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Many, if not indeed most, jurisdictions' (eg Germany, the UK, Australia, Canada, the Court of Justice of the European Union, and the European Court of Human Rights) courts make use of numbered paragraphs for easy citation across a variety of platforms. This avoids issues with citation and allows for (on platforms such as BAILII or AustLII) HTML pinpoint linking to specific parts of judgments. I know that US statutory provisions use paragraph numbering, and a google (I have no formal study of American law) seems to suggest that court papers such as written arguments often require numbered paragraphs. Yet, the US supreme court and (again, from a quick web search) the US state courts do not seem to use this easy and extremely simple innovation to aid citation.

Is there a reason why? Or is this one of those things like inches and Fahrenheit where it's just an American practice that doesn't have a reason?

Jen
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curiouseuropean
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1 Answers1

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Many U.S. state courts do use numbered paragraphs, including Colorado. But the practice is fairly new and page numbers in privately published reporters was the historically established method of pinpoint citation. Most or all federal courts, and California appellate courts, for example, do not.

The matter is not uniform because the stylistic aspects of appellate court opinion writing is not unified. Each court makes its own rules in that regard. For example, there are even different style rules between different circuits of the U.S. Courts of Appeal, and the U.S. Supreme Court, in turn, also has its own style manual for drafting opinions.

ohwilleke
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