New field for cases: Court division

Gracile
Hello,

I'm encountering an issue with cases.
In the field "court", I'm adding the name of the court and the division (e.g.: "CE, Sect.": the "Section" is a division of the Conseil d'État) or its place (e.g., "TA Paris": Administrative Tribunal (TA) from Paris; "TA Lyon": Administrative Tribunal (TA) from Lyon, etc...)

But there are two issues:
-in a bibliography, the sorting is wrong. Indeed, for instance "CE, Ass." cases are always before "CE, Sect." whereas the sorting should only take into account "CE". In other words, the court division is not (or not always) a criteria.
-in the UI, the sorting is not useful (same reason).

A new field "Court division", with appropriate csl mapping, would solve these issues.

Thanks for comments.
  • Philippe_T
    Come to Canada, you won't have that sort of problem when quoting courts...
    ...or worse... much more complicated. ;)

    More seriously,
    - Temporary solution: are you using your "extra" field for an other information?
    - What "should" be your sorting criteria?
  • fbennett
    I agree that a "Court Division" field is needed. Posting to top-level sticky thread with a link back here.
  • Gracile
    - Temporary solution: are you using your "extra" field for an other information?
    No. I'm using the "Court" field. "Extra" is not a solution here.
    - What "should" be your sorting criteria?
    I haven't been clear. Cases should be sorted by 1)Court; 2) Date; [3) Court division]. At the moment, they are sorted by 1)Court and court division [one field]; 2)Date.

    Examples:
    CE, 27 janvier 1998, Bernard, n° 18544, Rec., p. 180.
    CE, 12 mai 2007, Union, n° 30040.
    CE, Ass., 20 février 2006, Association Ofretu, n° 25768.
    CE, Sect., 27 novembre 1995, M. Géjus, Rec., p. 463.
    CE, Sect., 25 mars 2003, SA Oukiley, n° 10833, Rec., p. 160.


    As you can see above, "CE" (Conseil d'État) is before "CE, Ass." which is before "CE, Sect." whereas these cases are all CE-cases.The sorting should be:
    CE, Sect., 27 novembre 1995, M. Géjus, Rec., p. 463.
    CE, 27 janvier 1998, Bernard, n° 18544, Rec., p. 180.
    CE, Sect., 25 mars 2003, SA Oukiley, n° 10833, Rec., p. 160.
    CE, Ass., 20 février 2006, Association Ofretu, n° 25768.
    CE, 12 mai 2007, Union, n° 30040.
  • Cassandra2323
    Related problem: Although there is a field for cases, it does not seem to appear in the footnote output. This is a fairly big problem, both because the info is important to readers and because the court is used to determine citation order. Any chance of adding the court to the footnote?
  • adamsmith
    Isis - could you be more specific? What style?
    What "field" for case are you referring to? Or do you mean the court field? (the call is "authority" - it's only used in a very few styles as only a couple of styles account for cases.
  • Cassandra2323
    edited March 23, 2011
    Oops!!! Yes, meant there is a field for Court in the Item Type: Case template, and the output in question is Bluebook
  • bdarcus
    I don't have time to read all this, but would just say two things:

    1) don't use extra for important data
    2) I suggest you figure out a solution that is general; I don't want to add a "court-division" variable to CSL, and prefer to avoid adding anything if possible
  • adamsmith
    to clarify - bdarcus' comment concerns the discussion pre Isis.
    Your (Isis) issue should be solveable within current Zotero/csl.
  • fbennett
    @bdarcus,
    I suggest you figure out a solution that is general; I don't want to add a "court-division" variable to CSL, and prefer to avoid adding anything if possible.
    Not at this stage, but the court division (i.e. Civil, Criminal, Administrative, Family etc.) is a separate element of legal case citations, necessary to identify the document. It is definitely going to be needed down the road.
  • ajlyon
    I've created an issue in the schema issue tracker to address the Court Division question (https://github.com/ajlyon/zotero-bits/issues/32).
  • Gracile
    2) I suggest you figure out a solution that is general; I don't want to add a "court-division" variable to CSL, and prefer to avoid adding anything if possible
    What about using "section" or "genre"? Far from being perfect though...
  • Cassandra2323
    edited March 25, 2011
    adamsmith, that would be great. How can I get it fixed? I notice that using MLA for cases actually includes the court!
  • adamsmith
    Isis' issue is now here:
    http://forums.zotero.org/discussion/17096/winword-not-working-after-updating-to-ff-4-zotero-211/#Item_3
  • benji1988
    Hello,

    I'm encountering the same problem than Gracile and I'd like to know whether or not it would be possible to add to the type of document "case" a field that would allow me to add some precision to the location of the court (for lower courts, in France we specify the town) or the formation (=composition) of the court (e.g. a civil formation or a criminal one, etc.).
    This new field could be named "court precision" in order to include the location of the court and its composition.

    Thanks for your help.
  • Gracile
    It's discussed here now: https://github.com/ajlyon/zotero-bits/issues/32
    "Court division" would work for court's town as well. No need to create two new fields.
  • fbennett
    This might be best treated as a feature of jurisdiction, as in MLZ, with input limited to a controlled list of identifiers. That's a tall order, since someone would need to set up and maintain the identifiers for individual juridictions; but shared metadata will be important in legal reference management going forward, and a field with free text input will make that difficult.
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