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For further information on cases or court decisions, please see pages 357-361, section 11.4, of the APA manual.

American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000

Components of Citing Legal Cases in APA Style

There are five components to a legal citation: title or name of the case; citation; jurisdiction of the court writing the decision; date of the decision, and URL (optional).

Title or Name of the Case

General Format

Name v. Name

For Example

Plessy v. Ferguson

Citation

The court decisions are often found in publications called case reporters. You will need to identify the volume number, the name of the reporter, and the first page of the case. The name of the reporter will be abbreviated.  For example, F. Supp. for Federal Supplement (decisions from the U.S. District Court are published in the Federal Supplements).

General Format

Volume Number Reporter Page number

For Example

627 F. Supp. 418

This citation statement means that the court decision can be found in volume 627 of the Federal Supplement starting on page 418.

Jurisdiction of the Court Writing the Decision

The court will be in parentheses. Please note that legal citations frequently use abbreviations. For example, a court decision from the Texas Courts of Appeals would look like: (Tex. App.). For a partial list of abbreviations, please see Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute’s page of abbreviations This link opens in a new window.

Date of the Court Decision

This is in the same set of parentheses as the jurisdiction like this: (Tex. App. 1999)

URL

This is the location from which you found the case information. It is optional, but it may help readers to locate the case.

Example Citations of Federal and State Court Decisions

General Format

Name v. Name, Volume number Reporter Page number (Court Year). URL

For Example - Federal

Meritor Sav. Bank v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57 (1986). https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/477/57/ This link opens in a new window

Note

U.S. Supreme Court decisions are published in the United States Reports (abbreviated “U.S.” in the reference). You do not need to indicate U.S. Supreme Court within the parentheses since the U.S. part of the citation makes it clear which court this is.

For Example - State

Bates v. Tappan, 99 Mass. 376 (1868). https://cite.case.law/mass/99/376/ This link opens in a new window

Note

The abbreviation “Mass.” stands for Massachusetts Reports and it publishes decisions made by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. You do not need to indicate the court within the parentheses since the Mass. part of the citation makes it clear which court this is.

In-Text Citations

(Name v. Name, Year)

(Meritor Sav. Bank v. Vinson, 1986)

(Bates v. Tappan, 1868)

Note

Unlike other reference types, the title or name of a case is written in standard type in the References but in italic type in the in-text citation. The year is not in italic type.

More Information

Further Help

This information is intended to be a guideline, not expert advice. Please be sure to speak to your professor about the appropriate way to cite sources in your class assignments and projects.

Campus Students

To access Academic Support, visit your Brightspace course and select “Tutoring and Mentoring” from the Academic Support pulldown menu.

Online Students

To access help with citations and more, visit the Academic Support via modules in Brightspace:

Content authored by: GS

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