User:Slaporte/Case Name Guide

This page describes the best practice for choosing the title of a court case. Court cases should also comply with Wikisource's general guidelines on page titles.

The following guide only applies to the page title for the case itself, not redirects. There will probably be a few variations on the name of each case, and it is acceptable to create redirects from those names to the case. E.g., Detroit Trust Company v. Thomas Barlum redirects to Detroit Trust Co. v. Thomas Barlum.

The preferred title of a court case is the name most commonly used to refer to that case, typically the last name of the parties, e.g. Marbury v. Madison. If there is already a page with the same title, then the name should be disambiguated by including the citation to the case, e.g. United States v. Barker (25 U.S. 559) includes the citation because there is a previous case entitled United States v. Barker.

Abbreviations
Rule: Only common words should be abbreviated, and abbreviations should include punctuation.

These common words should always be abbreviated, unless they begin the party name:

Uncommon abbreviations, such as "fed'n" for "federation" or "tech." for "technology" should be avoided. States or countries should not be abbreviated. When in doubt, do not abbreviate.

If a party's name is commonly abbreviated (e.g., NAACP or NRDC), then it may be abbreviated.

United States as a party
When the United States of America is named as a party, it should be referred to in the case name as "United States," as opposed to "United States of America," "U.S.A." or "U.S."

Omitted words and phrases
Rule: For people, omit all but last names. For all parties, omit beginning articles, procedural phrases (except in re, ex rel. and ex parte), and unnecessary phrases.

In general, cases should be named is concisely as possible, as long as they are still recognizable.

People
Omit all words except the person's last name. Omit first name, office, and additional parties. E.g., Bush v. Gore, not George W. Bush and Richard Cheney, Petitioners v. Albert Gore, Jr., et al.

Only include the last name of one person for each party. Do not use the phrase et al. in the page name.

Procedural phrases
If the case is not an adversary proceeding, then it may begin with the phrase In re. Abbreviate introductory phrases as In re, such as "Estate of" or "In the matter of". Other procedural phrases, such as Ex parte, are also allowed.

If the case is an adversary proceeding, omit all procedural phrases except ex rel., which is used equivalent to "on behalf of."

Only capitalize a procedural phrase if it begins the party name--In re not In Re.

Unnecessary phrases

 * Do not include "Inc." if there is already a similar phrase, like "Co."
 * Do not include descriptive phrases, such as "citizen of New York", e.g. Buckner v. Finley not William Buckner Citizen of New York v. Finley and Van Lear Citizens of the State of Maryland
 * Do not include descriptive terms, such as "petitioners" or "Commissioner"

Exceptions

 * Include "The" at the beginning of names where there is only one party, e.g. The Octavia

Disambiguation
Rule: If disambiguation is necessary, include the party names followed by the citation in parentheses.

The citation style is [volume] [reporter] [page], to the original source of the text of the text that is being added. If the text is not from a reporter, but rather from a slip opinion or other source, include a public domain citation in parentheses.

Common name
Some common names do not follow these rules, such as The Slaughter-House Cases. If a case is well-known by a name that does not follow the above guidelines, then the page should have the most common name.