Talk:Late Corp. of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. United States

Name of article

Should "The" be removed from the name of this article? Snocrates 23:13, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

No probably not. It's sometimes referred to without the leading article, but the reporter name of the case has it, and many secondary sources capitalize the "The" and everything. It's not unlike The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints itself. Cool Hand Luke 23:21, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

If we go purely by how it's listed in the "U.S." reporter and the secondary sources, then it should be "Latter-Day Saints" b/c the reporter itself does not use the lower-case "d", nor do the vast majority of secondary sources. (Since the name of the case in the reporter is all caps, you have to look to the text of the judgment for how the court uses the capitalization.) I realize this would be an "incorrect" spelling of the late incorporated church in question, but I don't know if slavishly following the reporter or the secondary sources is always a good idea. The "The" just seems superfluous. (I also think it's superfluous at the name of the church, but that's a whole other ball of wax.) I would propose either Late Corporation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints v. United States or The Late Corporation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. United States, but not its current formatting. Alternatively, we could use the shortened form that the U.S. reporter uses, Mormon Church v. United States, but I'm not sure what the naming conventions are with respect to SCOTUS cases. I've asked for input on their wikiproject page. Snocrates 23:36, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

This is an article about a case, and should use the actual name of the case. So "day" should be "Day". It is possible-- perhaps likely-- that the capitalized form was the form then used in the corporate name. Even if it was not, the case name should be used. Wikipedia should not change specific titles. (Cf Talk:Palsgraf_v._Long_Island_Railroad_Co..) Kablammo (talk) 23:45, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure the corp name was registered with small-"d", but your point that the article title should use large-"D" still stands. Snocrates 23:51, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I did not notice that. Yeah, should be with the correct (incorrect) capitalization. Cool Hand Luke 03:14, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Technically speaking, the name of the case was Late Corporation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints et al. v. United States. Court cases rarely retain the word "the" in the beginning unless it is truly necessary. However, and more importantly, it is also unorthodox to name an article after a "secondary case".

This case was decided along with two other cases, the first-listed being Mormon Church v. United States. If future decisions were to reference the opinion written, they would refer to it as Mormon Church v. U.S., not Latter-Day Saints v. U.S.. When writing an article regarding a case it is often best to use the case names and citations as they would be used in legal texts. This reduces confusion to the lay reader. As such, the title of the article should be Mormon Church v. United States with Latter-Day Saints v. United States redirecting to the article rather than the reverse as it is now. Skyler1534 (talk) 01:07, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

P.S.- With the question of whether the "d" would be upper or lower case, the text of the opinion refers to it as "Latter-Day" with the "d" be capitalized. Proper citation would be to use it as it is written in the text of the opinion (regardless of whether it is correct). Skyler1534 (talk) 01:14, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Now I'm thoroughly confused. Snocrates 01:19, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

"Mormon Church v. United States" is about equally common now as the full title (as judged by Westlaw, lexis law review articles, which have a present bias), but the full title seems to be preferred now. In this circumstance, I think the full title should be used. You have a good point about the 'D' though. It looks like there's no unanimity about the capitalization or the "The." The most recent Supreme Court citation to the case used a lower-case 'd' sans "The." Ngiraingas v. Sanchez, 495 U.S. 182, 204 (1990). All variants are used, though.

I prefer the current title because an apparent majority of citations consider "The" part of the case name, which I think is significant because it stands out in the middle of sentences. I'm indifferent about the 'D' and would be glad to capitalize it for consistency. Cool Hand Luke 03:14, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I see now your point about dropping the "The," but it look like you're wrong about what courts would use. There's no clear convention. In federal cases since 1990 (which sometimes use standard abbreviations which we would probably not:

