THE HYPERLAW® REPORT
March 29, 1996
ABA Special Committee on Citation Issues -- Preliminary Report
Initial Comments of HyperLaw, Inc.
[Note: At present, most mail readers do not display ¶ or ASCII 182 as a
paragraph symbol as WEB HTML Readers do. This should change in the near
future.]
HyperLaw has reformatted an HTML version of the ABA Special Committee on
Citation Issues -- Preliminary Report and includes HyperLaw's initial comments
linked to the Report and to supporting materials. The HyperLaw HTML version of
the report and the following comments may be found at HyperLaw's Web Site,
http://www.hyperlaw.com.
Following are those HyperLaw comments concerning the draft dated March 16, 1996
of the ABA Special Committee on Citation Issues, which is set forth below.
Preliminary Report. Comments are due to the Committee on or before April 22,
1996. HyperLaw testified at the December 8, 1995 hearing held by the
Committee. See HyperLaw Comments to ABA. HyperLaw urges readers to
communicate comments to the Committee as soon as possible.
In summary, HyperLaw commends the ABA committee for its draft report. As
HyperLaw's President Alan D. Sugarman (sugarman@hyperlaw.com) was quoted in a
San Fransisco Daily Journal article by James Evans dated March 20, 1996, "[The
report] is very positive from my point of view...The Committee seems to have
analyzed the issues well. Some things need to be looked at closer, but
generally the ABA is heading in the right direction."
HyperLaw: Paragraph Numbering.
HyperLaw strongly believes that the Committee should make clear that paragraph
numbers are to be used as the official pin-point citation whether or not a
jurisdiction decides to adopt a sequence number or other method of citing to a
case. This would be in accord with AALL Recommendation No. 2:
"Regardless of whether or when jurisdictions adopt Recommendation 1, the Task
Force encourages all jurisdictions [to] begin to number their decisions by
paragraphs, and to allow citation to paragraph numbers."
The ABA Draft is not clear at 35 as to whether it is following the AALL
recommendation. The ABA proposed recommendation (as distinguished from the
Report) certainly is not as explicit at the AALL recomendation. This is
important because some jurisdiction presently have public domain official
reporters and citations, and may initially find it practical to only adopt the
paragraph numbering recommendation.
HyperLaw: Style for Unreported Opinions
HyperLaw believes that the Committee should recommend a citation style for
unpublished/unreported opinions, or any opinion or order to which the court has
not assigned a sequence number, which citation style is consistent with the
citation style recommended for published opinions. The committee recommended
the following style for reported opinions:
1996 SDNY 15, 2
HyperLaw suggests that an unreported opinion might have the following citation
style:
Matthew Bender & HyperLaw v. West Publishing Company, 1995 SDNY 94Civ0589, 2
(December 22, 1995).
This new style would not be the same as the Bluebook rule for unpublished
opinions. We urge the ABA Draft to follow its path to the logical conclusion.
HyperLaw: Use of The Paragraph Symbol.
The ABA Draft does not provide for the use of the paragraph symbol or the
abbreviation para. within the citation. Traditionally, the Bluebook has
required the use of a paragraph symbol when citing to a paragraph numbered
document. See HyperLaw Comments re Revisions to The Bluebook. South Dakota,
the only U.S. jurisdiction that has adopted an official paragraph numbering
scheme, decided to require the use of the symbol. The AALL and Wisconsin
reports did not discuss the reasoning for omitting the paragraph symbol within
the citation. For purposes of clarity, to avoid confusion where a
traditionalist practitioner might cite to the page number rather than paragraph
number and to enhance the ability to parse citations by computer, HyperLaw
urges the Committee to recommend the use of the paragraph symbol ¶, or
Para.
The ABA Draft in ¶39 uses the following example:
A federal court of appeals: 1996 5Cir 15, 18, 22 F.3d 955.
HyperLaw urges that the ABA follow the Bluebook style of using the symbol as
follows:
A federal court of appeals: 1996 5Cir 15, ¶18, 22 F.3d 955.
A federal court of appeals: 1996 5Cir 15, Para. 18, 22 F.3d 955.
The clarity offered by using the symbol is illustrated in the following example
where multiple paragraphs are cited and where the seqence number and paragraph
cite are the same number, for example 15 in the following cite:
A federal court of appeals: 1996 5Cir 15, 15,18-19, 22 F.3d 955. (Committee
form).
A federal court of appeals: 1996 5Cir 15, ¶15, ¶18-¶19, 22 F.3d
955. (HyperLaw recommendation).
Indeed, another suggestion would be to use semi-colons between string
citations:
A federal court of appeals: 1996 5Cir 15, ¶18; 22 F.3d 955.
It is also not clear at all that this example ¶39 of the ABA Draft means
that the case started on page 955 of Volume 22. The final report should make
this clear.
If a court were to follow AALL Recommendation 2 and a court initially were only
to adopt the use of paragraph numbers, then the citation might be as follows:
A federal court of appeals: 22 F.3d 955, ¶18.
