Citation Signal - Order of Authorities Within Each Signal

Order of Authorities Within Each Signal

(See The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation )

Authorities within each signal are separated by semicolons.

If one authority is considerably more helpful or authoritative than the others cited within a signal, it should precede others. Except in this situation, cite authorities in the order in which they are listed below:

(a) Constitutions and other foundational documents. Cite in the following order: 1. federal 2. state (alphabetically by state) 3. foreign (alphabetically by jurisdiction) 4. foundational documents of the United Nations, the League of Nations, and the European Union (in that order). Constitutions of the same jurisdiction are cited in reverse chronological order.

(b) Statutes. Cite statutes in the following order, according to the jurisdictional hierarchy below: federal, state, foreign, and international.

1. Federal: (i) statutes in U.S.C., U.S.C.A., or U.S.C.S.; (ii) other statutes currently in force, by reverse chronological order of enactment; (iii) rules of evidence and procedure; (iv) repealed statutes, by reverse chronological order of enactment.

2. State (alphabetically by state): (i) statutes in the current codification (by order in the codification); (ii) statutes currently in force but not in the current codification (by order in the codification); (iii) rules of evidence and procedure; (iv) repealed statutes (by reverse chronological order of enactment).

3. Foreign (alphabetically by jurisdiction): (i) codes or statutes in the current codification (by order in the codification); (ii) statutes currently in force but not in the current codification (by reverse chronological order of enactment; (iii) repealed statutes (by reverse chronological order of enactment.

(c) Treaties and other international agreements (other than the foundational documents of the UN, League of Nations, and the EU): cite in reverse chronological order

(d) Cases. Arrange within a signal according to the courts that issued the cited opinions; cases decided by the same court are arranged in reverse chronological order (for this purpose all U.S. circuit courts of appeals are treated as one court, and all federal district courts are treated as one court).

Cite cases in the following order, according to the jurisdictional hierarchy below: federal, state, foreign, and international.

1. Federal: (i) Supreme Court (ii) court of appeals, Emergency Court of Appeals, and Temporary Emergency Court of Appeals (iii) Court of Claims, Court of Customs and Patent Appeals, and bankruptcy appeals panels (iv) district courts, Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, and Court of International Trade (v) district bankruptcy courts and Railroad Reorganization Court (vi) Court of Federal Claims, Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, and Tax Court (vii) administrative agencies (alphabetically by agency).

2. State: (i) courts (alphabetically by state and then by rank within each state; (ii) agencies (alphabetically by state and then alphabetically by agency within each state).

3. Foreign: (i) courts (alphabetically by jurisdiction and then by rank within each jurisdiction); (ii) agencies (alphabetically by jurisdiction and then alphabetically by agency within each jurisdiction.

4. International: (i) International Court of Justice, Permanent Court of International Justice; (ii) other international tribunals and arbitral panels (alphabetically by name).

(e) Legislative materials: cite in the following order: bills and resolutions, committee hearings, reports, documents,and committee prints, floor debates. Cite in reverse chronological order.

(f) Administrative and executive materials: cite in the following order: federal(Executive Orders, current Treasury Regulations, other regulations in force, proposed rules not in force, repealed materials), state (alphabetically by state), foreign (alphabetically by jurisdiction).

(g) Resolutions, decisions, and regulations of intergovernmental organizations: cite in the following order: UN and League of Nations (General Assembly, then Security Council, then other organs in alphabetical order), other organizations (alphabetically by name of organization).

(h) Records, briefs, and petitions: cited in that order.

(i) Secondary materials: cite in the following order: uniform codes, model codes, and restatements (in reverse chronological order by category), books and pamphlets, works in journals, books reviews not written by students, student-written law review materials, annotations, magazine and newspaper articles, working papers, unpublished materials not forthcoming, electronic sources, including Internet sources. For all secondary sources except codes and restatements, cite alphabetically by last name of author; if none, by first word of title).

(j) Cross-references to the author's own material in text or footnotes

For example:

See Arnold v. Runnels, 421 F.3d 859, 866 n. 8 (9th Cir.2005); United States v. Soliz, 129 F.3d 499, 504 n. 3 (1997), overruled on other grounds by United States v. Johnson, 256 F.3d 895 (9th Cir.2001) (en banc) (per curiam); Evans v. Demosthenes, 98 F.3d 1174, 1176 (9th Cir.1996).