Canadian Legal Citation/Case law

The standard case citation format is:

R. v. Big M Drug Mart Ltd., [1985] 1 S.C.R. 295.

This form consists of the following components.

Style of cause	(year of decision),	[year of reporter]	volume	reporter	(series)	first page	pinpoint reference	jurisdiction/court
R. v. Big M Drug Mart Ltd.	,	[1985]	1	S.C.R.		295.
R. v. Oakes,		[1986]	1	S.C.R.		103.
Re Canada Trust Co. and O.H.R.C.	(1990),		69	D.L.R.	(4th)	321		(Ont. C.A.).

Style of cause: is the name of the case (e.g. someone v. someone). It is italicized as in all other countries and the party names are separated by "v." (English) or "c." (French). Prior to 1984 the appellant or plaintiff would always be named first. However, since then case names do not switch order when the case is appealed.

Only use the last names of individuals. If there are two individuals, use both their names in alphabetical order, separated by "and": Jones and Smith v. Green and Brown. If there are more than two plaintiffs or defendants, use "et al.": Lareau et al. v. Moreau et al. Use the full name of companies, e.g., A.A. Aardvark Abacus Manufacturing Corporation of Canada v. Smith.

Undisclosed parties to a case are represented by initials (e.g. R. v. R.D.S.). Criminal cases are prosecuted by the Crown which is always represented by "R." Reference question are always entitled "Reference Re" followed by the subject title.

Publishers may choose to use one name where there are several plaintiffs or defendants. This simplifies research. They may also shorten the name of companies, e.g., A.A. Aardvark v. Smith. The shortened versions of case names may appear on the header of pages of the published judgment. Follow their example when citing cases.

Year: Then next part of a case reference is the date of the publication of the decision. If the publisher of the case breaks its series up by year, then the year is in square brackets. For instance, the Supreme Court Reports divide up their series by year; in the library, one can find the Supreme Court Reports for 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, etc. In this case, the year is in square brackets. Other publishers do not use the year of publication to divide up their series. In that case, use round brackets.

Volume: The next part of a case reference is the volume number. Some published reports are so long that they divide into volumes. In our example above, one can see that the Supreme Court Reports did not have volumes in 1959. Nowadays, the Supreme Court hands down so many decisions that the Supreme Court Reports use 2 or 3 volumes a year. e.g., [2004] 2 S.C.R. 300. It is important to note the volume number when doing research, especially when the year of the case is in round brackets.

Reporter The next part of the case reference is the name of the publication (a.k.a. the "Report"). These are always abbreviated. Some of these reports are based on jurisdiction, others are based on area of law. (see below for reporter examples)

Page number:The page number follows the Report name. This is the first page on which the decision appears.

Pinpoint reference: If the reference is to a specific part of the judgment, the page or paragraph number is added. Generally a paragraph pinpoint is preferred over a page pinpoint.

If the judgment is divided by paragraph numbers, write: "at para. X." For example:

R. v. Big M Drug Mart Ltd., [1985] 1 S.C.R. 295 at para. 50.

R. v. Oakes, [1986] 1 S.C.R. 103 at paras. 23, 26.

R. v. Morgentaler (1988), 37 C.C.C. (3d) 449, [1988] 1 S.C.R. 30 at paras. 20-25.

Otherwise, note the page number: "at X." For example:

RWDSU v. Dolphin Delivery Ltd. [1986] 2 S.C.R. 573 at 592.

Old published reports may have the letters a through h typed in the margins. Do not use these in a reference.

Usually either the year of the decision or the year of the reporter is cited, but not usually both. Only if they are different years can they both be cited at the same time. If they are the same, one should always use the reporter year.

Reporters

see Appendix:Reporters for a complete list of reporters

Abbreviation	Reporter	years
A.R.	Alberta Reports	1976 -
D.L.R. (4th)	Dominion Law Reports	1984 -
F.C.	Federal Court Reports	1971 -
N.B.R. (2d)	New Brunswick Reports	1969 -
N.S.R. (2d)	Nova Scotia Reports	1969 -
O.R. (3d)	Ontario Reports	1986 -
S.C.R.	Supreme Court Reports	1970 -

Neutral Citation

In 1999 the Canadian Judicial Council adopted a neutral citation standard for case law. The format provides a naming system that does not depend on the publication of the case a law report.

The standard format look like this:

Year of decision	Court identifier	Ordinal number
2000	SCC	1

There is a unique court identifier code for most courts. There are a few courts in Quebec and Ontario that have yet to adopt the system. A list of the court identifiers include:

Court Identifier	Court	from year
SCC	Supreme Court of Canada	2000
FCT	Federal Court of Canada - Trial Division	2001
FCA	Federal Court of Canada - Appeal Division	2001
TCC	Tax Court of Canada	2003

see Appendix:Neutral Citation for a complete list of neutral citation