Unreported decision
Referencing unreported decisions
Case name | [Year] | Court | Judgement no. |
---|---|---|---|
Rowland v Alfred Health | [2014] | FCA | 2 |
- Unreported decisions utilise a ‘medium neutral citation’ that does not depend on a publisher or medium
- The party names are listed first and italicised
- The year is enclosed in square brackets “[ ]”
- Court identifiers are abbreviated. For example, FCA is used for Federal Court of Australia and HCA for the High Court of Australia
- Judgement numbers are commonly used, these are applied by the relevant court
- Unreported decisions with a medium neutral citation do not require the full date
- A full stop is used at the end of a footnote
- A full stop is not used in a bibliography.
Examples
Individual party names
Stanford v Stanford [2012] HCA 52
Company party names
Trusted Cloud Pty Ltd v Core Desktop Pty Ltd [2015] FCA 33
The Crown as the first party
R v Coulter [2014] VSC 42
The Crown as respondent
Picone v The Queen [2015] VSCA 5
Entry in footnote
R v Giles [2014] VSC 210
Entry in bibliography
Tauaifaga v TCN Channel Nine Pty Ltd[2013] NSWSC 8
Further information
Referencing case law: ‘in text’ and pinpoint references
In text references
- An ‘in text’ reference usually cites the case, text or reference in the body of an essay or report.
- A footnote should immediately follow the portion of text which it is relevant to
- It should also follow directly after any relevant punctuation (i.e. a full stop or comma)
- A full stop should appear at the end of all footnotes citing case law.
“Recent developments in Australian law following the decision of the High Court in IceTV Pty Ltd v Network Nine Australia Pty Ltd (IceTV)1 illustrate a fundamental shift in the approach of courts regarding the importance and form of authorship.”
Pinpoint references
A pinpoint reference is a reference to a specific page, paragraph or other section of a decision
- A pinpoint reference to a page should appear as a number – do not use ‘p’ or ‘pg’
- A pinpoint reference to a paragraph should appear as a number in square brackets.
Universal Music Australia Pty Ltd and Others v Sharman License Holdings Ltd and Others (2005) 220 ALR 1, 3.
Roadshow Films Pty Ltd v iiNet Ltd, (2012) 286 ALR 466, 488 [95]