‘Cleaned up’ California: 7 years on

An astounding amount of time, effort, and education is spent on legal citation format. For the uninitiated, this is surprising because the essential principles of citation boil down to two simple rules. First, tell the reader where the idea came from so the reader can find it and evaluate its strength and relevance. Second, alert the reader if the writer has changed anything from the original.

This second principle, combined with citation rules designed to capture every detail, including meaningless minutiae, means that sometimes citations end up looking ugly at the back end with lengthy parentheticals explaining “some italics omitted, our italics, added, quoting Smith v. Jones.” Further, following official citation rules can result in ugliness at the front end of quotations, especially where the quoted source cites a previous source, which quotes another ad nauseum. For example, consider:

“ ‘ “ ‘ “ The law casts upon the party the duty of looking after his legal rights and of calling the judge’s attention to any infringement of them. If any other rule were to obtain, the party would in most cases be careful to be silent as to his objections until it would be too late to obviate them, and the result would be that few judgments would stand the test of an appeal.” ’ ” [Citation.]’ (Fn. omitted; [citations].)” (Keener v. Jeld-Wen, Inc. (2009) 46 Cal.4th 247, 264–65, citing People v. Simon (2001) 25 Cal.4th 1082, 1103).

Passages like this abound in legal writing. Yet any reasonable reader would consider this presentation a sick joke or parody. (For the curious, Keener cites to Simon, which cites back to Sommer v. Martin (1921) 55 Cal.App. 603, which cites A Treatise on New Trial and Appeal, Volume 1, by Robert Y. Hayne, published in 1912.)

Multiple embedded quotations make for absurdly messy cites. (And the drive for microscopic accuracy is likely to trip up writers who are more focused on substance than ensuring that every open quotation mark is matched with a closing mate). But what’s worse is that none of that detail is actually helpful to the reader. Thus, citations like this—which might win a law student a spot on law review—fail the primary job of legal writing: Present text that can be read easily, providing just the amount of supporting authority and detail that is necessary, and no more. Cluttering citations with insignificant data helps no one.

Enter “cleaned up.”

In 2017, attorney Jack Metzler posted a Tweet, followed by a LinkedIn post, and then a law review article proposing a new citation parenthetical—“cleaned up”—that would achieve the goals of legal citation while making legal writing easier to read. See Jack Meltzer, @SCOTUSPlaces, I propose a new parenthetical for quotes that delete all messy quotation marks, brackets, ellipses, etc. (cleaned up) (Mar. 15, 2017, 8:57 PM); Jack Metzler, Cleaning Up Quotations, 18 J. App. Prac. & Process 143 (2017). Metzler proposed using the signal “cleaned up” to tell readers that a quotation has been changed in some way (typically, by removing distractions like internal citations, quotation marks, brackets, footnotes, indications that emphasis has been added or removed, etc.) but wouldn’t force the reader to wade through the thicket of unimportant explanatory notes. The original Tweet garnered nearly 200 Likes and over 20 Reposts—a lot of engagement for a Tweet about legal citation. Metzler had hit upon a great idea, sparking a nationwide movement. Within a year, “cleaned up” had appeared in over 150 judicial opinions. The “cleaned up” parenthetical has now appeared in federal court decisions at every level and in countless briefs at every level of court around the country.

Despite “cleaned up” having reached even the U.S. Supreme Court (see Justice Thomas’s use of “cleaned up” in Brownback v. King (2021) 592 U.S. 209, 215), the question on California practitioners’ minds is: can we use it in California courts?

A close reading of the California Style Manual (aka Yellow Book), might suggest the answer is “No.” For example, Yellow Book Rule 4.12 states “Quoted material should correspond exactly with its original source in wording, spelling, capitalization, internal punctuation, and citation style. Any deviations must be indicated or explained. Explanatory or other material inserted within the quotation must be placed in brackets or otherwise noted.” And Rule 4.22 instructs writers to “Use alternating quotation marks ... for each level of internal quote, even if several reversals are required. Internal quotation marks may not be omitted.”

These rules emphasize the importance of informing readers what, if anything, has changed from the original source. This mirrors the two main concerns expressed by opponents of “cleaned up.” Critics worry, not without justification, that the signal could be used to obscure nuance in the quoted material and to push the excerpt toward a meaning not supported by the original source.

