Self Paced Lesson - Case Law - Subject Guide: 9: Judicial Consideration of Cases

Quick Find Search

Task: Source past cases referred to / cited to support the decision

Quick Find Search

Task: Source cases that have referred to / cited a given case (cases citing)

Step 1.

Search by case citation in the Quick Find search box

Example:  128 CLR 557

Step 1.

Search by case citation in the Quick Find search box

Example:  128 CLR 557

Step 2. 

Select the CaseBase link from the Result

Step 2. 

Select the CaseBase link from the Result

CaseBase provides, amongst others, the following information:

• Cases referring to this case: Cases which in more recent times have referred back to this case. This is also called "cases judicially considered".
• Cases considered by this case: Cases which were cited in the judgment of this case. This is the process of looking at old decisions and then seeing how they were applied in a case.

Step 3.

Select Cases considered by this case from the content panel for a list of cases in which the judges have looked back at past cases to use as precedent to support their decision.

CaseBase provides, amongst others, the following information:

• Cases referring to this case: Cases which in more recent times have referred back to this case. This is also called "cases judicially considered".
• Cases considered by this case: Cases which were cited in the judgment of this case. This is the process of looking at old decisions and then seeing how they were applied in a case.

Step 3.

Select Cases referring to this case from the content panel for a list of cases in which the judges have looked back at this case to use as precedent in their current case.

Look at the cases considered by this case.
There are various ways of sorting this list - by date, by parties' names, or by annotation.
Annotation refers to the editor's terms for arranging similar application of the precedent.
This means all those cases which followed, applied, or distinguished the precedent will be listed together

Cases considered by this case can be filtered using the graph.

Cases can be filtered by Court or Year:

Look at the cases referring to this case.
There are various ways of sorting this list - by date, by parties' names, or by annotation.
Annotation refers to the editor's terms for arranging similar application of the precedent.
This means all those cases which followed, applied, or distinguished the precedent will be listed together

Cases referring to this case can be filtered using the graph.

Cases can be filtered by Court or Year:

Cases can be filtered by Treatment.

For example, Cases considered by this case with positive treatment only can be listed.

Cases can be filtered by Treatment.

For example, Cases referring to this case with positive treatment only can be listed.

In this case, you can see that the judges based their decision on previous precedent that included cases from the 1700s and 1800s.
You have access to those early cases from the English Reports on HeinOnline, as well as in print.

Note that, although the citation 128 CLR 557 was used to source this case, the Commonwealth Law Reports (CLR) are not published by LexisNexis.

The version available in full text on Lexis Advance is (1973) 1 ALR 241.

More specific citation allows for the case to be segmented into paragraphs, with the ‘Paragraph’ filter on the graph.
This lists the paragraphs of the primary judgment on the horizontal (x) axis, and the number of subsequent cases citing those paragraphs on the vertical (y) axis.
Each column represents the number of times a paragraph is cited by subsequent cases.
When hovering the mouse over columns of the graph, a pop-up appears, providing information on the paragraph number and the number of citing cases.

CaseBase has the following additional editorial information, much of which will be discussed in other topics in this Lesson:

• Catchwords & Digest details
• Publications referring to this case - this includes journal articles - some articles will be in full text, others will only have abstracts and references
• Words and Phrases judicially defined in the case
• Legislation considered by this case
• Find references to this case (right-hand side of the page under About This Document) 

For more details about using Lexis Advance and CaseBase, click on the Help tab at the top right-hand side of the page.  This will give you access to tutorials.

CaseBase has the following additional editorial information, much of which will be discussed in other topics in this Lesson:

• Catchwords & Digest details
• Publications referring to this case - this includes journal articles - some articles will be in full text, others will only have abstracts and references
• Words and Phrases judicially defined in the case
• Legislation considered by this case
• Find references to this case (right-hand side of the page under About This Document) 

For more details about using Lexis Advance and CaseBase, click on the Help tab at the top right-hand side of the page.  This will give you access to tutorials.

Global Search

Task: Source past cases referred to / cited to support the decision

Global Search

Task: Source cases that have referred to / cited a given case (cases citing)

Step 1.

Search by case citation in the global search box

Example:  128 CLR 557

WAIT FOR SUGGESTIONS

Step 1.

Search by case citation in the global search box

Example:  128 CLR 557

WAIT FOR SUGGESTIONS

Step 2. 

From the drop down suggestions, select the linked case name

Step 2. 

From the drop down suggestions, select the linked case name

Step 3.

Select Cases from the Table of Authorities tab for a list of cases in which the judges have looked back at past cases to use as precedent to support their decision.

Step 3.

Select Cases from the Citing References tab for a list of cases in which the judges have looked back at this case to use as precedent in their current case.

Look at the Table of Authorities for a list of cases in which the judges have looked back at past cases to apply precedent in a similar way.

