How to verify case citations before you file

To verify a case citation, confirm that the reporter cite resolves to a real opinion, that the case name, court and year match, and that the proposition you cite appears at the pin cite. Then read the opinion. Each step is quick and together they catch almost every bad citation.

Step 1 Parse the citation

Break the citation into its parts: case name, volume, reporter, first page, pin cite, court and year. A citation like Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007) has volume 550, reporter U.S., first page 544 and pin cite 570. If a part is missing or the reporter does not exist, stop here.

Step 2 Resolve the reporter cite

Look up volume, reporter and page in a source you trust. The result should be one opinion. If the lookup returns a different case name, or nothing, the citation is suspect. Fabricated citations often combine a plausible reporter with a made up case name.

Step 3 Match the name, court and year

Compare the case name in your draft with the opinion. Check the court in the parenthetical and the year of decision. Small mismatches matter, because they show that a citation was copied from memory or from a summary.

Step 4 Check the pin cite

Open the opinion at the pin cite and find the passage. A pin cite outside the page range of the opinion is a clear error. A pin cite inside the range that does not support your point is a different problem, and only reading the page will catch it.

Step 5 Read the opinion and check later history

Read enough of the opinion to know the holding. Then look at later cases that cite it to see whether it was limited, distinguished or overruled. CaseCode shows later opinions that cite a case, but a citator is the right tool for formal treatment history.

Where a tool helps

Steps 1 to 4 are mechanical, and a citation checker can run them on a whole brief in seconds. Paste a paragraph into the citation checker and see which cites are verified and which are flagged. You still read the opinions, and you are no longer hunting for the one cite that does not exist.