Aren’t some of them also known by the names of the Attorney General of the State?
For example, Roe (anonymous name) vs. Wade (Henry Wade, the AG of Texas at the time). Or Baker vs. Nelson (the main US Supreme Court decision on gay marriage) – the Nelson in that case is Gerald Nelson, the County Clerk of Court who denied them a marriage license.
How does the Court decide what names to use in cases?
I’ve rarely seen an attorney general of Ohio personally named as a party to a lawsuit. Even the “State ex rel. [Name] v. [Another Name]” cases usually have the litigants’ names, not that of the AG. In Ohio, the AG handles very few criminal cases, anyway - they’re almost entirely handled by the county and city prosecutors, depending upon the level of offense.
Henry Wade was DA of Dallas County, not AG of Texas, at the time of Roe v. Wade. He was sued personally by a woman who was anonymously using the legal pseudonym “Jane Roe,” over his enforcement of Texas’s abortion law, IIRC. It wasn’t a criminal case.
For many years, civil suits brought by the IRS listed the IRS Commissioner’s name as the plaintiff. Whenever a new commissioner took office, all the case captions had to be changed, which was a bother. Nowadays, all such cases are captioned “Commissioner v. [Name].”
Courts themselves don’t decide on a case-by-case basis what to call cases. In a civil case, the plaintiff will determine who’s a party simply by choosing who to sue (some of whom may later be dismissed from the case, and others added, of course). In a criminal case, courts follow the local citation format, be it State, People or Commonwealth v. whoever.
Texas uses “State of Texas v.” or more casually “State v.” for criminal cases. And lemme tell ya, criminal defense lawyers will get real persnickety if a prosecutor says anything about “the people”; they’ll quickly point out that a prosecutor does not represent the people, he represents the State. A subtle difference, perhaps, but one they seem to feel is worth making.
Although Federal criminal cases are captioned “The United States v. ______,” the prosecution is usually referred to as “The Government” by judges and lawyers at trial, and in the body of appellate decisions. A bit less flag-wavingly patriotic than the country’s name. Who loves “The Government”?
In the cases that you cite, the state official is the defendant (nominally, anyway) in a non-criminal case.
Most other posters here are discussing criminal cases in which the state is the prosecutor/plaintiff.
Since R. v. Canuck is a criminal case, could someone tell me what Canuck v. The Queen is? I thought it was what it was called when Canuck appeals his/her conviction in the preceding case, but now I’m not so sure.
Another confusing question: why are some civil suits against the government addressed to a specific body thereof (e.g. Canadian Foundation for Children, Youth and the Law v. Attorney General in Right of Canada) while others are against the Queen in Right of Canada (e.g. James Egan and John Norris Nesbit v. Her Majesty The Queen in Right of Canada - a.k.a. Egan v. Canada) - apparently meaning the government as a whole? Is that just when you can’t decide which ministry to sue? Both cases impugned the constitutionality of a law (the Criminal Code in the first case, the Old Age Security Act in the second).
Mods - I know this is an old thread, but I hope it’s okay to reply to matt’s question, since a) it does have a factual answer, and b) matt is still around, so the usual concerns about bumping old threads don’t seem to apply here. Plus, I didn’t see it at the time, since I was trying to avoid being trampled by a bull in England at the time. That’s gotta count for something.
matt, you’re right on your original understanding - when the accused appealed, the case was often reported as Canuck v. The Queen because Canuck v. R. looked goofy. However, the rules for styles of cause have been standardised, to aid in computer searches. Now, regardless of which party appeals, the case will always be reported as R. v. Canuck in every court up the ladder.
As well, there was an ambiguity in Canuck v. The Queen. The convention in Canada used to be that “R.” was used to refer to the Crown in criminal cases, and “The King” or “The Queen” was used where the Crown was a party in civil cases. So The King v. Canuck meant a case where the Crown was the plaintiff in a civil case. But what if Canuck was suing the Crown? Then the style of cause would be Canuck v. The King - so the style of cause in a civil trial case looked the same as appeals in criminal cases, when Canuck was appealing his conviction.