Look at the Treatment column. This explains how the case was used in a subsequent case.

Look at the Depth column. The greater number of green bars, the more in depth the discussion of the initial case.

Look at the Cases Citing for a list of cases in which the judges have looked back at your case.

Note how the initial case has been used in more recent cases. Cases have been categorised applying the precedent in a similar way together in an easy-to-follow list.

Look at the Treatment column. This explains how the case was used in a subsequent case.

Look at the Depth column. The greater number of green bars, the more in depth the discussion of the initial case.

Tip: Use the Search within results filter to quickly search for specific cases.

Cases Citing an Act:

General Search

Task: cases judicially considering Plaintiff S10/2011 v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship [2012] HCA 3

Cases Citing an Act:

LawCite

Task: cases judicially considering Plaintiff S10/2011 v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship [2012] HCA 3

Step 1:

Search AustLII by case citation  [2012] HCA 3

Add the citation, without the brackets (AustLII does not like punctuation), but within double inverted commas:

"2012 HCA 31"

Step 1: 

Select LawCite from the charcoal ribbon.

Step 2:

Click on the magnifying glass icon for Search

Complete the text boxes for:

Citation: 2012 HCA 31

Step 3:  

Click on the case name  from the results list

Click on Search.

Step 4: 

Click on the NoteUp references link, located on the right-hand side of the full text of the section, below the CITED BY heading.

Step 4:

You will be taken to the search results page.

Results can be sorted by Case Name, Citation(s), Court, Jurisdiction, Date and the source where you can access Full Text.

Sort the results table by Jurisdiction.

Click on the Citation or Full Text links to access the full text of the case

Step 5:

NoteUp results list documents in AustLII that may refer to [2012] HCA 31, with the most relevant at the top of the list.
You must check that these are accurate results by looking at the case to see if the correct case is discussed.

The default display is By Relevance.  
In most circumstances relevance will be the most useful list along with Citation Frequency.
Note the relevance figure in the square bracket at the end of the citation.
This simply gives an indication of how frequently the "search term" (in this instance citation) is mentioned within the citing case.  

This screen shows the By Database display which shows where results come from.
You might only need to refer to cases from a particular court, for example the High Court of Australia, or the Supreme Court of Western Australia.
This option is particularly useful if you want to find journal articles about a case as each journal is called a "database".

.

Note:

Search results from these two methods may not be identical, as LawCite is a separate product to AustLII.

AustLII has "court ready pdfs" - AustLII watermarked .pdf versions of the cases found on AustLII in html format.
You will be able to find a case on AustLII in html and then click through to the .pdf version.
For the purposes of the tests, do not answer based on a .pdf version.
For some older cases, this .pdf file can be the CLR version not the HCA version of a case.
It is important to note that not all CLRs will be available on AustLII and you should use the Westlaw databases to access these as this is the official publisher.

At the bottom of the screen you can adjust the number of results shown per page.  The default is 10, but you can change it to 20, 50 or 100.

Change the way results are displayed using the tabs at the top of the page. Sorting by date may help when you have many pages of results you need to check through, as it will display the cases in reverse chronological order.  Sorting by database will allow you to identify case law and journal articles separately.

Where you have a lot of cases displayed, you may find it useful to use the Ctrl + F keys (on a Windows machine) or Cmd + F keys (on a Mac). This will open up a dialog box which will allow you to enter terms to search for on the page you have displayed, but beware - it will only search the page currently displayed and if the case that you are looking for is on the next page of results, this method will not find it. This is why it is useful to increase the display to 100 results.

Cases cited by the case can be found in the case record.

These are the cases cases in which the judges have looked back at past cases to use as precedent to support their decision in this case.

Step 1:

In the search textbox, enter the case citation or case name

Example: 241 CLR 594

Select the offered suggestion of the full case citation

Step 1:

In the search textbox, enter the case citation or case name

Example: 241 CLR 594

Select the offered suggestion of the full case citation

Step 2: 

Sections of the case cited in other cases are listed in the Cited sections on the case page

Step 2:

Select the visualisations icon from the menu

Step 3:

Navigate to a section cited in another case

Step 3:

Select Precedent Tracker from the menu

Step 4:

Expand the citations tab content by clicking on the + to see cases citing this section of this case

Step 4:

Expand or reduce the number of cases

Tip:  Reduce the number of cases shown to identify key cases

Step 5: 

Browse the list of cases citing this section, 

OR

locate a specific case by using Ctrl +F
 

Note: You will require to be registered for Jade Professional to access the citation feature.
A registration confirmation email, including your temporary password, will be sent to your Murdoch Student email address.
student number@murdoch.student.edu.au

Method 2:

Navigate to the bottom of the legislation to view the citation pane