- Purpose of QuickCITE
The purpose of QuickCITE is to allow a researcher:
- To determine the prior and subsequent history of a particular case, if the Courts have provided this information in an unequivocal manner (please see Additional source notes below).
- To find all instances where a case has been cited by other cases. Note: In QuickCITE the case you are updating (noting up) is known as the cited case. Cases which have judicially considered the decision you are updating are referred to as citing cases.
- To determine what sort of judicial treatment the cited case receives from the citing cases.
- To determine the parallel (or alternate) citations for other law reports which published the case.
You may use QuickCITE in several ways:
- When in QuickCITE, search by case name or by law report citation.
- When searching other Quicklaw(®) sources, link to QuickCITE while viewing a case. The QuickCITE record for that decision will be displayed.
- If you know the case's citation, use the Find by Citation feature.
- Scope of Coverage
QuickCITE contains:
QuickCITE now covers over a million unique cases, including board and tribunal decisions and is updated with 90,000 new cases each year. QuickCITE contains over 2.9 million individual treatment relationships. Supreme Court of Canada decisions, including all cases cited by the Court, are processed by QuickCITE the day of their release. QuickCITE covers:
- All Supreme Court of Canada cases
- All Canadian cases appealed from Canada to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (United Kingdom) from 1867-1959 (when such appeals ceased)
- More than 350,000 full-text Canadian court cases published in printed law reports since 1800
- Over 480,000 decisions reported in the Quicklaw Canadian Judgments source, 100,000 of which pre-date 1993.
- More than 380,000 board and tribunal decisions reported on Quicklaw. Board and tribunal decisions are cited only when judicially considered by a court.
- Over 225,000 digest and electronic citations added as parallels including A.C.W.S., W.C.B., C.L.A.S., J.E., REJB, and EYB.
Additional scope notes:
- A case which has never been cited will still appear in QuickCITE if it has been reported, has parallel citations or if it has a history relationship to another case in QuickCITE. These cases have the same format as a Cited Case.
- QuickCITE identifies HISTORY relationships only when the decision of the higher level of court gives enough specific information about the lower court decision to enable a definite history connection to be made. If no specific mention of the lower court decision is made by the higher court, no history connection can be made in QuickCITE.
The result is that there may be other cases online which have a history relationship to the cited case. It is prudent to do a case name search in CJ (Canadian Judgments) to identify any possible histories that could not be included in QuickCITE for the above reasons.
- Case Histories
Cases that have a history relationship with each other involve the same parties, the same facts, or the same litigation. The following terms are used to describe history relationships.
- Abandoned — The appeal is withdrawn by one of the parties, or both, or by the court for failure to actively pursue the appeal.
- Abated — The issue has become moot, for example when one of the parties dies.
- Affirmed — The appeal is dismissed, whether or not the decision of the court below is expressly affirmed.
- Judicial Review Allowed — The Court grants an application for relief from an administrative decision.
- Judicial Review Denied — The Court refuses an application for relief from an administrative decision.
- Leave Granted — The citing decision allows leave to appeal.
- Leave Refused — The citing decision refuses leave to appeal.
- Quashed — The lower court decision is set aside on the basis that the lower court had no jurisdiction to decide the matter before it.
- Reconsideration Allowed — The court or board grants a request to amend or reverse its original decision.
- Reconsideration Denied — The court or board refuses a request to amend or reverse its original decision.
- Related Proceeding — The citing decision refers to an earlier proceeding arising out of the same facts and involving the same parties.
- Reversed — The appeal is allowed whether or not the higher court sends the matter back for further adjudication.
- Same case — A history relationship exists, but the citing court does not affirm, reverse, vary, or quash the decision that was cited.
- Supplementary Reasons — The citing decision arises from issues raised in the initial decision, such as costs, sentencing, damages or further liability. They will often be contained in a corrigendum or an addendum.
- Varied — The lower court decision is affirmed or reversed only in part.
- Case Treatments
The following terms are used to indicate what sort of judicial treatment a case has received from subsequent citing cases.
- Cited — The cited case appears in the judgment and may contain a more substantive treatment. Court cases, other than child protection cases from the Court of Quebec, are fully processed within 72 hours, reflecting the more substantive treatment.
