Court case document stored under a different court case

By Anonymous on Sat, 01/24/2015 - 04:44

Forums

Hi all,

I need to cite some unpaginated documents from a court case, let's call it AJ-200. Years after this case was closed, the documents were used as part of another court case, let's call it OJ-500. The files from the AJ-200 case are therefore stored along with the documents from the OJ-500 case.

How do I cite the documents from the AJ-200 case?

Best regards,

Lene D Kottal

Lene Kottal Professional Genealogy, Denmark

www.KottalGenealogy.com

Submitted byEEon Sat, 01/24/2015 - 08:18

Lene,

When citing any "loose" court case, the essentials for a reference-note (sentence style) citation are these:

  • Identity of the person who created the document, identity of the document, date of the document, specific page (if it's a multipage document), any other detail necessary;
  • Identity of the court suit in which the document is filed—i.e., case name, case number, identity of the court in which it is heard;
  • Location of the case file—i.e., repository and repository location.

In the case at hand, you would first provide the details for bullets 1 and 2 (your "AJ-200"); then, in that same citation sentence, you would state that it is filed in  .... [giving, here, the details of bullets 2 and 3 for the second case].

Submitted byLene Kottalon Sun, 01/25/2015 - 01:35

Thank you for the response. I am still in doubt. Here are the details:

Jurisdiction: Statsamtet Overpræsidiet (Copenhagen County Jurisdiction, Denmark)

Series (the document is no longer filed under this series): AJ-sager (AJ cases), 1873-1973

Physical unit (a box with documents for several cases - this is where it was originally kept, but it is no longer filed there): AJ-sager 1877 1-270

Item of interest (these numbers and the title are stated on the specific document): AJ-200/1877, "Alimentations-Resolution" (resolution regarding paternity)

Record date: 15 June 1877

This specific document is filed under a case from the same jurisdiction:

Series: OJ-sager (OJ cases), 1858-1989

Physical unit: OJ-sager 1882 371-586

Item of interest: OJ-500/1882

Repository: Rigsarkivet (The Danish State Archives), Copenhagen, Denmark.

Repository location: Not known. It must be ordered at the front desk and the personell will find it.

 

The individual cases are separated from one another by a cover page folded around all the documents for each case. On the cover page, only the case number is stated, i.e. AJ-200/1877.

Do I leave out the series and box details for the AJ case? I just find that odd, because normally one would place this information before the information about the specific item of interest. Or maybe I need to replace that with the series and box information for the OJ case?

Do I need to include an explanation for the AJ and OJ abbreviation? This knowledge is not needed to order the documents or to find them in the box.

I am glad I did not locate this online, because that would have added to the complexity ;)

 

Lene, no, you don't leave out any detail that is essential to locating the record--and the differing details in your two messages illustrate one reason why EE doesn't attempt to construct citations from  the details an inquirer provides. There is, in various countries, considerable difference in citing a court case that is held locally versus one held at the state or national archives. You will notice these differences in EE--particularly chapter 8 "Courts & Governance," where local court records (which can be more-simply handled) are treated at 8.2-8.36 while records archived at the state level (where formal and cumbersome organizational schemes are used) are treated at 8.37-8.43. 

When citing records from state and national archives, we almost always need to follow the basic rules for formally archived records. Those rules are laid out early in EE, when archives are first introduced (Chapter 3 "Archives and Artifacts").  If you don't have EE, you can find the basics of that issue amid the sample text pages at https://www.evidenceexplained.com/sites/default/files/documents/3.1.pdf. 

The basic pattern EE offered in response to your details on Saturday covers more simply organized local repositories. I'm repasting it below, adding red text to show where you would add the additional archival storage data

Saturday, we wrote: When citing any "loose" court case, the essentials for a reference-note (sentence style) citation are these:

  • Identity of the person who created the document, identity of the document, date of the document, specific page (if it's a multipage document), any other detail necessary;
  • Identity of the court suit in which the document is filed—i.e., case name, case number, identity of the court in which it is heard;
  • Organizational path used by the archives--i.e., box, series, subgroup, etc.
  • Location of the case file—i.e., repository and repository location.

 

Submitted byLene Kottalon Tue, 01/27/2015 - 08:06

Hi,

I do not consider the details about the previous storage location of the documents relevant for finding the documents. Therefore I proposed leaving it out. Maybe I didn't make it clear enough that it was the previous location and not the present location, which I thought about omitting.

I do have the book and have read it, and use it for reference regularly as also in this case, but it did not answer my question. Therefore I turned to this forum. This was my first request ever in here. I am sorry if I broke any rules or codes of conduct with my question. I just assumed that this forum was meant as a place where one could ask for help regarding citations.

Can you please tell where I can direct my question, so that I can get help on this? I strive to do thing properly, and I am confident that I do so in other cases. Anyhow, in this one instance I just can't figure it out.

Thank you.

Submitted byEEon Wed, 01/28/2015 - 19:36

Lene, your carefulness about source citation is wonderful; and you should never worry about "breaking some rule" here on an EE forum. We have none of those--just the general statement in the FAQs that we can't do "custom" citations for all. As I mentioned earlier, it would be foolhardy for anyone to attempt to cite a complicated source they had never used, when they are not familiar with the record set. In such cases, what we try to do is help the inquirer think through the key issues and, sometimes, view them from an outside perspective.

We cannot point you to someone else who is an expert with this record set. But we'll cross-post this on our Facebook page and see if we can turn up someone.

Best wishes,

Elizabeth

Submitted byEEon Fri, 01/30/2015 - 09:43

Lene, thanks for clarifying. I'm cross-posting this reply both here and at the Facebook page, since FB postings have such a short life and some people see one and not the other.  On the FB page, you wrote:

The issue is that I need to include information about two items of interest, because the case documents for case A are located along with case documents for a different case, case B. In order to find the documents for case A, one therefore not only needs to know the location of the documents for case B, but also the number of case B. Where in the citation do I place the number of case B?

The four bulleted "layers" above still apply—i.e.:

  • Identity of the person who created the document, identity of the document, date of the document, specific page (if it's a multipage document), any other detail necessary;
  • Identity of the court suit in which the document is filed—i.e., case name, case number, identity of the court in which it is heard;
  • Organizational path used by the archives--i.e., box, series, subgroup, etc.
  • Location of the case file—i.e., repository and repository location.

The first layer is for the key document--the one from original Case A. There you would identify all essential details for that document: identity of person who created the document, ID of the document, date of the document, and specific page—if appropriate. Under "any other detail necessary," you would identify what you can about the original case (name, number, term of court, name of court). After that, in the layer in which you cite Case B, where the document is now filed, you might (for clarity) introduce the second layer with a descriptor such as transcript filed in ....  and then proceed to give the essential details for the second case.

Does this help?