The “First Circuit,” “1st Cir.”, “CA1,” “the Circuit,” or “the Court” — these are all ways to refer to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, depending on the type of citation system.
The most common guide is the Bluebook, which touts itself as “A Uniform System of Citation.” For the most part, courts follow the Bluebook when citing cases. Now in its twentieth edition, and put together by the legal eagles at Columbia, Yale, UPenn and Harvard, the Bluebook contains complex legal citation rules for many types of sources, including law review articles, internet pages, and court documents. Learning the Bluebook’s nuances is like doing someone else’s dishes, repeatedly. Or bicycling into a 50 mph headwind, in the freezing rain. The Bluebook releases new editions every few years. Its rules are not only complicated, but they’re constantly in flux. No wonder eminent authorities like retired Seventh Circuit Judge Richard Posner don’t like the Bluebook.
Of course, the Bluebook and the concept of legal citation is important. A court needs the ability to retrieve cited cases and documents, and uniform rules make it easier. It’s equally (if not more) important for a brief to cite accurately to a case or document. Few things hurt a litigant’s credibility more than false citations.
Courts have their own citation rules and don’t follow all aspects of the Bluebook. For example, the Bluebook refers to the First Circuit in a case citation as “1st Cir.”, but the U.S. Supreme Court calls the First Circuit “CA1.” Similarly, the Bluebook refers to Rhode Island laws as “R.I. Gen. Laws,” but the Rhode Island Supreme Court cites them as “G.L. 1956.”
The Bluebook’s rules for court documents are particularly annoying because they’re clunky and do litigants no favors. Bluebook requires a citation to include the name of the document with Bluebook-approved abbreviations, along with the page number, date (if necessary), and the docket number. For a court document with a long title, such as “Plaintiff’s Reply to Defendants’ Memorandum of Law in Support of Their Objection to Plaintiff’s Motion for Summary Judgment on Count I of the First Amended Complaint,” the Bluebook-compliant citation would look something like “Pl.’s Reply to Defs.’ Mem. in Supp. Obj. to Pl.’s Mot. Summ. J. on Count I of Compl. 14, ECF No. 6.”
Lengthy citations like this break up the flow of a brief. It’s not the best way to persuade the court when your written argument is in the groove, or you’re worried about page limits.
The federal judges in the District Court of Rhode Island (the “D.R.I.” in Bluebook-speak) have charted their own path in citing court documents that is much simpler than the Bluebook, and doesn’t break up the flow of a paragraph. Basically, they’ve combined the last part of a Bluebook-compliant citation and added the page number. In the above example, instead of the long descriptive citation, the judges would likely cite it as “ECF No. 6 at 14” with nothing else. In other words, in place of a sentence like “Plaintiff argues there’s no duty of care. See Pl.’s Reply to Defs.’ Mem. in Supp. Obj. to Pl.’s Mot. Summ. J. on Count I of Compl. 14, ECF No. 6,” a federal judge in the D.R.I. would probably write “Plaintiff argues there’s no duty of care. ECF No. 6 at 14.”
The “ECF No.” in the citation stands for “Electronic Case File number.” The “at 14” means the reference appears on page 14 of the document. Every document on the electronic docket in the federal system has a document number in the header that is automatically stamped as documents are filed in the case, which is referred to in the citation as the “ECF No.” The complaint in a case is usually “ECF No. 1,” the summons is usually “ECF No. 2,” the answer is “ECF No. 3,” and so on. For example – here’s a document from the electronic docket – it’d be cited as “ECF No. 21.” If a litigant cited to Judge McConnell’s signature on page 2 of the document, it’d be cited as “ECF No. 21 at 2.”
Sometimes memos or affidavits are filed as attachments to other documents. If, for example, a complaint is ECF No. 1, the first attachment to the complaint is ECF No. 1-1, the second attachment is ECF No. 1-2, and so on. In these instances, if a litigant cites to page 15 of the second attachment to the complaint, it’d be cited as the ECF No. 1-2 at 15. Or, if the second attachment is an affidavit with numbered paragraphs, and a litigant wanted to cite to paragraph 10 of the affidavit, it could be cited as ECF No. 1-2 ¶ 10.
So which federal judges in the District of Rhode Island follow this abbreviated citation system for court documents? District Judge McConnell does. Magistrate Judge Almond does. So does Magistrate Judge Sullivan. Chief District Judge Smith sort of does.
When citing to court documents in the D.R.I., litigants can put that Bluebook down and try the “ECF No.” system. It’s liberating.