HyperLaw Notes to Particular Paragraphs
HyperLaw also has the following comments as to specific paragraphs of the draft
report:
HyperLaw Notes to ¶16 - Court Opinion Availability/Products:
If the Committee makes reference to the federal court release of electronic
opinions, it should also note the following:
Three years after release of its slip opinions the United States Supreme Court
releases the final print United States Reports, but the Court does not release
at that time (or subsequently) its electronic version of those reports.
Only one of the ninety-four United States District Courts maintains an
electronic bulletin board of its opinions, even though almost all such opinions
are in electronic form.
It is also inappropriate for the Committee to promote specific commercial
products, especially when most of those products are vaporware, and many of
those vaporware products presently are available from other vendors. For
example, HyperLaw was the first publisher to offer a federal appellate CD-ROM,
in 1993, and since that time has published 12 quarterly releases. See
HyperLaw Products.
HyperLaw Notes to ¶22 - Docket Numbers:
The Committee argues that the most significant disadvantage of docket numbers
is that there may be multiple opinions in a single case. HyperLaw would
respectfully request that the Committee review case number 86-6 of the United
States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in which to date
twenty-six published opinions have been issued in a single case. The court has
simply numbered its opinion computer files as 86-0006A.DC to 86-0000Z.DC. We
continue to suggest that the Committee recommend the use of sequence number,
but not express objection if in particular situations a court were to use a
docket number based system. Finally, HyperLaw continues to suggest that there
are advantages to the following format which may be attractive to particular
courts:
1996 SDNY 15, 94-5982, ¶2.
HyperLaw Notes to ¶23 - Medium Neutral Candor.
HyperLaw believes the Committee should stop trying to fit a square peg in a
round hole by over-promoting the concept of "medium neutrality." Sequence
numbers, in some jurisdictions and situations, simply will not be medium
neutral. Docket numbers are not medium neutral as well. Let us not oversell
advantages that do not exist within all jurisdictions. We suggest the
Committee make the following statement:
"We acknowledge that the use of sequential numbers or even docket numbers to
identify opinions will in some situations be more cumbersome in print than in
an electronic environment, especially in multi-court jurisdictions. However,
we are recommending a system for the future where case law will be accessed
primarily from electronic media. We believe the disadvantages that may exist
in print media are far outweighed by the present and future benefits that will
result from identifying opinions by a number. We believe that continuing to
permit the use of a parallel citation to the opinion will also serve to
ameliorate any problems. Moreover, we urge publishers to develop alternative
CD-ROM products that more closely emulate books for those traditionalist users
who prefer the look and feel of print opinions from books."
HyperLaw Notes to ¶25 - Court Identification Abbreviation.
The ABA Committee citation format court identifier differs from the recent AALL
suggestions in Draft 2 to the AALL User Guide. The ABA Committee suggested the
following, for a federal district court.
1996 SDNY 15
On the other hand, the AALL suggested the following format for a district
court:
Gasaway v. Estes, 1998 US Mich (W Dist) 90, 44
HyperLaw believes the ABA Committee's format is far superior for a number of
reasons including the following:
First, the ABA Committee format for the name of the court contains no spaces
and parantheses. This will make for better computer retrieval in the typical
indexing system which will index SDNY as a single "word" as opposed to the
numerous "words" in the AALL citations. We also think there will be fewer
typographical errors by using a more concise format.
Second, the ABA Committee's citation format may be readily converted to a
computer file name: i.e., 1996SDNY15. This will permit so called Internet
"search engines" to provide a location for all files with the file name
1996SDNY15 and will permit concise URL's. The same cannot be said for the AALL
format.
In short, the ABA format is far more workable in the computer environment, as
compared to the AALL format. Technology is one of the motivating reasons for
going through the pain of a new citation system. A new citation form should
specifically accomodate the technological environment.
HyperLaw Notes to ¶28.- Sequence Numbers Used by Some Courts
A number of courts with official reporters or publication committees already
assign sequence numbers to slip opinions in order to track the opinions during
the print publication process. Examples are the sequence "R" numbers assigned
to United States Supreme Court slip opinions at the time those opinions are
issued and the sequence numbers assigned to slip opinions in New York. These
NY sequence numbers may be seen by inspecting the Lawyers Cooperative New York
State CD-ROM: slip opinions bear a sequence number assigned by the office of
the Reporter of Decisions, Fred Mueller. In addition, Justice Donald G.
Alexander, Justice, Superior Court, has stated report provided to the Committee
that "[Maine] has a longstanding serial numbering system, and a uniform format
for certified opinions."
HyperLaw Notes to ¶30. - Other Issues
The Committee needs to develop a more specific set of suffixes to the opinion
identifying sequence numbers to address a number of issues other than
publication or non-publication.
Examples are:
An amendment to an opinion (for example on rehearing).
An amended opinion.
An errata sheet to an opinion.
An order relating to an opinion (such as a vacating order).
An opinion originally unpublished, and then published with an amendment.
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:: Alan D. Sugarman Federal Appeals on Disc tm CD-ROM ::
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:: 1993 to Date - All Circuits ::
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