What is the proper Bluebook abbreviation for the federal district courts of the Northern and Southern Districts of West Virginia? This question seems like it should have a simple answer, but I haven’t been able to find one.*
According to rule 10.4, courts are abbreviated “according to tables T1 or T2 if included therein and according to tables T7 and T10 in all other cases.” Additionally, rule 10.4(a) gives three examples of federal district court abbreviations: “D.N.J.,” “D.D.C.,” and “C.D. Cal.” Table T1.1 gives two further examples: “D. Mass.” and “S.D.N.Y.” The pattern here seems fairly clear: combine the court abbreviation from table T7 and the jurisdiction abbreviation from table T10. Table T7, of course, tells us that “Southern District” is “S.D.” and “Northern District” is “N.D.” And table T10 tells us that “West Virginia” is “W. Va.”
So for the Southern District, we’ve got to smush “S.D.” and “W. Va.” together. According to rule 6.1(a), “[i]n general, close up all adjacent single capitals . . . [b]ut do not close up single capitals with longer abbreviations . . . .” Taking that rule literally, the result would be “S.D.W. Va.”
According to my best reading of the rules, that’s the answer, right there. The problem is that that’s a horseshit abbreviation. The “W.” belongs with the “Va.”; it’s got no business snuggling up to the “S.D.” instead. It looks like the S.D.W. of Virginia (whatever that would be) rather than the S.D. of West Virginia.
Now, rule 6.1(a) also says, “[i]n abbreviations of periodical names . . . , close up all adjacent single capitals except when one or more of the capitals refers to the name of an institutional entity, in which case set the capital or capitals referring to the entity off from other adjacent single capitals with a space.” For example, one writes “N.Y.U. L. Rev.” rather than “N.Y.U.L. Rev.” One could adapt that rule for this situation as well, in which case the abbreviation would be “S.D. W. Va.” That’s all well and good as far as it goes, but the rule specifically refers to periodical names; we’re taking liberties applying it to a court.
So, the prescriptive approach has failed; let’s go descriptive. What I’d like to do is search for the relative prevalence of “S.D.W.Va.,” “S.D.W. Va.,” “S.D. W.Va.,” “S.D. W. Va.,” “S. D. W.Va.,” “S. D. W. Va.,” etc., but, unfortunately, search engines seem to consider each of these strings to be identical, so figuring out which abbreviation is most popular is not a trivial matter. Nevertheless, in the interest of science (or whatever), I have conducted some empirical research.
Specifically, I visited the websites of the Southern and Northern Districts to review their recently published decisions. For each judge with opinions published on the court’s website within the past three years, I found the most recent opinion that cited to either of the federal district courts in West Virginia. The results were less than illuminating.
The two leading abbreviations in the Southern District appear to be “S.D.W. Va.” (by the book) and “S.D. W. Va.” (the periodical analogy), the former used by Chief Judge Chambers in a 2015 opinion and by Judge Faber in a 2015 opinion, and the latter used by Judge Goodwin in a 2016 opinion and by Judge Johnston in a 2013 opinion. Blazing her own trail, Magistrate Judge Eifert used “S.D.W.Va.” and “N.D.W.Va.” (getting rid of the space altogether!) in a 2015 opinion.
(I should acknowledge at this point that I am not laboring under the delusion that many of these judges are likely to be entirely consistent in their own usage. But honestly this has already taken way too long as it is.)
Anyway, there’s clearly no consensus in the Southern District. Onto the Northern.
The clear winner in the N.D. is the periodical-style “N.D. W. Va.”/”S.D. W. Va.,” which was used by Chief Judge Groh in a 2016 opinion, by Judge Stamp in a 2016 opinion, by Magistrate Judge Joel in a 2013 opinion, and by Magistrate Judge Trumble in a 2016 opinion.
The by-the-book “N.D.W. Va.” was used only by Judge Keeley, in a 2016 opinion. (However, Magistrate Judge Kaull used “N.D.W Va.” [sic] in a 2015 opinion, which I guess is pretty close.)
Additionally, the Northern District has apparently innovated their own abbreviation, which doesn’t look so bad but is also clearly wrong: “N.D. W.Va.”/”S.D. W.Va.” This one was used by Judge Bailey in a 2016 opinion and by Magistrate Judge Seibert in a 2016 opinion.
Finally, Magistrate Judge Aloi tries to have it both ways in a 2016 opinion, in which he used both the N.D.’s innovative “N.D. W.Va.” and the periodical-style “S.D. W. Va.”
So, to recap, we have the following possibilities:
S.D.W.Va.
Pros: concise, used by at least one magistrate judge
Cons: violates table T10
S.D.W. Va.
Pros: perhaps technically correct, used by several judges
Cons: intuitively wrong
S.D. W.Va.
Pros: unique (?), used by some judges
Cons: obviously wrong
S.D. W. Va.
Pros: intuitively correct, used by plurality of judges (in my not-at-all scientific survey)
Cons: no clear justification under the Bluebook
I think I’ll be using “S.D. W. Va.,” although I don’t think there’s a clear winner here. Do what you feel.
* I feel compelled to clarify that I’m not asking the question because I’m afraid of using the “wrong” citation. I just think it’s anomalous that an apparently exhaustive citation guide like the Bluebook would not have a clear answer to a question that must come up literally every day (for some people, anyway).
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