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Question: How do you find a case when you do not have the full citation, or you are not sure if the citation you have is correct?
Answer: Citators are the most useful research tools to assist with this task.
Murdoch students have online access to subscription case citators including CaseBase (on Lexis Advance), the Digest (on Westlaw Australia) and vLexJustis (for UK cases).
Case Citators
A case citator is a specialist research tool which indexes and annotates cases within a jurisdiction.
The main Australian case citators are the Digest on Westlaw Australia, CaseBase (Lexis Advance) and LawCite (AustLII).
Cases are listed with the full case citation enabling you to locate the case online or in print.
JustOne is an important UK based citator that is increasing its coverage of many jurisdictions. Although the direct links to databases do not always work (as we do not always have access to that particular coverage), you can take the citations you have found to other databases to find full text versions.
CaseBase , the Digest and LawCite provide additional information indicating the current status or standing of a case in Australia.
They also provide links to secondary sources discussing the case, and the list of cases considered by the judges as they made their decision in the case you are researching.
The following topics will take you through the research process using the main Australian research tools for case law: CaseBase, the Digest and LawCite . You will learn how to:
- Complete a case citation
- Establish the status of a case
- Find other cases which have judicially considered a case
- Find other cases on the same subject
A few notes to help you understand Citation notes
R stands for Regina (The Queen), or Rex (The King).
You will see that there is sometimes a variation in the citation of a case.
For instance R v Arndel (1906) 3 CLR 557 was initially written up as The King, on the Prosecution of Harard Freeman v Arndel. Today it is cited as R v Arndel.
In more recent cases McInnis v R (1979) 143 CLR 575 might be cited in some places as McInnis v The Queen (1979) 143 CLR 575, or as McInnis (1979) 143 CLR 575
Where many people are part of an action the first party's name is usually cited with & Ors (and others).
If there are only two parties the second party may be cited as & Anor (and another).
Sometimes only the first party is cited in a citation, e.g. Mabo & Ors v State of Queensland and Ors (No. 2) is usually cited as Mabo v State of Queensland (No. 2).
The Australian Guide to Legal Citation requires that '& Ors' and '& Another' not be used, with only the first named plaintiff and the first named defendant being cited (ALGC rule 2.1.1).
Completing Case Citations using CaseBase on Lexis Advance
Task: You are looking for a case which was heard in the High Court of Australia and was related to constitutional law. One of the parties' names was Bradley.
Step 1: From the Lexis Advance Pacific Research homepage, click on Advanced Search and then select Cases from the drop-down menu.
Step 2: Type constitution! into the Terms box.
The exclamation mark is a truncator. This means that the database will search for constitution, constitutional, constitutionalism or constitutions.
Step 3: Enter any details of the parties' names of which you are aware in the Case Name box.
Step 4: Select the Jurisdiction as Commonwealth and for the Court select the High Court of Australia.
Step 5: Click on Select Courts. This will create a pop-up window from which you can select one or more courts using check boxes. Check the box next to High Court of Australia and then click OK.
Step 6: Click on Search.
Step 7: Look through the results list until you find the case with Bradley as a party name and was held in the High Court of Australia.
Bradley v Commonwealth (1973) 1 ALR 214
Clicking on the title of the case will take you to the CaseBase entry. You can find the full text by clicking on the blue hyperlinked ALR citation, and then selecting Download Document on the right-hand side of the page. This will allow you to download the PDF version to the case and view the case as it appears in the print version of the Australian Law Reports.
Completing Case Citations using Westlaw Australia
Task: You are looking for a case which was heard in the High Court of Australia and was related to constitutional law. One of the parties' names was Bradley.
Step 1: At the Westlaw Australia homepage, select Cases from the list of Content Types.
Step 2: Select Cases Advanced Search
Step 3: In the All of these terms box put constitution!
The exclamation mark is a truncator. This means that the database will search for constitution, constitutional, constitutionalism or constitutions.
Step 4: Put any details of the parties' names of which you are aware in the Case Title/Party Name box.
Step 5: Click Search.
Step 6: To the left on the Results page, there is a panel with filters.
The Jurisdiction filter includes jurisdictions and courts.
Expand Jurisdiction by clicking on the +
Expand Australia by clicking on the +
Expand Federal by clicking on the +
Check the box beside High Court of Australia
Click on the Apply button
Step 7: From the results, look for the case where one of the parties is Bradley, and where the case was heard in the High Court of Australia:
Bradley v Commonwealth (1973) 128 CLR 557.
Click on the PDF icon next to the citation, and you will be taken to the case as it appears in the Commonwealth Law Reports.
Clicking on the linked case title will take you to an overview of the case, cases cited in this case, cases citing this case, legislation considered by the case and journal articles referring to the case.
Completing the citation using LawCite
- Go to http://www.austlii.edu.au/LawCite/
- If you know the parties involved in a case you should enter significant elements of the parties' names. For instance, if you were looking for a case involving someone called Bradley and you knew it had something to do with the Commonwealth, you might type
- Bradley in the first Parties box
- Commonwealth in the Jurisdiction box
- High Court of Australia in the Court box
You should get 8 results.
There is no way to refine a search in LawCite, so make sure you have enough information when looking for a case on this database.
Hint: LawCite is a free online resource. You do not need to go through Murdoch University to access it.
Completing Case Citations using vLexJustis
vLexJustis provides access to reported versions of cases via direct links from citations to the source of the report/
Task: You are looking for a case which was heard by the King's Bench and was related to marriage law. One of the parties' names was Balfour.
Step 1: At the vLexJustis homepage, select Advanced from the left hand menu.
Step 2: Select the Cases tab
Step 3: Put any details of the parties' names of which you are aware in the Party Name box.
Step 4: Click Search
Step 5: Select the result for Balfour v Balfour
Step 6: vLexJustis does not have the full text of this judgment.
Resources provided in the Balfour v Balfour [1919] 2 KB 571 record are:
- cited cases
- cited legislation
- citing cases
- categories
- Citations and Sources (links to to other full text sources)
- Precedent Map
Step 7: To access the full text of the judgment, in Citations and Sources, select the ICLR icon, as Murdoch has a subscription to the ICLR database
