HLT-520 Legal & Ethical Principles in Health Care

When researching legal issues, you will often need to search for the actual text of the case or law separately from articles or information about that law or case. The Nexis Uni database contains both, but still requires separate searches as cases, laws, and law reviews (articles about cases and laws) are all different search types. 

Remember: Your primary source of information for your assignments and discussion questions will always be your assigned readings and textbook.

For the assignment on antitrust law, use the US Department of Justice Antitrust Division website below to choose a healthcare case first, then research that case specifically. 

Legal References

• APA follows the Bluebook generally for legal references.
• Legal material—cases, laws, bills, regulations, and similar items—are not formatted like other material. 
• APA recommends checking Cornell's Basic Legal Citation  website for detailed instructions.
• Most in-text citations will be title and year.

Cases or Court Decisions

• The title will usually be "Party v. Party".
• Parties are proper nouns and are usually capitalized.
• The citation is the location in the court recorder for the case. The source will usually provide this. In Nexis Uni, this will usually be located directly below the case title or as part of the title.
• The URL is optional. Do not link to Nexis Uni.
• Take care with court cases that the case wasn't overturned or is otherwise no longer valid. See the Justice Studies guide for more on checking Nexis Uni for this information.
• Lower courts than the U.S. Supreme Court include information about the court.

Format:

Title of the case, citation (Year). URL 

Examples:

Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362 (2000). 

State v. Miranda, 98 Ariz. 18, 401 P.2d 721 (1965).

• This is the Arizona Supreme Court case that was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Laws/Statues/ Regulations

• Generally, laws/statutes will go by the name of the act and then how to locate it in the statutes and a date.
• Titles of acts are in regular type, in title case both in the text and on the reference page.
• Ending with a URL is optional but can help others locate the law, especially for state or city laws.
• et seq. means "and subsequent" and is used to indicate a law starts in one section and goes on from there. You can refer to specific lines in your text by using the exact number.
  • For example a paper might say: Section 12162 of the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990) specifically addresses the need to have at least one accessible car on all commuter rail trains.
• Check  Cornell's Basic Legal Citation for the proper abbreviations for state statutes.
• Arizona's abbreviation is Ariz. Rev. Stat.
• Arizona turns act names into chapter names once encoded in the statutes. See the behavioral health example below.
• Most will include the section symbol, which can be found on the symbol menu or copy it from here:   §
• Laws are referred to in the text by the act name and year alone.
  • (Americans With Disabilities Act, 1990)
  • Civil Rights Act (1964)

Constitutions:

U.S. Const. art. 1, § 3.

U.S. Const. amend. VI.

Ariz. Const. art. XI, § 5. 

Law/Statute Format:

Title of Act, Location. (Year).

Law/Statute and Regulation Examples:

Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990, 42 U.S.C. § 12101 et seq . (1990). 

Civil Rights Act of 1964, Pub. L. No. 88-352, 78 Stat. 241 (1964).

Every Student Succeeds Act, 20 U.S.C. § 6301 (2015).

Protection of Human Subjects, 45 C.F.R. § 46 (2009).

Behavioral Health Professionals, Ariz. Rev. Stat. § 32-3251 et seq. (2018).

Unenacted Bills:

Title, bill number, legislative session. (Year). URL

• Bill numbering systems vary widely between states and congress, but should be obvious on any official source. Not all states number their sessions, follow the convention of the state. Congress numbers consecutively, i.e. 113th Cong. 
• Link to an official site to ensure you have the correct and most current language for the bill. 

Executive Orders

• Federal executive orders are collected into the C.F.R. or Federal Register each year and are numbered. Some state orders may be numbered and some use a year code. Official copies of the order should list the official number/designation.
  • Arizona numbers with the year, then a dash and the number, and restarts each year.
  • Ignore the C.F.R. or other location element for orders in the current year, which will not be codified yet. Include an official URL for these.
• Titles can be included at the start followed by a comma, but are not required.
• URLs are optional, but helpful for state orders.

Examples:

Exec. Order No. 13,676, 3 C.F.R. 294 (2014). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2015-title3-vol1/pdf/CFR-2015-title3-vol1-eo13676.pdf

Ariz. Exec. Order No. 2020-52 (2020). https://azgovernor.gov/sites/default/files/eo_2020-52_sw_0.pdf