E.D. Va. May 31, 2008).
“Page v. Anthony” is the name of the case.
The case name should always be underlined or italicized.
When a party is a company, an organization, or other type of entity, use its complete name, but abbreviate words in the name according to Rule 10 and as provided in table T.6.
For example, if your parties are National First Southern Engineering Coalition (plaintiff) and Azalea Limited Company (defendant), the case name is: Nat’l First S. Eng’g Coal. v. Azalea Ltd.
Drop the word “company” from the defendant’s name due to Rule 10.2.1.(h), which allows only one corporate designation per party name.
Case Location: Docket Number, Identifier, and Page in Unpublished Court Case Citations
Unlike citations for published cases, you do not have a specific volume or page number to cite. So a reader can easily find the case you’re referring to, you’ll need to include other case identifying information in your citation: the case docket number and the unique database identifier.
In the example above, the docket number is “No. 12-17262.” Each court has a unique numbering system, and you should incorporate this number between commas after the case name and before the database identifier.
The example also includes a database identifier from Westlaw for the specific case: “2009 WL 13829.”
Lexis database identifiers are similar. For example: “2008 U.S. App. LEXIS.”
The identifiers will appear near the top of the case on the website page.
The page numbers for unpublished opinions are indicated with an asterisk. Insert the page number following a comma and the word “at.”
Court Names in Unpublished Court Case Citations
You should follow the ordinary Bluebook rules for listing the federal or state court that decided the case. For more information, see these articles discussing how to cite a published federal court case and how to cite a published state court case.
Refer also to Table T.10, which contains a full list of state abbreviations.
Adding the Court's Decision Date to Unpublished Court Case Citations
In addition to the year of the court’s decision, you must also include the month and day of the decision. Abbreviate the month according to Table T.12.
Punctuating an Unpublished Decision Citation
Memorize the punctuation for a basic case citation. The case name is followed by a comma. No comma appears either between a page number and the first parenthesis or between the name of the court and the year.
Finally, note that “versus” is abbreviated as “v.” in case names, not “vs.,” and it is in lower case.
Following this simple prescription will allow you to comply with the Bluebook rules for citing an unpublished case.
Kristin Walinski - Kristin is a sleep-deprived adjunct professor of law, recovering lawyer, full-time editor, ghost writer, academic consultant, and ...
