Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 01.pdf/484

Rh out given names, the surnames of the leading plaintiff and the leading defendant merely. The words et al., where there are more parties than one on either side, are of no use and should be omitted. The title of a case in a volume of reports is intended merely as an ear-mark by which it may be known and cited, and all that is necessary to be given is enough to distinguish it from other cases. Mr. Wallace may have gone too far in railroad and bank cases in saying "Railroad Co." or "Bank," instead of giving in brief form the name of the railroad company or of the bank; since litigation is so frequent in which railroad, banking, and other companies are parties that some designation of the particular company ought, it should seem, to be given. To illustrate: I find in the "Reporter System," of the Wests, the practice of citing a case which consists of a mandamus against a railroad company, where the proceeding is in the name of the State on the relation of some person or corporation, as "State v. Railroad Co." Now it is evident that every single case of this kind will have the same name, and therefore the name might better be omitted, for it is useless and occupies space. The true way is to give the leading name of the railway company, such as, "Minneapolis &c. R. Co.," or of the banking company, such as, "State Bank of Illinois," "Farmer's Bank," etc.

In contrast with this is the abominable practice, kept up by the reporters in Iowa and Texas, of giving the name of the railroad company abbreviated in initials merely, as, "Brown v. I. & G. N. R. R. Co." This lingo of capital letters conveys no definite idea of the name, unless one is familiar with the names of the railroads in the particular jurisdiction. A happy medium in this regard is the citation of such cases thus: "Brown v. Chicago, &c. R. Co." The use of "R. R." as an abbreviation for the word railroad is a useless duplication of the capital letter R., and is an abominable and ignorant Americanism. Railroad is strictly one word. Originally two words, then a compound word, it has come to be regarded and is properly spelled as a single word. Many of the simple words of all languages are, it is well known, created in this way.

It is believed that where one of the parties is a municipal corporation, it is amply sufficient to use the name of the corporation merely, thus: "Brown v. Chicago" or "Smith v. Lexington," instead of "Smith v. Town of Lexington." It is the practice of many writers, judges, and reporters, where a case is cited more than once, not to repeat the reference to volume and page, but to use the Latin direction,—supra, ut supra, or ubi supra. This is inadmissible except where the preceding citation occurs on the same page and but a short distance above the second citation. Many judges and reporters forget this entirely; and where a citation has been once made in a case and is again made fifteen or twenty pages farther on, instead of repeating the volume and page, they simply use the index, supra, thus sending the reader back on a long and tiresome search to find what the supra means. Several exasperating examples of this kind of work are found in the case of Louisville &c. R. Co. v. Falvey, 104 Ind. On page 424 the opinion cites a case as "Davis v. State, supra" and the reader actually has to go back to page 413, although almost every intervening page teems with citations, to find the volume and page where Davis v. State is reported. This is outrageous. This practice is a shameful one, because it consumes a great deal of the time of the judge, law-writer, or brief-maker.

Again, where legal works are cited and there is more than one volume of the same work or the same series, it is unpardonable not to give the number of the volume. Some of the old English Reports, such as those of Burroughs and of Lord Raymond, were paged consecutively through the successive volumes. From this some judges and writers fell into the habit of omitting to cite the volume, and of citing the page only. This was an inconvenient and abominable habit, since a person desiring to open the book for the