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Information Sheet

Case Law

Case law is the law that is developed by the courts through Judges' decisions on legal disputes. It is referred to as Common Law and is not based on legislation. Australian courts use the doctrine of precedent principle meaning that arguments presented in court need to be supported by referring to earlier cases.

Judges' decisions are available in two forms:

  • Reported - these decisions are published in law reports and are reported because they raise significant points of law or further expand on the points of law already published. These decisions are usually made in superior courts.
  • Unreported Judgments - these decisions are not published in law reports usually because they are either very recent judgments or they do not contain significant points of law or expand further on points of law already published.

 

Interpreting Case Law Citations

Finding Cases on a specific subject

Finding Cases that discuss legislation

Finding Cases that consider a word or phrase

Finding the Judicial consideration of a case

 

Interpreting Case Law Citations

Every case has legal citation. A reported case would be cited as follows:

Mabo v Queensland (No 2) (1992) 175 CLR 1




Case name Mabo v Queensland
Year 1992
Volume number 175
Law Report Abbreviation CLR
Page number 1











To find the Law Report Abbreviation, use the Law Report Abbreviation sheet available in the John and Alison Kearney Law Library.

A medium-neutral citation system is used for unreported decisions and decisions published in electronic format. It is different to a citation for a reported case, as it doesn't rely on the volume and page numbers. A medium-neutral citation would be as follows:

Johnson v Johnson (2000) HCA 48

Case name Johnson v Johnson
Year 2000
Court identifier HCA
Judgment number 48

To find the abbreviation for the court used in the medium neutral citation system, use the Medium Neutral Court Citations sheet available in the John and Alison Kearney Law Library.

 

Finding Specific Cases

Finding the Citation of a Case

In order to find a report of a case, you need to locate the complete citation first.

Finding the citation of a case may also be necessary if you don't have all of the information (e.g. only know the names of the parties), the citation you have is incorrect or the volume of the Law Report that you require is not on the shelf and therefore, you need to be able to find if it was reported elsewhere.

Try using the following to search for citations:

Australian Case Citator (1825 - ) REF K/2/.K1 AUSC
CaseBase via LexisNexis AU

 

Finding Cases - In Print

If you have the complete citation of a case, you can locate the Law Report series that the case has been published in. Use a legal abbreviation dictionary or list to find the complete name of the Law Report.

Bond University Library Law Report Citations On stand beside the Information Desk
Index to legal citations and abbreviations REF K/112 RAI/1993
Australian and New Zealand legal abbreviations REF K/112/.K1 FON/1995
Bieber's dictionary of legal citations REF K/112 PRI/1997

Use the Library catalogue to search for the title of the Law Report and to find the location on the shelf.

Finding Cases - Electronically

To find a case electronically, you will need to know:

  • The name of the parties
  • The court it was heard in or the Law Report series in which it was published
  • The year the case was heard.

Not all cases can be found electronically but a large number from 1990 onwards can be located through either free websites or electronic databases subscribed to by the Library. Try the following:

Finding Unreported Judgments

You can use the following to find unreported judgments. Please note that not all unreported cases will be available via these databases.

 

 

Finding Cases that discuss Legislation

Annotations can be used to find cases that discuss legislation. An annotator can be:

  • Statute Annotator - outlines amendments made to a piece of legislation
  • Case Annotator - covers cases which have considered specific sections of that legislation

The John and Alison Kearney Law Library provides access to the following:

AustLII
To find cases that consider an Act or a specific section of an Act you can use the [Noteup] function to display all cases that refer to this section. 		http://www.austlii.edu.au
CaseBase
Use the focus search and enter the act name or section of the act into the 'Statutes' search box.		 CaseBase via LexisNexis AU
Queensland legislation case annotations
Available in print and electronically 		KH/86
via LexisNexis AU
Australian Current Law: Reporter
Find the table of legislation considered by the court 		REF K/2/.K1 AUSC

 

 

Finding Cases that consider a word or phrase

Sometimes it may be important to search for a case that uses a specific word or phrase. Try using the following to assist in this:

Australian Digest
Use the Words and Phrases Index to find relevant cases 		REF K/2/.K1 AUSD
CaseBase
Use the focus search and enter the word or phrase into the 'Word or Phrase' search box. 		via Butterworths Online
Australian legal words and phrases
Provides citations to cases and legislation where the word or phrase has been defined or referred to 		REF K/217/.K1 AUS/1993
Words and phrases legally defined
Includes extracts from the case or legislation that is referred to.		 REF K/217/.K1 WOR/1988

 

 

Finding the Judicial consideration of a case

Australian Courts use the doctrine of precedent principle meaning that arguments presented in court need to be supported by referring to earlier cases.

It is important to be able to find how the decision of an earlier case (known as the primary case) has been used in the courts and to check the authority of the case you are using (known as the subsequent consideration case) to ensure that your case is appropriate.

To find how a case has been used in the courts, you need to find the judicial consideration or noting up of the case. To this you can use:

 

Australian Case Citator REF K/2/.K1 AUSC
CaseBase via LexisNexis AU

 

When you use the tools above, you will notice that certain terminology is used to explain how that decision was used. The following annotations are used to explain how the subsequent consideration case has judicially considered the primary case:

Annotation

Explanation of how it is used
Appl
Applied 		Used when a principle of law articulated in the primary case is applied to a new set of facts by the court in the subsequent consideration case.
Appr
Approved		 Used when the court in the subsequent consideration case has approved the way the court in the primary case, being a court of inferior jurisdiction has articulated a principle of law.
Cited Used when the primary case is cited by the court in the subsequent consideration case, without comment
Cons
Considered		 Used when the legal principles articulated in the primary case are considered or discussed without adverse reflection by the court in the subsequent consideration case.
Disap
Disapproved		 Used when the decision in the primary case is criticized by the court in the subsequent consideration case
Dist
Distinguished 		Used when the court in the subsequent consideration case holds that the legal principles articulated by the primary case do not apply because of some salient difference between the two cases
Expl
Explained 		Used when the decision reached in the primary case is justified by the court in the subsequent consideration case drawing attention to some feature of the primary case decision that may not be immediately obvious on its face.
Foll
Followed		 Similar to applied but is used in circumstances where the facts in the primary case resemble reasonably closely the facts in the subsequent consideration case
Not foll
Not Followed 		Used when the court in the subsequent consideration case has declined to apply the principles of law articulated in the primary case
Ovrr
Overruled 		Used when the legal principles articulated in the primary case are held to be incorrect by the court in the subsequent consideration case, which is a court of superior or equivalent jurisdiction.
Qstd
Questioned 		Used when the court in the subsequent consideration has expressed doubt about the decision in the primary case, but does not actually determine that the principles of law in the primary case are incorrect
See Used to denote subsequent consideration cases that relate in some way to the primary case, but the court in the subsequent consideration case is not assessing the merits of the related primary decision.Please note: See would sometimes be used where 'cited' is now used.

 

Note: some principles in an earlier case may be treated differently in the primary case so combinations may exist e.g. Appl/Dist (one principle applied and another distinguished)

For more information, please see the CaseBase subsequent consideration webpage

When using CaseBase, colours are used to highlight the annotations. The colours are used to highlight or draw attention and not to change the annotation.

  • Negative treatments (Disapp, Not foll, Ovrr) are red
  • Positive treatments (Foll, Appl, Appr) are green.
  • Treatments requiring caution as the law is not applicable in the circumstances (Dist, Expl, Qstd) are orange
  • Neutral treatments (Cons, cited) are black.