Tarlton Law Library
Jamail Center for Legal Research

Finding a statute in the Tarlton Law Library

When you have a citation...

Citations to statutes of a particular jurisdiction follow a particular pattern. This uniformity of citation helps researchers find the materials they need more quickly. Different jurisdictions, however, do not necessarily follow the same pattern. For instance, citations to federal statutes differ from those to Texas statutes.

Federal
The elements of a federal statutory citation are:

1. Title
2. Source
3. Section
4. Date

For example, for the statute 42 U.S.C. § 9601 (1994 & Supp. V 1999),

1. "42" is the Title of the United States Code. Title 42 covers the topic of Public Health and Welfare.
   
   
2. "U.S.C." is the abbreviation for the official version of the United States Code. There are two unofficial versions of the code published by commercial vendors. The United States Code Annotated (U.S.C.A.) and the United States Code Service (U.S.C.S.) use the same citation system with their abbreviations substituted for the official "USC" abbreviation.
   
   
3. "§ 9601" is the section of Title 42 in which the text of the relevant statute can be found. Section 9601 covers definitions in the context of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act.
   
   
4. "1994 & Supp. V 1999" indicate the publication date of the United States Code volumes in which the text of the statute was found. "1994" is the date of the official bound volume containing the text of the statute. "Supp. V 1999" indicates the number of the supplement and the date which contains amendments to the text of the statute since the 1994 edition of the Code was published. The commercial editions-USCA and USCS-use the copyright dates of their bound volumes and pocket parts.

Location for the USC, USCA and USCS: Second floor, Stack 214; Fifth floor, Stack 538 (USCA only)

Texas
The elements of a Texas statutory citation are:

1. Source
2. Section or article
3. Publisher
4. Date

In Texas, you will see two different versions of this same citation pattern. The most common citation will be to the annotated Codes, but another citation will be to the Texas Revised Civil Statutes Annotated. Both citations are current--the Revised Civil Statutes are simply an older arrangement of the Texas statutes.

For example, for the statute Tex. Rev. Civ. Stat. Ann. art. 178d-1, § 2 (Vernon Supp. 2003):

1. "Tex. Rev. Civ. Stat. Ann." is the abbreviation for Vernon’s Annotated Revised Civil Statutes of the State of Texas.
   
   
2. "art. 178d-1, § 2" refers to article 178d-1, section 2, of the statutes which deals with the special event parking charge limitations.
   
   
3. "Vernon" is not actually the publisher of the Texas statutes-West Publishing is. Traditionally, however, the statutes are referred to as "Vernon’s" and so, Vernon is still named as publisher.
   
   
4. "Supp. 2003" is the date of the paper supplement that contains the most current language of the statute.

Another example is Tex. Nat. Res. Code Ann. § 89.043 (Vernon 1993 & Supp. 2003):

1. "Tex. Nat. Res. Code Ann." is the abbreviation for Vernon’s Texas Codes Annotated-Natural Resources.
   
   
2. "§ 89.043" is the section in the Natural Resource Code that is being cited.
   
   
3. "Vernon" is not actually the publisher of the Texas statutes-West Publishing is. Traditionally, however, the statutes are referred to as "Vernon’s," so, Vernon is still named as publisher.
   
   
4. "1993 & Supp. 2003" is the copyright date of the bound volume of the Natural Resources Code and the publication date of the pocket part for that volume. There is current language of the statute both places.

Other ways of citing to the Texas statutes that you may encounter are: VTCA (Vernon’s Texas Codes Annotated) and VATS (Vernon’s Annotated Texas Statutes).

Location: KFT 1230.5 V4 - Second floor, Reference Stacks (Stack 203) and Reference Office; KFT collection.

When you don't have a citation...

Popular name tables

Both the Texas statutes and the federal statutes have Popular Name Tables that allow a researcher to look up a statute by a commonly known title. For instance, if you know you need to find the text of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, you can use the Popular Name Table in one of the sources for the United States Code (USC, USCA, or USCS) to find where that Act is located in the Code. In both the Texas and federal statutes, the table can be found in the back of the index volumes.

And, speaking of indexes...

Indexes

Both the federal and the Texas statutes have subject matter indexes to facilitate access to the statutes. If you are looking for a federal statute, it is probably best to use the indexes for one of the annotated sources (USCA or USCA), as opposed to the official version of the Code (USC). Generally, the commercial, annotated sources are more extensively indexed and also more up to date. The indexes will provide you with references to those parts of the statutes that are relevant to the subject you looked up.

In Texas, the General Index covers the entire set of Texas statutes-both the Revised Civil Statutes and the Codes.

Revised: April 23, 2007