Researching case law

The ICAEW Library has compiled this guide to help everyone to find case law on topics such as tax, companies, contract, professional negligence, and more.

The Library enquiry team can also research case law on behalf of ICAEW members, ACA students and other authorised users, drawing on a variety of print and online sources. We can find case law by case name (where known) or through subject searches. If you would like to know more about the information we can offer, please call us on +44 (0)20 7920 8620, email library@icaew.com or contact us through webchat.

The two primary sources of information on case law are transcripts and law reports. The nature and characteristics of these two respective sources are summarised and contrasted in the table below.

You should always cite law reports rather than transcripts, if possible — a transcript should be cited only if it contains a statement of legal principle which cannot be found in a report. Where a particular case is covered by more than one law report series, you should cite the series which is considered the most authoritative.

Official guidance on the established hierarchy of law reports in the Senior Courts of England and Wales can be found in Practice Direction: Citation of Authorities, issued by the Lord Chief Justice in 2012. A summary of this guidance can be found in the LexisNexis blog post 'Law reports: Hierarchy and the status of authorities'. Separate guidance applies to the Scottish High Court of Justiciary and Court of Session, and to the Court of Judicature of Northern Ireland. OSCOLA provides guidance on the hierarchy of law reports in other contexts.

Traditional case citations, such as 'Anisminic Ltd v Foreign Compensation Commission [1969] 2 AC 147', refer to a particular law report. These are generally made up of the following components, in sequence:

• Case name: the parties involved, separated by 'v' (eg, Anisminic Ltd v Foreign Compensation Commission);
• Year: the publication year of the report (eg, [1969]);
• Volume number (if any): the number for the relevant volume in the report series (eg, 2)
• Report series abbreviation (eg, AC for Appeal Cases, Third Series);
• Page: the page on which the report begins (eg, 147).

Since some judgments are covered by more than one report series, under this system a single case may be referred to via several different citations. To aid findability, some authors include the abbreviated name of the court in brackets at the end of citations of this kind.

More recently, a system of 'neutral citations' has been developed. Rather than referring to reports, neutral citations — such as 'Royal Mail Group Ltd v Efobi [2021] UKSC 33' — refer to court-issued judgments. These are generally made up of the following components, in sequence:

• Case name: the parties involved, separated by 'v' (eg, Royal Mail Group Ltd v Efobi);
• Year: the judgment year (eg, [2021]);
• Court abbreviation (eg, UKSC for United Kingdom Supreme Court);
• Case number: unique identifier within that court and year (eg, 33).

Today, it is common to encounter citations which combine a neutral citation with a reference to a particular law report, with the two being separated by a comma — for example: 'Corr v IBC Vehicles Ltd [2008] UKHL 13, [2008] 1 AC 884'.

When seeking to decode the abbreviations used in case citations, the freely accessible Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations is generally a good place to start. More comprehensive listings can be found in books such as the Index to Legal Citations and Abbreviations by Donald Raistrick.

The Library provides access to a number of subscription databases which contain law reports and transcripts. Members visiting the Library in person can access these databases directly. Our enquiry team can also search them on behalf of members and supply extracts by email within the terms of our licences — please contact us to discuss your requirements.

The table below summarises the respective offerings of each of these databases, in this regard.

Other subscription databases (not currently available through the Library) providing electronic access to law reports and transcripts include:

• HeinOnline
• vLex Justis
• Westlaw UK

There are many websites which provide free access to transcripts of judgments, and a few which provide free access to historical law reports. Click on the categories below to view a selection of these websites by type.

The ICAEW Library holds over 150 series of law reports in print format, including complete sets of the rare Accountant Law Reports and Annotated Tax Cases published by The Accountant. We have produced an annotated index of these series, which cover cover cases from 1485 up to the 2010s:

• Browse the law report series held by the Library & Information Service

In addition, the Library also holds some standalone copies of case transcripts/reports, generally for cases considered to be especially significant. These may be browsed via the Library catalogue — see our LibCat help page for guidance.

In some cases, transcripts are only obtainable on application to the relevant court or tribunal (often requiring the payment of a fee).

Information on how to apply for a transcript of a court or tribunal hearing can be found on GOV.UK. It is important to note that not all hearings are recorded, and that the relevant court may refuse to provide part or all of a transcript (for instance if special confidentiality requirements apply).

If you need to check the current status of a particular case and ascertain whether it remains 'good law', a wide-ranging subscription database such as Lexis+ (available through the Library enquiry team) or Westlaw UK is generally a good place to start. Case records on these platforms often include a 'case history' or an 'appellate history' section, which should indicate whether the case in question has subsequently been overruled, reversed, affirmed or otherwise considered.

If you do not have access to such a database, case histories can also be tracked using hard-copy citators and digests such as those in the Current Law series — these are held by many academic and specialist law libraries. The free online research tool LawCite, which tracks where particular cases have been cited, may also prove useful.

In addition to the primary sources discussed above (ie, law reports and transcripts), there are a vast array of 'secondary' sources which provide commentary on or summaries of cases. Although these should not be cited in court, they can be useful if you are seeking to keep up-to-date with new developments or to familiarise yourself with the 'state of play' in a given area.

The most appropriate source(s) will likely depend on the topic that you are interested in, as many services and publications focus on particular fields or subjects. You may wish to consider consulting one or more of the following:

The Library has dedicated pages setting out resources on the following landmark cases:

• Caparo Industries Plc v Dickman and others
  Resources covering the 1990 case regarding the test for a duty of care.
• Prince Jefri Bolkiah v KPMG
  Useful links and articles on the 1998 client confidentiality case.
• Royal Bank of Scotland v Bannerman Johnstone Maclay
  ICAEW guidance, useful links and articles on the 2005 auditor liability case.

In addition, we maintain two pages listing key cases likely to be of interest to members of the Forensic & Expert Witness and Valuation communities, respectively. These pages include links to judgments on the BAILII website, as well as related articles held by the Library.

• Forensic & Expert Witness Community: key legal cases
  Highlights significant cases on topics relevant to the work of forensic accountants and expert witnesses, including changes of expert, expert independence and conflicts of interest, and litigation privilege.
• Valuation Community: key legal cases
  A library of key cases relating to valuation, covering topics such as company share valuation, gift and inheritance valuation, and property valuation.

Our collection also includes material on a number of other cases of significance for accountants and auditors, such as London and General Bank (1895), Re Kingston Cotton Mills (1896), and R v Kylsant & Otrs (1931). For more information on what we can offer, please contact us.