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This video will show you how to find a case or decision when the only information you
have is a case citation or reference. This is sometimes called the known case approach
to case law research.
When using this approach to case law research a good place to start is with the case citation.
You will need to know and understand the elements of a citation.
These include: The names of the parties involved in the case
Year of publication Volume number of the law report series
the abbreviation of the law report series and the Commencing page number
Interpreting the law report abbreviation is the key to locating this case. Using our example
citation we need to interpret what the abbreviation FCR stands for. Let's go to the Legal research
Guide and use the abbreviation lookup tool.
You can access Legal Research guide from your My Library page on the Library homepage.
To find the abbreviation begin by selecting the case law tab.
The Library has a number of Australian and international guides and directories that
you can use to decipher an abbreviation. Use the drop down list to access some of these
guides. First though, begin by checking the UQ library's abbreviation tool which you can
see on the right-hand-side of the page. Click on the first letter of the abbreviation. In
this case, F.
You will see a list of abbreviations in the left column, the corresponding law report
series in the middle column and the jurisdiction in the right column. Browse the list until
you can see the abbreviation FCR. As you can see this abbreviation stands for the Federal
Court Reports. If your abbreviation refers to a court, then you have an unreported judgement.
Unreported judgements can be found on court websites, websites such as Austlii, as well
as databases like Lexisnexis AU and Westlaw AU. Thisvideotutorial is only focused on finding
reported judgments. Select the link for Federal Court reports.
The Library record will tell you which databases hold the Federal Court Reports, and also where
to find the reports on the shelves. This report series is available online on two different
databases and in print on Level 4 of the law library. Take note of the holdings information.
This will give you some indication of whether your case will be contained in the database.
This case was published in 2007 and so should be available in both databases.Select the
first link to the WestlawAu Database
There are a number of options to find the full text of the decision. You can searc by
party name, search by case citation, or browse by volume number. Both Lexinexis AU and Westlaw
AU provides a broseablelist of volumes. Scroll down to browse by volume number. Our case
citation indicates volume 156.
Once you have located volume 156 of the Federal Court Reports, browse through the list of
cases. You should be able to be able to locate the
case easily using the commencing page number. We are looking for a case that begins on page
574, so our case will probably be towards the end of the list. Once you have found the
case, look out for the adobe PDF icon. Select the icon and view the full text of the case.
For more information visit the library website.