{"id":1053,"date":"2020-10-01T20:35:45","date_gmt":"2020-10-01T20:35:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/citeblog.access-to-law.com\/?p=1053"},"modified":"2021-12-11T18:11:17","modified_gmt":"2021-12-11T18:11:17","slug":"the-bluebooks-treatment-of-court-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citeblog.access-to-law.com\/?p=1053","title":{"rendered":"The Bluebook’s Treatment of Court Rules"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

From its first appearance in 2000, the ALWD manual (now \u201cguide\u201d) has furnished both a format for and examples of citations to state court rules.\u00a0 Through successive editions, such little coverage as The Bluebook<\/em> has given citation of court rules, however, has focused on the rules governing proceedings in federal courts.\u00a0 Up through the twentieth edition, published five years ago, there was, at least, a nod toward the existence of state rules in the form of one example \u201cDel. Ct. C.P.R. 8(f).\u201d\u00a0 Over time, that illustration became a curious, even an embarrassing, one, since for over a decade it bore no obvious connection to an existing Delaware court rule.\u00a0 Nonetheless, \u201cDel. Ct. C.P.R.\u201d sat, undisturbed, between \u201c1st Cir. R. 6(a)\u201d and \u201cFed. R. Evid. 410\u201d through multiple Bluebook<\/em> editions since at least the fourteenth (1986).\u00a0 (How much cite checking of examples goes into the updating of The Bluebook<\/em>?)\u00a0 The twenty-first edition, published this year, could have fixed the Delaware example. \u00a0(Citations to \u201cDel. Super. Ct. C.P.R.\u201d and \u201cDel. Fam. Ct. C.P.R.\u201d appear in contemporary decisions of that state\u2019s courts.)\u00a0 It could have replaced the Delaware example with one from a state like Texas where the court rules and their citation map closely onto the federal model (e.g.<\/em>, \u201cTex. R. Civ. P.\u201d).\u00a0 Instead, it provides no state example.\u00a0 The only guidance offered in its pages, white or blue, is the advice, preceding the Rule 12.9.3 list of examples, to \u201c[u]se abbreviations such as the following or abbreviations suggested by the rules themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Bluebook<\/em>\u2019s Table 1, a catalog of \u201cabbreviations and citation conventions\u201d for the primary legal materials of all fifty states, fails to cure the omission.  State court rules are not among its categories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If The Bluebook<\/em> didn\u2019t purport to provide \u201cguidance for the everyday citation needs of \u2026 summer associates, law clerks, practicing lawyers, and other legal professionals\u201d (to quote from its introduction) this lacuna might be excusable.\u00a0 Little academic writing in the four law journals responsible for The Bluebook<\/em>\u2019s production concerns state law, let alone the rules of state courts.\u00a0 Federal rules of judicial procedure and evidence do receive some discussion and therefore citation in their pages, but almost never a civil procedure rule of, say, Missouri or Texas.\u00a0 As The Bluebook<\/em> acknowledges in the preface to Table 1, \u201c[t]he abbreviations and citation conventions \u2026 [it contains] are primarily intended to serve a national audience.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

State style manuals (California, New York) do address the citation of their own state\u2019s court rules.\u00a0 For them it is an inescapable topic.\u00a0 Citations to a state\u2019s rules governing civil or criminal trial proceedings, evidence, and appeals are critical elements of in-state memorandum, brief, order, and opinion writing.\u00a0 The Bluebook<\/em> devotes five times the space to \u201cModel Codes, Principles, Restatements, Standards, Sentencing Guidelines, and Uniform Acts\u201d that it does \u201cRules of Evidence and Procedure.\u201d\u00a0 The ratio reasonably reflects the importance of the respective sources to elite law journals.\u00a0 By contrast, in court opinions and briefs there are, perhaps, a hundred court rule citations to one of a restatement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The difficult truth is that there is no nationally observed template for state court rule citations.\u00a0 Rarely are they cited outside the jurisdiction to which they apply.\u00a0 An Ohio court rule citation must be intelligible to an Ohio attorney or judge.\u00a0 It need not be written with a Kentucky lawyer or judge in mind (and vice versa).\u00a0 An Ohio judge will understand that a citation to \u201cCrim.R. 32(C)\u201d invokes Rule 32(C) of the Ohio Rules of Criminal Procedure.\u00a0 \u201cCR 23.01\u201d directs a Kentucky judge or lawyer straight to Rule 23.01 of that state\u2019s rules of civil procedure.\u00a0 In both instances the jurisdiction is implied, not named.\u00a0 More commonly state rule citations do include an abbreviation of the state name.\u00a0 States adhering to this practice include California (e.g.<\/em>, \u201cCal. Rules of Court, rule 4.421(a)(1)\u201d), Illinois (e.g.<\/em>, \u201cIll. Sup. Ct. R. 341\u201d), New York (e.g.<\/em>, \u201c22 NYCRR \u00a7 806.13\u201d), and Texas (e.g.<\/em>, \u201cTEX. R. CIV. P. 322\u201d).\u00a0 As those examples illustrate, even among jurisdictions where rule citations include explicit reference to the state, formats vary.\u00a0 Some conform to the pattern employed for federal rule citations and adapted by the ALWD guide to state rules.\u00a0 Some do not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What advice should a citation reference provide about this important category of primary legal material, advice that will assist \u201csummer associates, law clerks, practicing lawyers, and other legal professionals\u201d with their \u201ceveryday citation needs?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n