Aug
Texas Legal Citation Tip: Using the Greenbook
Texas is one of the few states that has its own legal citation manual. This manual is titled Texas Rules of Form, more commonly known as the Greenbook. It is produced by the staff of the Texas Law Review Association and is currently in its eleventh edition.
The Greenbook is designed to supplement The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation. The rules in the Greenbook are unique to sources of state law, and where the two sources conflict, users should apply the specific rules in the Greenbook for proper citation rather than the general rules contained in the Bluebook. For example, Chapter Four of the current edition of the Greenbook covers citations to cases decided by the Texas courts of appeals. Although part of the form of a citation to a Texas court of appeals decision should follow the general Bluebook rules (e.g., the case name), the Greenbook requires inclusion of information in the parenthetical that would not be required under the Bluebook.
To further illustrate, consider this citation as it appears in Bluebook form:
Motiva Enters., L.L.C. v. McCrabb, 248 S.W.3d 211 (Tex. App. 2007).
The Greenbook does not control the form of case names or reporter information, so much of this citation remains the same when using the Greenbook form. However, the information contained in the parenthetical would need to be expanded to include the city (Greenbook Rule 4.3) and any petition history (Greenbook Rule 4.4.1). Thus, the proper citation form under the Greenbook should appear as follows:
Motiva Enters., L.L.C. v. McCrabb, 248 S.W.3d 211 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2007, pet. denied).
It is not only common practice to use the Greenbook to cite Texas state legal materials, but it is also required by the local rules for the Eighth District Court of Appeals (Rule 38.1) and the Thirteenth District Court of Appeals.
The newest edition of the Greenbook, published in 2006, updated many of the examples used in the text from the prior edition. However, some examples remain dated. For instance, the sample citation to Texas Jurisprudence Pleading and Practice Forms in Rule 18.4 (p. 88) refers to the publisher as Lawyers Cooperative Publishing (abbreviated as Lawyers Coop. Publ’g) as the editor. This publisher was purchased by Thomson West in 1989, and Texas Jurisprudence Pleading and Practice Forms has been published under the name of West (i.e., West Group, Thomson West) for some time. Greenbook users should thus take caution when referring to an example in the Greenbook to be sure that the example being used still contains accurate information.