It gradually became the convention not to use “The King” or “The Queen” in the style of cause in civil suits, but to use “The Queen in right of Canada”, or “The Queen in right of Saskatchewan” and so on, which then normally gets abbreviated to “Canada” or “Saskatchewan” in the citation.
In addition, some jurisidictions such as the federal government, give specific directions as to who is to be named in suits against the government. The federal Crown Liability and Proceedings Act provides:
So now if you’re suing the Crown in right of Canada, the rule is to name the AG as the defendant, unless Parliament has specifically provided that an administrative agent has the capacity to be sued in its own name.
As to why Egan and Nesbitt sued Canada, I’m not sure. It could be that that lawsuit began before this provision was added to the Act. Or, it could be that they named “Canada” to increase the polemic value of the lawsuit. Or, it may be that they used “Canada” inadvertently, and the federal lawyers never bothered to insist on an amendment to the style of cause (the Act uses “may”, not “must”, so it’s not an absolute rule that the case must be brought against the AG). Or, it could be because the new rules about consistent citations had just come into force (judging by the age of the lawsuit, that’s a possibility, if I remember correctly), and the reporter series used “Canada” instead of “Canada (Attorney General)”.
A minor point, but now I’m wondering what happens when the monarch dies during a case. Do active cases switch from being The Queen v Nemo to The King v Nemo? Or do they just stay with whatever designation they had when they were begun?
Well, at common law, everything ground to a halt on the demise of the Crown. The Parliament dissolved automatically and there were new elections. Every law suit pending in the royal courts abated, and had to be re-started (not just those involving the Crown, but every suit, including suits between two private parties). Anyone who held an office of any sort under the Crown had to be re-appointed to the office.
Damned inconvenient, and most jurisdictions have now passed laws to change that, so the death of the monarch doesn’t have such a dramatic effect. For example, in Saskatchewan, The Interpretation Act, 1995 [pdf alert] provides:
However, that doesn’t speak to the particular issue you raised, which doesn’t happen very often, since in most cases a King is succeeded by a King. The styles of cause don’t give the name of the monarch, just say something like: “His Majesty the King v. Depraved Canuck,” so no change is needed when George VI succeeds Edward VIII.
My recollection is that in 1952, the last time there was a switch from a King to a Queen, the legislatures passed specific acts to handle this sort of administrative detail. However, laws from that period aren’t on-line, so I can’t check that easily.
Isn’t the AG the nominal plaintiff, rather than the defendant, there. So it might be, A.G. of Canada v. Secretary of State for Silly Walks ex parte Concerned Citizen, where Concerned Citizen is the person actually aggrieved by the actions of the Ministry for Silly Walks.
That’s only for a certain type of civil proceeding, an application for a prerogative writ such as certiorari or mandamus. However, there the nominal plaintiff is Her Majesty herself - she has the prerogative to apply to the courts to ensure that executive agencies are carrying out their functions according to law. In reality, of course, the application is brought in Her Majesty’s name by the aggrieved citizen who is upset with the actions of the agency in question. So the styles of cause by this approach (that I’m familiar with in Canada, at any event; can’t speak for the practice in all of the Commonwealth) would be “Her Majesty the Queen v. Minister for Silly Walks, ex parte [or “ex rel.”] Aggreived Canuck.”
However, many jurisdictions have replaced the prerogative writs with statutory remedies. Since the prerogative is no longer involved, the Crown is not the nominal plaintiff, so those statutory applications don’t follow this rule. The aggrieved citizen brings the statutory application in his or her own name.
Other jurisdictions have kept the prerogative writs, but have sometimes passed changes to the rules relating to the style of cause, so that the aggrieved citizen can bring the application in his or her own name, without invoking the Queen.
This rule never applied to an ordinary civil action where the subject was suing the Crown in contract or tort, since the prerogative powers of the Crown were not needed as the basis of the action (although the subject originally had to ask the Crown for permission to sue her in her own courts, via a Petition of Right, but that’s been abolished generally).