Case law

In a common law country such as Australia, the judgements in cases that come before a court will often set precedents for similar situations in the government and corporate sectors.

As a result, legal advices, board reports and briefing notes may need to cite cases when assessing disputes and issues.

The format for these citations depends on whether a case is formally reported. The main difference is whether to cite the published report (reported case) or the court that heard the case (unpublished).

Published cases

Cite the law report with minimal formatting and punctuation

Blue Phones Pty Ltd v Telecorp [2005] 140 CLR 180

McKenzie v GoldCo Pty Ltd (2009) 22 NSWLR 317 at 321

When a case has been published in a law report, use this sequence of information:

You don't need italics on the party names, which should be ordered as ‘plaintiff v defendant’.

You also don't need any punctuation between the different elements, except for brackets on the year. Use:

square brackets to show the year of the volume the case was published in
round brackets to show the year of judgment.

Putting the year in square brackets means the year is essential to finding the case. The reader may need to look at the annual volume of the law reports or the sequential volume from that year, or both.

Bianco v IndiCo Pty Ltd [2010] 30 VR 217 at 225

Redwood v Blackwell (1982) 153 CLR 67

In these examples, the abbreviations stand for:

Victorian Reports
Commonwealth Law Reports.

Unreported judgements

Cite in a similar sequence but include a pinpoint reference, not a page number

Falzon v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection [2018] HCA 2 at [4]

Unreported judgments have been handed down by a court but not published in a law report series.

They are cited in what's known as a medium-neutral format. This cites the court and judgement number instead of the published report, and it does not have page numbers so they can be referenced online. The sequence is:

party names | year | court abbreviation | judgement number | pinpoint reference

Dunbar v Brownlow [2000] HCA 23 at [25]

In this example, the abbreviation stands for High Court of Australia.