Legal Writing: Using the New Public Domain Citation System
Effective Jan. 1, 2000, practitioners must
include the public domain citation, if it exists, when citing to cases
in briefs, memoranda, and other documents submitted to the Wisconsin
Supreme Court and Court of Appeals. Here's how it works.
By Margie DeWind
Lawyers soon will confront a major change in the citation to
Wisconsin appellate court opinions. Starting in January 2000, a new
public domain citation will be part of all Wisconsin Supreme Court
opinions and all published Wisconsin Court of Appeals opinions, as well
as published court rules, orders, and other items. Like many
innovations, this new cite form is intended to make work easier for
people, because it will be consistent regardless of the vendor or
medium. Initially, however, legal practitioners may be confused by the
new cite form and unsure of how and when to use it. This article
explains the public domain citation and its origins. It also describes
the resources available to help lawyers and their assistants become
comfortable with the new citation format.
What is the New Citation System?
The new format was adopted by the Wisconsin Supreme Court in order 95-01 (filed June 28,
1999), which repealed and recreated chapter
80 of the Supreme Court Rules, effective Jan. 1, 2000. New chapter
80 will require that practitioners include the public domain citation,
if it exists, when citing to cases in briefs, memoranda, and other
documents submitted to the supreme court and the court of appeals. The
Wisconsin Lawyer will use the new format, as will CLE Books
publications.
In addition to the case name, each Wisconsin public domain citation
will consist of three elements: 1) the year; 2) the court designation;
and 3) a sequential number assigned by the clerk of court's office. For
Wisconsin Supreme Court cases, the year will be the year the opinion is
issued, and the court designation will be WI.
- Example: State v. Jones, 2000 WI 8.
In this example, the cite indicates that the Jones opinion
was the eighth document issued by the Wisconsin Supreme Court in the
year 2000.
For Wisconsin Court of Appeals cases, the year will be the year in
which the court of appeals orders the opinion to be published and the
court designation will be WI App.
- Example: State v. Smith, 2000 WI App
16.
In this example, the cite indicates that the Smith opinion
was the sixteenth document ordered published by the Wisconsin Court of
Appeals in the year 2000.
Under new chapter SCR
80, the Wisconsin Reports and the Wisconsin Reporter
edition of the North Western Reporter remain the official
publications of the Wisconsin appellate courts' opinions, rules, and
orders. Reference to the Wisconsin Reports volume and page
number and the North Western Reporter volume and page number
will still be required in the initial citation to an opinion, but it
must follow the public domain citation.
How are Subsequent and Pinpoint Cites Handled?
For subsequent or short-form citations, reference can be made to any
one or more of the three citations. Short form citations must be
internally consistent. That is, the same citation must be used for all
short form references in a single document.
- Example (first reference): Brown v. Smith,
2000 WI 10, 250 Wis. 2d 250, 630 N.W.2d 630.
- Example (subsequent reference): Brown,
2000 WI 10.
- OR Brown, 250 Wis. 2d 250.
- OR Brown, 630 N.W.2d 630.
Each opinion that is issued with a public domain citation will have
numbered paragraphs, which will remain consistent in all publications. A
pinpoint citation to an opinion issued on or after Jan. 1, 2000, must be
to the appropriate paragraph number of the opinion.
- Example: Brown, 2000 WI 10, ¶ 8.
If a court of appeals opinion contains a public domain citation but
does not include paragraph numbers, pinpoint references should be made
to page numbers. This situation may occur if a court of appeals opinion
is issued before Jan. 1, 2000, and is ordered published after Jan. 1,
2000. For any opinion that contains a public domain citation and
paragraph numbers, however, pinpoint references should be made to the
paragraph numbers. The use of the paragraph number for pinpoint
references is required even when the short form used is the
Wisconsin Reports or North Western Reporter citation.
Both publications are required by new chapter
80 to include the paragraph numbers with opinions that contain
public domain citations.
- Example: Brown, 250 Wis. 2d 250, ¶
12.
The user should note that the court designations in the public domain
citation do not carry punctuation, whereas the reporter abbreviations in
cites to the official publications do. Also, cases cited using the new
form required by chapter SCR 80
should not contain a court and year parenthetical, because the public
domain citation will convey this information to the reader.
