Finding Case Law

Bodleian Law Library

 Session overview
• What is Case law
• Doctrine of precedent
• Court structure
• Reported case law
• Law reporting pre and post 1865
• Law report hierarchy
• Deciphering citations
• Unreported judgments
• Finding case law
• Updating case law
 What is case law?
• Record of the judgment given in each case
• Court recorder and reporters
• ‘Handing down’ of the judgment
Why is case law important?
• Becomes part of the body of law
• Doctrine of precedent
 Doctrine of precedent
• A court is bound by the decisions of
a court above it and usually, by a
court of equivalent standing
• Superior courts have the power to
overrule decisions of lower courts
 Court structure
The highest A case can go
court in the to appeal to the
UK is the EU if it concerns
Supreme a point of EU
Court law
 Reported case law
• Only small proportion of cases decided by
courts are reported
• Cases are selected by law report editors –
not the courts
 Reporting criteria
• To be reported a case must:
– raise a point of legal significance
– materially modify an existing principle of law
or settle a doubtful question of law
– may include questions of interpretation of
statutes and important cases illustrating new
applications of accepted principles
 Law reporting before 1865
• Nominate reports 1571-1865
• Commonly referred to by the name of the
reporter of the cases
• Reprinted in the English Reports and in
the All England Reports Reprint series
 Law reporting after 1865
• 1865 watershed
• Incorporated Council of Law Reporting
– Not for profit organisation
– Authoritative reports
• All England Law Reports
• Subject specialist reports
• Newpapers and reports in journals
 The Law Reports
• Appeal Cases (AC) or (App Cas),
Chancery Division (Ch), Queen’s Bench
(QB), Family Division (Fam)
• Most authoritative report series
• Law report decisions are checked by a
judge prior to publication
 Authority of law reports

Most The Law Reports: Chancery (Ch),

authoritative Appeal Cases (AC), Family (Fam),
Queens Bench (QB)
The Weekly Law Reports

All England Law Reports

Specialist series
e.g. Lloyd’s law Reports, Fleet Street
Reports
Least Journals and newspapers e.g. The
authoritative Times, The Independent, New Law
Journal, Solicitors Journal
Deciphering citations: breakdown of
the citation
Case name Case Citation

Horton v Sadler [2007]1 AC 307

Party names of both sides of Year and Page
the case separated by a ‘v’ volume number
number

Legal abbreviation for

law report series
 Case names
• Usually 2 party names:
– Claimant v Defendant
– Appellent v Respondent
• Have to be a ‘legal entity’
– Individuals, firms/companies, organisations,
The Crown.
• Criminal cases The Crown is the claimant
– R v Smith
– Rex or Reg v Smith (older cases)
 Case names (2)
• Unusual case names
– Attorney General’s References A-G Ref (No. 90 of 2009)

– Ex parte X ex parte Y

– Ship names “The South Star”

– Bankruptcy cases Re company no. x2005

– Family Proceedings Re D (a Minor) 2008

 Square and round brackets
• Round brackets ( ) when the year is
additional information
– Derry v Peek (1989) 14 App Cas 337

• Square brackets [ ] when the year is

the primary means of identifying the
case
– Lloyd v McMahon [1987] 1 All ER 118
 Deciphering citations: Law report
abbreviations
• Raistrick, D. Index to legal citations
and abbreviations.

• Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations

http://www.legalabbrevs.cardiff.ac.uk
 Anatomy of a law report

(1) Names of
parties, dates
of hearing,
(2) judge(s)
Catchwords

(3)
Headnote

(4) List of
cases cited
 Anatomy of a law report (2)

(5) Statement
of pleading
and facts
(facts may be
contained in
the judgment)

(6) Names of
counsel and
in the Law
Reports a
summary of
their
argument
Anatomy of a law report (3)

(7) The
judgment –
usually
indicated by
the name of
the judge.
Cur Adv
Vult
indicates
that the
judgment
has been
reversed
 Anatomy of a law report (4)

(8) The
judgment
decision or
order

(10) The
(9) reporter
Solicitors
for each
party
 Unreported judgments
• Transcripts are the unreported version of a
judgment
• Although judgments are “published” on web
sites, they remain “unreported” unless published
in a law report series
• Can often be cited with a ‘neutral’ citation
 Neutral citations
• 1999 onwards
• Unique judgment number