- Distinguished — The cited case is held to be inapplicable because of a difference in fact or law.
- Explained — The citing case adds to, expands upon or interprets the cited case. The cited case is not decisive but it is given some kind of consideration.
- Followed — The citing case in a majority or plurality opinion applies a principle of law from the cited case. The judge expressly relies on the cited case as a precedent on which to base a decision.
- Followed in minority — The citing case, in an opinion other than a majority, plurality, or dissent applies a principle of law from the cited case.
- Dissenting (cited in dissent. opinion) — The case is cited in a dissenting opinion within the citing case.
- Mentioned — The case is cited with no explicit treatment. The citing case provides no more information about the cited case than what was available in the cited case itself.
- Not followed — The citing case overrules or refuses to apply the cited case for some reason other than it was distinguishable.
- Questioned — The citing case criticizes the conclusion or reasoning of the cited case, without refusing to follow it. Alternatively, legislation in force at the time the cited case was decided has been amended to the extent that the cited case might have been decided differently under the amended legislation.
- Order of Citing Cases
Citing Cases are listed in the following order:
- Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (UK)
- Supreme Court of Canada
- Federal Court of Appeal
- Federal Court Trial Division
- Exchequer Court
- Tax Court of Canada
- Provincial and Territorial courts alphabetically by Province or Territory
- Within a Province or Territory, Court of Appeal followed by successively lower courts.
- Within the same court level, most recent cases appear first.
- Within the same decision date, cases assigned the strongest treatment letter appear first.
- Hypertext Links and "Locus Page"
- Links — Hypertext links have been created between QuickCITE and the Quicklaw source containing the full text of the decision or a headnote/summary of the decision. If you activate a link the system will display the text of the desired document.
- Locus page — QuickCITE makes it easy to find the exact location of a citation reference within the text of a citing case. In addition to giving the initial page of a citing case, QuickCITE indicates the "locus page", the precise printed page on which you would find the relevant reference to a cited case.
- Citation Styles
Why do some page numbers have letters attached?
- [1960] O.R. 1 p — "p" indicates that this is a "partially reported" case which is missing some of the judge's words, as determined by comparison with a report of the same case in another source. If the decision is in French, "ext" (extrait) will appear after the page number.
- 1 O.R.(2d) 280 n — "n" indicates that the law report publisher reported the case as a "note" or digest without using any of the judge's words. Notes are most commonly found for digests of leave to appeal applications or dispositions of appeals where no words of the judge are printed. A note is included in QuickCITE only when it is subsequent history to a Cited Case.
- 56 O.R.(2d) 784 at 792 — "page at page" indicates that the law publisher has reported two separate cases under a single citation. Usually one case is an appeal from the other. For example, the page reference for the single citation (1987), 56 O.R. (2d) 784 would appear in QuickCITE as "784 at 785" for the trial decision beginning on page 785, and "784 at 792" for the appeal decision beginning on page 792.
Search Tip: If a search by law report citation does not retrieve any documents, consider truncating the page number, for example 784! The system will look for occurrences of 784 with a special citation style described above.
- Entering Searches — by Case Name
All case names in QuickCITE conform to the standards established by the Canadian Law Information Council (CLIC). Many case names have been modified to reflect these standards. For example:
- O.R.: AGNEW v MINISTER OF HIGHWAYS FOR THE PROVINCE OF ONTARIO
- QuickCITE: AGNEW v ONTARIO (MIN OF HIGHWAYS)
To search QuickCITE for lists of cases which have judicially considered the above decision, search:
- Browser search: [Case Name] agnew highways [all of these words]
- Classic search: @2 agnew & highways
- Entering Searches — by Case Name — INITIALS
Initials — In some cases names have been replaced by initials; for example in young offender, sexual assault and some family law cases. In older QuickCITE records, the initials appear without spaces or periods. For example:
- In SCR: R. v. M. (S.H.), [1989] 2 S.C.R. 111
- In NRS: R. v. S.H.M. (1989), 100 N.R. 1
- In QuickCITE: R v M(SH)
Your QuickCITE search should be:
- Browser search: [Case Name] m(sh
- Classic search: @2 m(sh
NOTE: Do not include the closing bracket.
NOTE: Another method for noting up such cases is to locate the decision in the relevant Quicklaw source, then link to the QuickCITE record for the case.
