Matter of Internal Operating Rules

• Court: Montana Supreme Court
• Decided: February 25, 2010
• Docket: 06-0632
• Status: Published

Opinion

February 25 2010

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF MONTANA ______________

IN RE THE MATTER OF OPINION FORMS ) AND CITATION STANDARDS OF THE ) ORDER SUPREME COURT OF MONTANA ) ___________

On December 16, 1997, this Court entered an order adopting a public domain and neutral-format citation form for its Opinions, to be used with all Opinions issued after January 1, 1998. As part of that order, the Court gave examples of proper citation format for Montana cases decided before January 1, 1998, in which, as was the Court’s practice at that time, the year of the opinion appeared immediately after the case title. We continue to use the public domain and neutral format citation form we adopted in 1997 for our cases today, and our December 16, 1997 order remains in full force and effect in that regard. Several years ago, however, the Court internally adopted the generally-used format for citations of cases from other courts and pre-1998 Montana cases, in which the year of publication of a case appears at the end of the citation. For example: Doe v. Roe, 284 Mont. 301, 989 P.2d 472 (1997). We have never formally announced that our December 16, 1997 Order is superseded in that regard. We do so now. IT IS ORDERED that we encourage the use of the above “date-last” format for citations to pre-1998 Opinions issued by this Court, and for Opinions issued by all other courts, in all briefs, memoranda, and other documents filed in this Court. The Clerk is directed to provide copies of this Order to the Code Commissioner and Director of Legal Services for the State of Montana; the District Judges of the State of Montana; the Clerks of the District Courts of the State of Montana; the Clerk of the United States District Court of the State of Montana, the Clerk of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit; Jim Goetz, Chair of the Advisory Commission on Rules of Civil and Appellate Procedure; the State Law Library; the Librarian for the University of Montana School of Law; the Attorney General for the State of Montana; the Office of the State Public Defender; the Executive Director of the State Bar of Montana; and Thomson Reuters. DATED this 25th day of February, 2010.

/S/ MIKE McGRATH /S/ JAMES C. NELSON /S/ MICHAEL E WHEAT /S/ PATRICIA O. COTTER /S/ BRIAN MORRIS /S/ W. WILLIAM LEAPHART /S/ JIM RICE