• "Mormon Church": "Mormon Church v. United States," 877 F. Supp. 143, 146 (D.N.Y. 1995). District court only.
• Capital 'D': "Late Corporation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. United States," 232 F.3d 1166, 1173 (9th Cir. 2000); "Late Corp. of Church of Latter-Day Saints v. United States," 5 F.3d 1522, 1534 (3d Cir. 1993).
• Lower-case 'd': "Late Corp. of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints v. United States," 495 U.S. 182, 204 (1990). Supreme Court.
• Other: "Late Corp. of Church of Jesus Christ, etc. v. United States," 229 F.3d 332, 336 (1st Cir. 2000); "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints v. United States," 35 F.3d 1449, 1464 (9th Cir. 1994) [no hyphen, no "Late Corp"]; "Morman Church v. United States," 83 F. Supp. 2d 125, 134 (D.D.C. 1999) [sic].

No help there. It seems like in the 1960's and earlier, the case was almost uniformly called "Mormon Church..." as you suggest though. Cool Hand Luke 03:31, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Snocrates asked over at WP:SCOTUS to get the opinion of the people who deal with these articles on a regular basis, I presume. I will break this into 2 parts:

With regard to the article name: The name of the article should be Mormon Church v. United States. When the Court decides multiple cases with one opinion, it is because there are common points of law between the different cases. When they are citing the opinion as a whole (and the common legal points) in future opinions, they will use Mormon Church because this is the first case listed. It is listed arbitrarily, but that is how they will (and have) referred to the case. The only time they will cite Latter-Day Saints is narrowly when they are quoting a certain part of the opinion or a certain point of law that is applicable to only the Latter-Day Saints case. The main holding of the case, if referred to in future opinions, will be cited as Mormon Church, so that is what the article name should be.

With regard to the "D": The instances you cited were all different cases. Whether or not the "D" is capitalized in future citations is simply decided by whether it was capitalized in this particular opinion. In Mormon Church, the Justice writing the opinion capitalized the "D", so it will be cited with a capital in future cases. In a later case called Latter-day Saints v. Amos (1987), the Justice writing the opinion used a lower case "d". For this reason, the "d" in the Amos case will be cited as lower-case.

The "D", I don't care much about. The case name; however, should be Mormon Church v. United States. You would only use Latter-Day Saints v. United States if you were writing an article about the Circuit Court opinion. I did not make up the conventions; I simply apply them. Skyler1534 (talk) 17:21, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

With due respect, when U.S. Federal Courts—including the Supreme Court—no longer use a convention, it is no longer a convention. Cool Hand Luke 17:43, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree. But the convention of citing the holding of a Supreme Court multiple-case opinion by the first-listed case is still very much used. Skyler1534 (talk) 19:57, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree generally, but in this case it's no longer conventional. Both courts and secondary sources seem to be using the long name more often (for political correctness or whatever reason). Cool Hand Luke 21:04, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I think I agree with Skyler's interpretation of things. now that I've looked at it more carefully. It should be "Mormon Church v. ..." . Snocrates 19:57, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Name revisited

The above discussion seems to indicate that the current name is probably not the appropriate name for this article. What should it be changed to, though? I suppose the options are Mormon Church v. United States or Late Corporation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. United States, or perhaps even Late Corporation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints v. United States . Or am I misreading things? Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 21:11, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Requested move

Per the discussion above, I'm proposing that this page be moved to Mormon Church v. United States. To summarize, this name would reflect the most commonly-used name for this Supreme Court case and the name that the court itself has used to refer to it. An alternate option would be Late Corporation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. United States, which would at least reflect how the full name of the case was written in the law reports. I would also note that the article was originally at Mormon Church v. United States before it was moved to the current name. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 01:05, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

• Support move to Late Corporation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. United States, which is the legal name of the court case. Articles on court cases should be at the actual name of the case and not a nickname. It doesn't matter that the article was originally at "Mormon Church v. United States" since that is not the name of the case. TJ Spyke 04:24, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Did you read the discussion above? That's where the rationale for "Mormon Church v. United States" is explained, and it has nothing really to do with the fact that's that where it was at. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 01:32, 5 April 2009 (UTC)