- Entering Searches -- by Law Report Citation
"Agnew v. Minister of Highways for the Province of Ontario" was reported in [1961] O.R. 234 and in (1961), 27 D.L.R. (2d) 82. To search by citation ...
- Browser: Use the Find by Citation feature which permits you to enter citations without punctuation ex. 27dlr2d82
- Classic search: @3 "1961 o.r. 234"
- QuickCITE Abbreviations
Note: The data used as the basis for the present QuickCITE citator contained many abbreviations. Most of these have been expanded in the QuickCITE source. There are some abbreviations which could not be expanded because they were words in their own right, e.g. "ART". Others could not be expanded because they stood for more than one word. Others we chose not to expand because they are most commonly found in their abbreviated form, e.g. "LTD".
The following list contains the abbreviations which are not expanded in the QuickCITE sources, with some rare exceptions which are noted.
Search Tip: The case "Tangye v. Calmonton Investments Ltd." will appear in the QuickCITE source as:
- QC: TANGYE V CALMONTON INV LTD
- Browser search: [Case Name] tangye calmonton [all of these words]
- Classic search: @2 tangye & calmonton
Another way to locate records in QuickCITE is to locate the case in a Quicklaw source, then link to the QuickCITE record for the case.
Word — Abbreviation:
& — AND
AG — ARTICLE
AG — ATTORNEY GENERAL
CDN — CANADIAN/CANADIEN/CANADIENNE (except: CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY COMPANY, CANADIAN RADIO-TELEVISION AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION)
COMMR/COMMRS — COMMISSAIRE(S)
COMMR/COMMRS — COMMISSIONER(S)
CIE — COMPAGNIE
CO/COS — COMPANY/COMPANIES (except: CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY COMPANY)
CONST — CONSTRUCTION(S)
COOP — CO-OPERATIVE/COOPERATIVE/COOPÉRATIVE
CORP — CORPORATION
DEPT — DEPARTMENT/DÉPARTEMENT
DEP — DEPUTY/DEPUTÉ
DEV — DEVELOPMENT(S)/DÉVELOPPEMENT(S)
ENR — ENREGISTRÉ(E)
& — ET
GEN — GENERAL/GÉNÉRAL(E) (except: PROCUREUR GÉNÉRAL)
INC — INCORPORATED
INC — INCORPORÉ
IND — INDUSTRY/INDUSTRIE(S)/INDUSTRIAL/INDUSTRIEL(LE)
INT — INTERNATIONAL/INTERNATIONALE
INV — INVESTMENTS(S)/INVESTISSEMENTS
LTD — LIMITED
LTÉE — LIMITÉE
LOC — LOCAL/LOCALE (except CENTRE LOCALE DES SERVICES COMMUNAUTAIRES)
METRO — METROPOLITAN/MÉTROPOLITAIN
MIN — MINISTER/MINISTRE/MINISTRY/MINISTRE (except: MINISTER OF NATIONAL REVENUE, MINISTRE DU REVENU NATIONAL)
MUN — MUNICIPAL/MUNICIPALITY/MUNICIPALITÉ
NAT — NATIONAL/NATIONALE/NATIONAUX (except: MINISTER OF NATIONAL REVENUE, MINISTRE DU REVENU NATIONAL)
NO/NOS — NUMBER/NUMBERS
NO/NOS — NUMÉRO/NUMÉROS
REF RE — REFERENCE RE
R — REGINA/THE QUEEN/LA REINE/REX/THE KING/LE ROI
REG — REGION/REGIONAL/RÉGIONAL(E) (except: CONSEIL REGIONAL DE LA SANTÉ ET DES SERVICES SOCIAUX)
RENVOI RE — RENVOI RELATIF
ST — SAINT/ST./ST-
STE — SAINTE/STE./STE-
S/SS — SECTION(S) - STATUTE OR REGULATION ONLY
UNIV — UNIVERSITÉ
UNIV — UNIVERSITY/UNIVERSITIES
Jurisdictions:
MAN — MANITOBA
NB — NEW BRUNSWICK/NOUVEAU-BRUNSWICK
NWT — NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
QUE — QUEBEC (Note: The City of Quebec is spelled in full)