University Library: Law: Cases

Case law

Over hundreds of years judges have been deciding cases. Their decisions have developed a body of legal principles known as 'common law'.

Courts can publish decisions in the form of an unreported judgment, sometimes referred to as medium neutral citations.

Significant cases that reflect important points of law are published in law reports. These can either be:

Authorised - reviewed by Judges for accuracy and are recognised as the most authoritative source of a court's judgment.
Unauthorised - may be published more quickly and can appear in a specialised report series on a particular area of law e.g. torts, criminal law.

A case may be published in several law report series, and when a case has multiple citations you should always use the most authoritative version of the decision.

Citation hierarchy in order of preference:

Authorised
Unauthorised
Unreported

This video explains the importance and value of authorised law reports.

Authorised Law report series in Australia

Court	Law Report Title	Abbreviation
High Court	Commonwealth Law Reports 1903- Westlaw (1903- )	CLR
Federal Court	Federal Court Reports 1984- Westlaw (1984- )	FCR
Administrative Appeals Tribunal	Administrative Law Decisions 1976- Lexis Advance (1976- )	ALD
Australian Industrial Relations Commission; Fair Work Australia; Fair Work Commission; Industrial Relations Commission of NSW	Industrial Reports 1981- Westlaw (1981- )	IR
Supreme Court of New South Wales	New South Wales Law Reports 1970- Westlaw (1970- )	NSWLR
	New South Wales Reports 1960-1971 NSW Law Reports (1960-1971) (view on screen only - pay download) Hardcopy St Benedict's R/KH/75/NSWR	NSWR
	New South Wales Law Reports 1880-1900 AustLII (1856-1900) (scanned copies of originals)	SR (NSW)
Supreme Court of Victoria	Victorian Reports 1957- Lexis Advance (1957- )	VR
	Victorian Law Reports 1875-1956 AustLII (1875-1956) (scanned copies of originals)	VLR
Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory	Australian Capital Territory Law Reports 2008- Westlaw (2008- )	ACTLR
	Australian Capital Territory Reports 1973-2008 Lexis Advance (1973-2008)	ACTR
Supreme Court of the Northern Territory	Northern Territory Law Reports 1991- Westlaw (1991- )	NTLR
	Northern Territory Reports 1979-1991 Lexis Advance (1979-1991)	NTR
Supreme Court of Queensland	Queensland Reports 1958- Lexis Advance (1974- )	QdR
Supreme Court of South Australia	South Australian State Reports 1971- Westlaw (1961+)	SASR
	State Reports South Australia 1921-70 AustLII (1920-1950) (scanned copies of originals)	SALR
Supreme Court of Tasmania	Tasmanian Reports 1979- Westlaw (1992- ) AustLII (1979-1991) (scanned copies of originals)	Tas R
	Tasmanian State Reports 1941-1978 AustLII (1941-1978) (scanned copies of originals)	Tas SR
	Tasmanian Law Reports 1904-1940 AustLII (1904-1940) (scanned copies of originals)	Tas LR
Supreme Court of Western Australia	Western Australian Reports 1960- Westlaw (1960- )	WAR
	Western Australian Law Reports 1899-1959 AustLII (1899-1959) (scanned copies of originals)	WALR

Finding a case from a citation

Citation elements

You can look up a case citation to find out what it stands for by using an abbreviations guide:

Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations
This database allows you to search for the meaning of abbreviations for law reports and journals.
Lexis Advance Abbreviations
Lists abbreviations used in Lexis CaseBase.

Finding cases on a topic

Use secondary resources to find cases on a particular area of law:

Westlaw organises case law by Key Numbers that identify points of law in cases and organises them by topic and key number. This is another good way to find case law on a particular legal issue.

Case Citators

Case citators provide basic information about a case such as:

Citations with links to full text where available
Name and date of judgment
Presiding judge/s
Litigation history
Summary of judgment and outcome
Cases and legislation considered by a case
Links to later cases that have considered this case

Many case citators have additional features that can be used to help improve your research efficiency and can be used to:

Track litigation history (link to appeals and first instance decisions)
Find journal articles that refer to the case
Create alerts to be notified when a case has new judicial treatment or appeals
Search for cases on a particular point of law or legal topic
Help work out whether a case is still good law by viewing it's subsequent treatment

Lexis+ CaseBase symbols let you quickly identify whether a case has had positive, neutral or negative treatment:

Australian case citators

Casebase

KeyCite (Westlaw)

JADE Citator Search
Type in the name of a case or piece of legislation to reveal how a particular passage has been used in judicial reasoning. You can even search at the paragraph or section level.
LawCite
Automatically generated international legal case and journal article citator developed by AustLII

Australian law reports

You will find most Australian law report series on either Lexis Advance or Westlaw AU.

Unreported judgments

Unreported judgments are judicial decisions that have not been published in a law report series. These are some commonly used databases to locate unreported judgments.

AustLII
Australia's online free-access resource for Australian legal information.
BarNet Jade
Search, annotate and share legal judgments and legislation.

Lexis+ Australia This link opens in a new window
Law reports, journals, commentaries and news from Australia, US and many other jurisdictions.
Westlaw AU This link opens in a new window
Australian case law, KeyCite citator, legal journals, encyclopaedia and commentaries.

Australian courts

You will also find recent unreported judgments on government websites.

Commonwealth of Australia: Courts and Decisions

New South Wales: Courts and Decisions

Western Australia: Courts and Decisions

eCourts Portal of Western Australia
Supreme Court of Western Australia
District Court of Western Australia
Family Court of Western Australia
Selected Judgments Only
State Administrative Tribunal (SAT)
The State Administrative Tribunal deals with a broad range of administrative, commercial and personal matters reviewing decisions made by Government agencies and officials.
Warden's Court

Videos

Digital Law Library (Federal Court of Australia)
Videos produced by the Federal Court of Australia and live streaming of hearings are available via the Court's YouTube channel.
Recent AV Recordings (High Court of Australia)
Audio-visual recordings of Full Court hearings heard in Canberra.

International case law

Subscription databases

Westlaw Classic US This link opens in a new window
US State and Federal case law, legislation, news, legal journals and commentary.
Westlaw UK This link opens in a new window
UK case law, legislation, news, legal journals, commentary and EU legal materials.
vLex Justis (UK Content Only) This link opens in a new window
Justis gives you access to hundreds of thousands of case judgments and legislation from common law jurisdictions around the world.

ICLR
The Incorporated Council of Law Reporting for England and Wales (ICLR) publishes the official Law Reports, The Weekly Law Reports, The Industrial Cases Reports, The Business Law Reports, The Public and Third Sector Law Reports and the Consolidated Index to leading law reports.

Open access resources

WorldLII
A database of resources from around the world as well as a Directory of links to the most reliable and useful legal sites in each jurisdiction.
BAILII (British & Irish Legal Information Institute)
CanLII (Canadian Legal Information Institute)
CommonLII (Commonwealth Legal Information Institute)
CommonLII aims to provide one central Internet location to search for core legal information from all Commonwealth countries.
FindLaw
From the USA. Cases and Codes for both State and Federal laws of the USA.

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