[YEAR] COURT CASE NUMBER

[2001] EWCA Civ 101

[2006] EWHC 101 Admin
[2003] UKSC 5
 Finding case law: sources
Online resources
• Commercial databases
– Westlaw (selected full text and citator)
– Lexis Library (selected full text and citator)
– Justis (selected full text)
• Free resources
– Bailii
– Supreme Court judgments
– House of Lords judgments
 Finding case law: sources (2)
Hard copy
• Law reports series (full text)
• Halsburys Laws (index)
• The Digest (digest)
• Current Law (digest)
 Searching by party name: hard
copy
• If you already have a citation - find the
case by citation
• If you have a year – Current Law Case
Citator
• If you just have the party names – The
Digest or Halsbury’s Laws
Current Law Case Citator

Cases listed alphabetically with

law report citations – with most
authoritative first
 The Digest: table of cases
Main table of cases
volumes – gives the
year and then a main
volume number

Table of cases
in Vol 28(1)
gives a
paragraph
number (not a
page)
The Digest: summary and citation

The paragraph
number relates to a
digest of a case and
this then gives a full
law report citation at
the end.
Searching by party name: online
• Most subscription databases as well as Bailli.org
have an option to search for party name.
• Remember that if it is a common name there
may be too many results coming up – if you
have a citation there may be an option to search
using that.
www.bailii.org (free site)

Choose case law search

for the advanced search
screen for cases
 Bailii cases search screen

Use the box to put

in case names

If you scroll down the

page you will find
further options to
choose specific courts
Westlaw cases search screen
(subscription)
Search in the
cases database

Just place the name in

the party names field
Westlaw cases results screen
A full list of where the case
has been reported in order
of authority

Case summary Full text of the reports available

and citator on Westlaw are linked
Lexis Library search screen
(subscription)

Case names can be

entered from the front
page

If searching for full

reports then choose
‘all subscribed cases’
Lexis Library cases results screen
Each separate report is
classed as a result

The law report or ‘source’ is

at the end. It is not in the
most authoritative order
Justis search screen (subscription)

In ‘Cases’ there are options

to search by party name
 Justis results screen
Year of
judgment

Link through
to full report

Law report
citation
 Finding case law: by subject
Hard copy
– Use The Digest or Halsburys Laws

Online databases
– Use the subject, keyword or heading box to
enter search terms
Subject searching: The Digest
Search the subject
indexes and these will
give you both a volume
number and paragraph
number
Subject searching: Westlaw
 Updating case law: Is it still good
law?
• Has the case been cited in later case law?
• Authority of a case may be strengthened
by being approved in a higher court
• Case may have been overruled
• Lexis Library, Westlaw, Justcite, Lawcite
(free site)
• Current Law Case Citator, The Digest
 Terms used for citing
• Applied Principle from an earlier case applied
although facts materially different
• Considered Discussed, but no definite use in
decision
• Distinguished There are substantial differences to
earlier case
• Overruled Principle from a lower court overruled
• Followed Court bound by precedents set in a
previous case
 Checking citators: hard copy
The citator covers a
set time span and
you should start with
the volume that
cover the year of the This lists cases that have
case – you need to cited Pepper v Hart. All it
look at later volumes gives is a Current Law
to keep updated digest reference – you
need to use the relevant
volume of Current Law
Year Book to find the
name of the case
Checking citators: hard copy (2)

This is a later volume – if the case has

not been cited within these years it will
not appear in the list

Pepper v Hart has been cited and so you

can see there are the previous cases listed
plus a few later cases
Checking citators online: Lawcite (free
source)

You can search by party

name or citation and
then limit the results to a
jurisdiction if necessary
Lawcite: results screen
If there is more than one case it will
list them along with citations, dates
and a flag to indicate which country
the case was heard in. Click on the
case you are looking for to see the
citator information
 Lawcite: citator screen

You can check

This lists cases referring to the which cases
case searched for as well as a have cited these
citation, where you can get the cases by clicking
full text and jurisdiction. on this symbol
Checking citators online: Westlaw
(subscription)

This time we are going to

look at the citator tool
Westlaw: case analysis

Traffic light
symbol

Subsequent cases
citing Pepper v Hart
 Westlaw: Case analysis (2)

Lists the
cases under
the different
‘treatments’
Checking citators online:Lexis
Library

This time use the

Case Overview
button
Lexis Library Case Overview results
Symbols to
whether the case is
still ‘good’

Links to cases citing and cited by

this case: click on to see the list

Case history through

the courts
 Summary
• What’s reported, precedent and hierarchy of
courts
• Case citations, party names and abbreviations
• Searching in print and searching online –
searching by name and searching by subject
• Checking citators: is it still good law?