Also known as: supra
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A citation shorthand used in legal writing to refer the reader to a source or passage previously identified earlier in the same document.
Select any source to read its text and confirm it supports the definition.
Unity Capital sends a signed letter offering to lease warehouse space to Upstream Petroleum. The parties later form an oral agreement on those terms. In a later brief enforcing the deal, counsel cites the letter and adds ubi supra to direct the court back to the earlier description of the offer without restating its contents.
Central Hanover Bank serves as trustee for a common trust fund. When it seeks to settle accounts, it publishes notice only in local papers. A later motion references the publication method and uses ubi supra to point back to the earlier description of the notice procedure.
Ulrike Ulrich, a Pennsylvania citizen, sues Erie Railroad in federal court after a train accident in that state. The complaint cites Tompkins for the proposition that state substantive law governs. Counsel later invokes ubi supra when referring back to the choice-of-law discussion without repeating the full analysis.
A Texas statute criminalizes most abortions. Jane Roe challenges the law. In the reply brief, counsel cites the liberty interest recognized in prior cases and uses ubi supra to refer back to the discussion of fundamental rights without restating the entire historical survey.
Ambler Realty purchases land in Euclid, Ohio, intending industrial development. The village enacts a zoning ordinance that restricts the property to residential use. In the appellate brief, counsel cites the earlier description of the ordinance's effect and adds ubi supra to avoid repeating the factual background.
The New York Times publishes an advertisement critical of Montgomery officials. L. B. Sullivan sues for libel. In the reply brief, counsel cites the earlier discussion of the public-official rule and uses ubi supra to refer back to the constitutional analysis without restating the full test.
A party may use ubi supra once a source has already been fully cited earlier in the same document. The shorthand avoids repetition while directing the reader to the prior reference.
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No. The full citation must appear at least once before ubi supra can be used. The shorthand operates only as a subsequent reference device.
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Local rules or court preferences may limit or prohibit Latin shorthand. Practitioners should check the applicable rules before relying on ubi supra in a filed document.
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…166 (1944); and child rearing and education, Pierce v. Society of Sisters , 268 U.S. 510, 535 (1925), Meyer v. Nebraska , supra . This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court…