WTF Bluebook?! Even More Bluebooking Errors In The Bluebook

Come on, Bluebook editors. We -- perhaps mistakenly -- thought you were better than this.

Attention lawyers — and gunners, especially — because we have information that you need to know. The Bluebook that you hold so near and dear to your heart should no longer be taken as gospel. Its editors are NOT infallible. They aren’t gods. It’s time to end your ceaseless worship, because these people CANNOT stop making Bluebooking errors in The Bluebook itself.

We previously discussed both an error and a typo that were discovered in the pages of the most recent edition of The Bluebook. Now, because we love schadenfreude (and helping readers navigate around the careless mistakes of others), we can share two more Bluebooking errors that somehow made their way into the book’s 20th edition.

First up, we’ve got an error that comes to us straight from the Last Frontier: Alaska.

What’s up with the random small caps for the Alaska Court of Appeals, Bluebook editors? Come on. We — perhaps mistakenly — thought you were better than that.

In the next embarrassing instance, someone who deals with patent matters took the time to email The Bluebook’s editors about an error involving the citation of patents:

Our Bluebooker, who was a bit perturbed by the error, noted: “The punctuation used is an open single quote, not an apostrophe. Is this in error, or are both appropriate in this type of citation (though only the apostrophe is mentioned in the preceding paragraph)?”

Here’s the response he received from a Bluebook editor (emphasis added):

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Thank you for your inquiry. This is unfortunately an error that occurred in our printing process and despite our many rounds of editing it slipped through. We will be fixing this as soon as possible in the next printing of the 20th edition, but please use the open single quote as is customary in the patent field.

Actually, that’s not customary in the patent field, and our tipster set the record straight:

I’m a little puzzled from your response. Customarily, the patent field uses the apostrophe, or, I suppose you could refer to it as a closed quote as well. Other editions of the Bluebook suggest as such (see, for example p. 220 in the 19th edition). So, we write ’829, using an apostrophe. Just to be incredibly clear, the Bluebook stance is that this is incorrect, and the short citation should instead be written with the open quote, ‘829?

This time around, a Bluebook editor owned up to the obvious mistake, writing:

We apologize, in our haste to respond quickly we sent you exactly the opposite answer. This is an error in the Bluebook—we will fix it in the next printing. You should use an apostrophe as is custom in the patent field. Again, we apologize for this typeface error and for any confusion it is causing and we so appreciate your seeking clarification!

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Way to go, Bluebook editors! If this patent practitioner hadn’t been savvy enough to recognize the error in the first place, and then followed the screwed-up advice in your initial email, you would’ve steered him in the completely wrong direction. Ugh.

Have you seen a typo or a Bluebooking error in The Bluebook? Please feel free to share it with us, by email or by text (646-820-8477). Thank you very much!

Earlier: An Embarrassing Typo… In The Bluebook?
A Bluebooking Error In… The Bluebook?