Remember the Basics – Check the Facts

In this world of super fast document retrieval it is sometimes important to remember the basics. I was just asked for a decision where the style of cause and the citation both contained errors. The “help I can’t find this case” is usually one of my favourite problems. This Thursday after a mid-week Canada Day off is a lot like a Monday.

The citation that was given to me was a 1983 case from the O.L.R.s – obviously that was incorrect as the Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviationreports that the Ontario Law Reports was published between 1901-1931 only. Rather than plugging in a citation in to the for fee electronic research service of your choice, remember to check the facts. (Yes I will be writing off the find fee).

The style of cause had a spelling error. What I should have remembered to do once I identified that the citation had an error is browse the Canadian Case Citations or the Canadian Abridgment Table of Cases for the style of cause to identify the case. Browsing a compact list like the CCC would have quickly showed a close match to the case name AND provided the proper citation. Knowing that the good research skills of the lawyer who gave me the problem would have included a full text search on CanLII for elements of the style of cause as a full text proximity search should have been a clue that there was a typo.

Just a few tips for this fine summer Thursday.