When citing to a district court in Florida, how do you show which district the case was heard in?

When citing to Florida statutes, I can easily find them in Westlaw in West's Annotated. I see in my bluebook that the first choice for Florida statutes is simply Fla. Stat. The second option is to cite to West's. Is it ok to cite in the format of "Fla. Stat. Ann. ยง 744.331 (West 2007)"? Also, when citing to a district court in Florida, I cannot see any way of showing which district the case was heard in. The convention used by the writer is: In re Guardianship of J.D.S., 864 So.2d 534 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2004) (Fifth District). Do I need to include the district and, if so, what do you think is the best way of showing that?

Answer

You are correct, the bluebook is not very instructive for Florida-specific citations. Instead,  the Florida Style Manual (http://www.law.fsu.edu/journals/lawreview/downloads/floridastylemanual.pdf) and Florida Rules of Appellate Procedure Rule 9.800  (http://www.floridabar.org/TFB/TFBResources.nsf/0/830A6BC6B90DA05685256B29004BFAC0/$FILE/Appellate%20Rules.pdf?OpenElement)  are used to supplement the bluebook.

You definitely need to include the district court in the citation but rather than the way you styled it below, it would look like: In re Guardianship of J.D.S., 864 So. 2d 534 (Fla. 5th DCA  2004).  

Also, with respect to statutes, they are cited to the official version of Florida Statutes, with Florida Statutes annotated citations reserved for “court-adopted rules, or references to other nonstatutory materials that do not appear in an official publication.”  

Hope that helps.

Katie Miller

Research & Instructional Technology Librarian

Florida State University College of Law Research Center

kmiller@law.fsu.edu

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  • Last Updated Jan 07, 2019
  • Views 2071
  • Answered By Sarah Pearson

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