find-case-by-party-verify

name

find-case-by-party-verify

description

Find a UK court judgment by party names and verify its neutral citation before citing it to the user. Use whenever the user asks "find <X v Y>", "get me the citation for <case>", "what's the neutral citation for the <case name>", "is there a case called <name>", or pastes a partial case reference. This skill verifies the case exists in TNA Find Case Law BEFORE reporting the citation — prevents the "plausible-looking but wrong" citation failure that happens when an agent formats from training data.

/find-case-by-party-verify

1. Search TNA Find Case Law: case_law_search(query="<party names>").
2. Pick the right judgment — exact title match first; list by court if multiple.
3. Verify: citations_resolve(neutral_citation=...) for the top candidate.
4. If resolved, report with [uk-legal MCP — TNA Find Case Law] tag and tna_uri.
5. If unresolved, tell the user — never report an unverified citation as confirmed.

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Purpose

Find a UK court judgment by party names and verify the neutral citation exists in the TNA Find Case Law corpus before reporting it to the user. The failure mode this prevents: an agent producing a plausible-looking neutral citation from training data that does not actually exist in the official record, or that has wrong details. This skill verifies first and formats second.

Workflow

Source discipline: If a uk-legal MCP tool returns empty or errored (status: empty / not_found / upstream_validation / etc.), do NOT supplement from training data or web search. Report the empty result to the user with the tool's next_steps / detail field surfaced, and ask for clarifying information (different spelling of a name, a date range, the source URL) rather than fabricating a plausible-looking answer. Empty results are HONEST signal — not a failure mode to paper over.

Step 1 — Search TNA Find Case Law

Call case_law_search(query="<party names>"). The tool returns up to 50 judgments with neutral_citation, title, court, sitting_date, and tna_uri.

• Use the party names as the query (e.g. "Smith HMRC VAT recovery").
• Do not supplement the query with training-data knowledge about the case — search on what the user provided.

Step 2 — Pick the right judgment

From the results:

• If the user named both parties, look for an exact title match first (X v Y).
• If multiple courts have heard the case (e.g. Court of Appeal and then UKSC), list them in court-of-last-resort order: UKSC → Court of Appeal → High Court.
• If no result is returned, ask the user for a year or a court hint before retrying with a revised query. Do not fabricate a candidate.

Step 3 — Verify the citation

Call citations_resolve(neutral_citation=...) for the top candidate. This step is mandatory before reporting any neutral citation to the user.

• If citations_resolve returns a resolved record: the citation is confirmed. Proceed to Step 4.
• If citations_resolve returns not_found or an error: the citation is NOT confirmed. Proceed to Step 5.
• Never report a neutral citation as confirmed without a successful citations_resolve result from this session.

Step 4 — Surface the confirmed judgment

Report to the user:

• Case title in citation form: X v Y
• Neutral citation tagged [uk-legal MCP — TNA Find Case Law]
• Court and sitting date
• tna_uri (for further drill-in via judgment_get_header or judgment_get_paragraph if the user needs specific paragraphs or holdings)

Step 5 — Verification failure

If citations_resolve did not resolve, tell the user:

"The case appeared in search results but the neutral citation could not be independently resolved. This may mean: (a) the case predates TNA's digital corpus (pre-2001), (b) the neutral citation in the search index is unstable, or (c) the court is not in TNA's covered list. Proceed with caution — verify directly at https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk or via BAILII."

Do not present the unresolved citation as if it were confirmed.

Source attribution. All neutral citations tagged [uk-legal MCP — TNA Find Case Law] in this skill's output must come from a citations_resolve result confirming the citation in this session. A citation appearing only in case_law_search results and not yet resolved by citations_resolve must be labelled [unverified — resolve before citing].

Output

Surface to the user:

• Case found and verified: title, neutral citation, court, sitting date, tna_uri — all tagged [uk-legal MCP — TNA Find Case Law]
• Citation status: "Verified" (resolved) or "Unresolved — do not cite without further verification" (not resolved)
• Next steps (if verified): offer to retrieve judgment header or specific paragraphs via judgment_get_header / judgment_get_paragraph, or build a confirmed OSCOLA citation via /oscola-build-citation
• Next steps (if unresolved): direct the user to https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk or BAILII for manual verification

Test prompts:

• "Find Smith v HMRC dealing with VAT recovery and give me the neutral citation."
• "What's the neutral citation for Donoghue v Stevenson?" (note: pre-2001, may not be in TNA)
• "I need the case on the IR35 status of Sky News presenters in the Upper Tribunal."