Find a Case by Citation

The easiest way to find a case is when you have a citation (affectionately called a cite by legal people) obtained from a textbook, law review, another case, or some other source. 

Remember the three parts of a legal citation: Volume Number —  Source — Page Number

110 U.S. 413

The example above refers to a case that begins on page 413 of volume 110 of the United States Reports.

818 F. Supp. 1366

The next example above refers to a case that begins on page 1366 of volume 818 of the Federal Supplement.

Print Resources

You can easily find a case in one of the printed case reporters if you have a citation. Remember the three parts of a legal citation:

1. Locate the correct reporter set 
2. Retrieve the correct volume
3. Turn to the correct page
   

• The UNT Libraries Law Finder can be helpful in locating the reporter on the shelf. (Requires Adobe Reader.)
• When looking for the reporter set, be sure you are in the right series (2nd, 3rd, etc.).
• If you don’t know what title the abbreviation stands for, try consulting a reference work such as Bieber’s Dictionary of Legal Abbreviations (Located at Government Documents Service Desk under call number KF246.B46).
• If the citation ends with two numbers separated by a comma [e.g., “428 U.S. 543, 557”], the first number is the first page of the case entry. The second number is the specific page being referred to by the source of your citation. (This is known as a pinpoint citation, or jump citation.) A proper citation to a case will always refer you to the first page of the case. If you find yourself in the middle of a case, you’re probably in the wrong reporter, the wrong series, or the wrong volume.
• The source of you citation may provide several parallel citations for the same case. If we don’t have one of the reporters, we may have the same case in another reporter. For state cases, look for a citation to one of the regional reporters.

Campus Research

West's Campus Research offers probably the easiest and quickest way to retrieve a case when you know the citation.

1. From the Libraries home page, select Electronic Resources/C/Campus Research
2. Select the Law tab to get into the legal portion of the database.
3. On the left side of the screen, enter the citation in the box labeled "Find a Document by citation." You don't have to worry much about punctuation or spacing, because the search engine is very flexible and accommodating.
4. Click the blue Go button next to the box.

LexisNexis™ Academic

LexisNexis™ Academic offers an alternative way to retrieve a case when you know the citation. 

1. From the Libraries home page, select Electronic Resources/L/LexisNexis Academic
2. Select Legal/Federal & State Cases
   
3. Under "Look Up a Legal Case," enter the citation in the "By Citation" box. Be sure to space between the volume number and the abbreviation and between the abbreviation and the page number, but not within the abbreviation.
   
4. Click the blue "Go" button.

Web Resources

The Web is not usually a very effective place for locating cases by citation. Many Internet sites offer full text court opinions free of charge, but with the exception of Supreme Court cases, most of these sites don’t allow you to enter a citation and retrieve the case.

In order to avoid copyright problems, most Web publishers of court opinions avoid using references to commercially published print case reporters such as West’s. Instead, they will use dates, docket numbers, and party names as finding options. Sometimes you may be able to enter keywords from the citation into a search box.