The traditional method of citing to Wisconsin cases will not change
for supreme court opinions issued before Jan. 1, 2000, or for court of
appeals opinions ordered to be published before that date. References to
such opinions will continue to include the Wisconsin Reports
volume and page number, the North Western Reporter volume and
page number, page number pinpoints, if any, and the court and year in a
parenthetical.
What About Citing to Other Sources?
Methods of citing to other sources of law, such as non-Wisconsin and
federal cases, and state and federal legislative and administrative
materials, are not affected by the new supreme court rule. Though the
supreme court has the power to set all citation requirements,1 the court has created its own rules only for
citing to Wisconsin opinions. Under section
809.19(1)(e) of the Wisconsin Statutes, a court-created rule,
citations in briefs submitted to the appellate courts are required to
conform to The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation and to
Supreme Court Rule
80.02. Because rule 80.02 deals only with citations to published
Wisconsin appellate opinions, the Bluebook remains the primary
source for rules on citing other legal and nonlegal materials.
Though the theoretical division of citation authority between the
Bluebook and Supreme Court Rule
80.02 is clear, determining how to cite particular resources in
practice can be confusing. For example, for many years, Wisconsin's
style of citing to statutes deviated from the Bluebook
rule.2 The Wisconsin Supreme Court now
follows the Bluebook rule, but it has never formally repudiated
its earlier decree that a different format be used. In addition, some
Bluebook rules are vague, while others threaten to overwhelm
the user with unnecessary detail. In yet other instances,
Bluebook rules, while clear, do not serve their intended
function of ensuring that citations contain the most useful information
about an authority.
What Citation Resources are Available?
The State Bar CLE Books Department has attempted to eliminate
citation confusion with its recently updated Wisconsin Guide to
Citation, a handbook that gives examples of citation forms for the
authorities most likely to be cited by Wisconsin practitioners. The
Wisconsin Guide to Citation concisely illustrates
how to apply the citation rules of the supreme court and the
Bluebook.
Wisconsin's new public domain citation format is modeled on a format
developed by the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL), which
devised universal citation rules for cases, statutes, and administrative
regulations. The AALL's goal was to encourage jurisdictions nationwide
to adopt vendor- and medium-neutral citation systems. (A vendor-neutral
system is independent of any one commercial provider of case law. A
medium-neutral system works equally well in all media.) The AALL, in
turn, relied heavily upon work done by the State Bar's Technology
Resource Committee, an early leader in the movement to develop neutral
citation formats.
The universal citation rules appear in the Universal Citation
Guide, an AALL publication available from the State Bar. Supreme
Court Rule
80.02 incorporates many aspects of the Universal Citation
Guide's rules for citing to cases. While rule 80.02 mirrors the
Universal Citation Guide's dictates on court designations and
opinion and paragraph numbers, it deviates from the Universal
Citation Guide in requiring that parallel citations (to the
Wisconsin and North Western reporters) be maintained.
The Universal Citation Guide also contains a provision covering
citation to unpublished decisions. Supreme Court Rule 80.02 does not
require that unpublished decisions be given public domain citations,
presumably because such decisions have no precedential value and thus
may not be cited as precedent or authority in Wisconsin.3
The Universal Citation Guide also presents the rules
developed by the AALL for citing to statutes and administrative
regulations. While these discussions contain useful background
information, they are not directly relevant to Wisconsin practitioners.
The Bluebook, which continues to be the authority in Wisconsin
for citing to statutes and administrative materials, has as yet not
incorporated the universal citation rules.
Conclusion
Using the new public domain citation will pose some challenges over
the coming months. Nevertheless, lawyers who pay careful attention to
the supreme court rule and other Wisconsin resources should be able to
quickly accustom themselves to this new citation convention.
Endnotes
1 Wis. Stat. §
751.12 (the court "shall ... regulate pleading, practice and
procedure in judicial proceedings in all courts").
2See Notice to Members of the
Bar, 74 Wis. 2d xxxix (1976).
3 Wis. Stat. §
809.23(3).
Margie DeWind, U.W. 1989, is a legal
editor with the State Bar CLE Books Department.
Wisconsin Lawyer
