UC SCHOOL OF LAW

RULES OF CITATION
USING OSCOLA

MORALDE | PARAWAN | PARAN | PARAZ | ROMAGOS | QUIJADA

COMPONENTS OF A TYPICAL CASE CITATION:
Case Name
In italics, with an unpunctuated v to separate the names of the adverse parties
Neutral citation, if available
Full text of the judgment independent of any printed series of law reports. In
Philippine jurisdiction, this can be the docket number (General Registry or GR
Number for Supreme Court decisions).
Law Report - also known as the case report, the printed series of law report where
the full text of the decision is published. In the Philippines, case reports include:
Philippine Reports – use Phil
Supreme Court Reports Annotated – use SCRA

Milcheur Law 2020

CASE CITATION
WITH NEUTRAL CITATION

case name | [year] | court | number, | [year] OR (year) | volume | report

abbreviation | first page

Examples:
Corr v IBC Vehicles Ltd [2008] UKHL 13, [2008] 1 AC 884
Tanada v Tuvera [1986] SC GR No L-63915, (1986) 146 SCRA 446
CASE CITATION
WITHOUT NEUTRAL CITATION

case name | [year] OR (year) | volume | report abbreviation | first page |

(court)

Examples:
Page v Smith [1996] AC 155 (HL)
Tanada v Tuvera (1986) 146 SCRA 446 (SC)
CASE CITATION
for decisions not yet
published in a law report

case name | [year] | court | number

Example:
Tan Andal v Andal [2021] SC GR No 196359
Alanis v CA [2020] SC GR No 216425
When to use [year] or (year) for law reports?

Use [year] if the year is necessary to identify the volume and there is more than
one volume in a year

Use (year) if the volumes of the law reports are independently numbered, so that
the year of publication is not needed to find the volume. The year in parenthesis
should be the year of judgment and not the publication

In Philippine jurisdiction, the Philippine Reports and SCRA are published in

independent volumes. Thus, (year) is used in the law report citation since the year
of publication is not needed to find the volume.
Special Rules of case names:

If there are multiple parties, name only the first plaintiff and the first
defendant
When the parties are individuals, use surnames only and omit forenames
and initials
Terms indicating corporate status (such as Corp., Inc., LLC, etc.) should not
be omitted if included in the heading of the report.
Use Re (no colon) in preference to In re, In the matter of, and so on.

Example 1:
Re Subpoena Duces Tecum Dated January 11 2010 of Acting Director Aleu A
Amante [2010] SC AM No 10-1-13-SC, (2010) 614 SCRA 1
Special Rules of case names:

If a case name is shortened in this way, the name chosen must be that
which stands first in the full name of the case

Example 2:

10 Magallona v Ermita [2011] SC GR No 187167, (2011) 655 SCRA 476.

xxx
25 Magallona (n 10)
Special Rules of case names:

For criminal cases, People v Villanueva may be shortened to ‘in Villanueva’,

even in the first citation, but less so where a small number of criminal cases
are cited in a work primarily concerned with another area of law. Either
form is acceptable.

Example 3:

22 People v Genosa [2004] SC GR No 135981, (2004) 419 SCRA 537

xxx
35 People v Genosa (n 22) OR Genosa (n 22)
Judges Names:
Where reference is made to a judge in a case, use the judge’s surname
followed by the conventional abbreviation identifying their judicial office.
(such as J for Justice, JJ for Justices, and CJ for Chief Justice). Do not use
honorifics such as ‘the Honourable’.

Examples in the text:

As Carpio J pointed out in the Magallona case …
Davide CJ dissented from the majority opinion, stating that …

Examples in the footnotes:

21 Tanada v Tuvera [1986] SC GR No L-63915, (1986) 146 SCRA 446 (Cruz J);
People v Genosa [2004] SC GR No 135981, (2004) 419 SCRA 537 (Panganiban j)
Citing names in other jurisdictions:
Cite cases from other jurisdictions as they are cited in their own jurisdiction,
but with minimal punctuation. If the name of the law report series cited does
not itself indicate the court, and the identity of the court is not obvious from
the context, you should also give this in either full or short form in brackets at
the end of the citation. When citing a decision of the highest court of a US
state, the abbreviation of the name of the state suffices.

Examples:
Henningsen v Bloomfield Motors Inc 161 A 2d 69 (NJ 1960)
Roe v Wade 410 US 113, 163–64 (1973)
Waltons Stores (Interstate) Ltd v Maher (1988) 164 CLR 387