Those rules and concerns aren’t the end of the road for the scrappy new “cleaned up” in California legal writing, though. The Yellow Book is long overdue for revision and both the bench and bar have been cutting corners and ignoring certain senseless dictates for decades. Several California Court of Appeal Justices are “cleaned up” champions, including Justices Baker, Do, Raphael, and now-retired justices Perluss, and Slough. Those Justices alone have used “cleaned up” in nearly 90 opinions. What’s more, their writings give practitioners a road map to using “cleaned up” in ways that make the best use of the signal and mitigate concerns about bad-faith usage that changes the meaning of the quoted material.

First, Justices are using “cleaned up” when they cite fundamental principles of law, especially from well-known, foundational cases. These are the broad, top-of-the-paragraph statements of law, after which the writer funnels down to include more specificity and nuance. For example, consider Moss v. 21st Century Ins. Co., 2022 WL 1043391 (Slough, J.):

A defendant moving for summary judgment “bears the burden of persuasion that one or more elements of the cause of action in question cannot be established, or that there is a complete defense.” (Aguilar v. Atlantic Richfield Co. (2001) 25 Cal.4th 826, 850 [cleaned up]; see also Code Civ. Proc., § 437c, subd. (o)(2).)

It would be hard to imagine anyone selectively editing a passage from Aguilar to subtly change the standard for the burden of persuasion on summary judgment; that standard is too well-known, and any departure from the rule would jump off the page. There’s little risk of using “cleaned up” here to do anything other than actually cleaning up the passage.

Second, they’re using “cleaned up” after quoting multiple sentences from a single source, with “cleaned up” appearing at the end, similarly to setting a longer passage as a block quote and adding “[Citations omitted]” at the end. From People v. Dingman, 2024 WL 2497979 (Do, J.):

“Certain practical constraints make it more difficult to address ineffective assistance claims on direct appeal rather than in the context of a habeas corpus proceeding. The record on appeal may not explain why counsel chose to act as he or she did. Under those circumstances, a reviewing court has no basis on which to determine whether counsel had a legitimate reason for making a particular decision, or whether counsel’s actions or failure to take certain actions were objectively unreasonable.” (People v. Mickel (2016) 2 Cal.5th 181, 198 [cleaned up]).

Because so much is quoted from Mickel, the writer can feel reasonably confident that a reader who has a question will revisit the original source. Any practitioner who tried to change the meaning and hide behind a “cleaned up” signal in this way would almost certainly get caught and sacrifice any credibility.

Third, Justices are using “cleaned up” when citing to California Supreme Court cases that were themselves citing to California Court of Appeal cases. Once the idea is articulated by the Supreme Court, it may not be as important to trace its provenance back any further. For example, in Haydx, Inc. v. Ichida, 2023 WL 142373 (Raphael, J.), what would otherwise look like this:

“ ‘ “Conversion is the wrongful exercise of dominion over the property of another. The elements of a conversion claim are: (1) the plaintiff’s ownership or right to possession of the property; (2) the defendant’s conversion by a wrongful act or disposition of property rights; and (3) damages....” ’ ” (Lee v. Hanley (2015) 61 Cal.4th 1225, 1240, quoting Welco Electronics, Inc. v. Mora (2014) 223 Cal.App.4th 202, 208.)

Becomes this:

“Conversion is the wrongful exercise of dominion over the property of another. The elements of a conversion claim are: (1) the plaintiff’s ownership or right to possession of the property; (2) the defendant’s conversion by a wrongful act or disposition of property rights; and (3) damages.” (Lee v. Hanley (2015) 61 Cal.4th 1225, 1240 [cleaned up].)

While it’s exciting to see Court of Appeal Justices on the cutting edge of citation trends, practitioners may be wondering “what about us?” Will California courts welcome the thoughtful use of “cleaned up,” or are intrepid practitioners who wade into the “cleaned up” waters in for an epic California Style Manual smackdown?

Adventurous legal writers have joined the Justices in adding another legal citation tool into the toolbox. The Westlaw California Brief database shows over 600 briefs using “cleaned up” since Metzler’s inspired 2017 Tweet. With over seven years’ worth of supporting citations, and the blessing of legal writing gurus (including Bryan Garner), thoughtful legal writers should feel encouraged to use “cleaned up” when it achieves the goals of writing clearly and concisely.