Case research online. Legal system and the source's

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Case Research Online
Donna Nixon
Head of Reference Services
Lecturing Fellow

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Structure of state & federal courts-
- 3 Levels:
 Trial courts
 Intermediate Appellate Court
 Highest court (often called Supreme Court)

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Jurisdiction: Fed? State?
 Federal courts have jurisdiction of:
– federal constitutional issues
– issues covered by federal law/statute
 State courts have jurisdiction over:
– state level matters that are not trumped by
federal law
 Some overlap of jurisdiction where there
are both federal and state matters involved

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There are other jurisdiction
limitations for courts:
 Geographic-does this court cover this area
of the country or world?
 Subject matter-does this court adjudicate
these types of matters (e.g. bankruptcy,
military, family courts)
 Over the person-does this court have
authority to bind this person or entity to a
judgment?

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Map of federal circuits (district &
appeals courts)

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Federal Case Reporters
 U.S. Supreme Court
– U.S. Reports (official)
– Supreme Court Reporter (West)
– Lawyers Edition (Lexis)
 Bankruptcy Reporter
 Other specialty court reporters: military,
court of claim, federal rules reporters, etc.
 Federal Supplement (West) prints some
trial court cases

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Sample Legal Citations
 Supreme Court Citations: Turner Broad. Sys. v. FCC:
– 520 U.S. 180; (What is the reporter name?)
– 117 S.Ct. 1174;
– 137 L. Ed. 2d 369
 Federal Appellate Court Citations:
– 397 F3d 570;
– 968 F2d 158;
– 91 F. 114
 Federal Trial Ct. Citation: 21 F.Supp. 19
 State Regional Reporter: 78 SE2d 980
 State Reporter (N.C.): 25 N.C. 250

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Searching Case Law by Subject
You will often search for a case by subject rather
than by citation. Best method: ONE GOOD
CASE METHOD-locate one case that is really
on point, then use to find other cases on point.
How?
– Ask assigning attorney if there is any case that
illustrates issue.
– Look at annotations to: relevant statute, legal
encyclopedia, journal or ALR article.
DOING A FULL-TEXT DB SEARCH IS
LEAST EFFICIENT MEANS

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How to use “One Good Case”
 Use headnotes in that case to find other
cases with the same headnotes:
– “More like this” in Lexis
– “Custom Digest” in Westlaw
 Read decision and note any earlier cases
cited in that one good case.
 Shepardize or KeyCite the case to find
later cases on point (those that have cited
your case).

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Searching Case Law by Topic
 Full-Text Searching. Choose:
– Type of search:
 Terms & Connectors-Boolean
 Natural language-keyword search w/out having to use
booleans.
– Use narrower database to limit unnecessary searching
– Choose limiters (field/segment restrictions, date
limiters)
– Brainstorm alternate keywords (eg. “death penalty” &
“capital punishment”). Terms also may change over
time.

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After you have done a search
 If not many hits, broaden your terms (in
some cases, may need to broaden
jurisdiction
 Once get a good 50 or less, look through
the list of hits for cases on point
 Use cases you’ve found to locate other
cases on point (remember: custom digest
& more like this)

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Now we need to update it?

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Updating Cases
Use to:
 check the prior and subsequent history of a
case
 to make sure a case is good law
 to find other later cases that have dealt
with that area of law and cited your case
 to find other relevant material that have
cited to your case (law journal articles,
ALR, etc.)

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Evaluating updating signals/flags
 If red flag, make sure that the flag is for
the part of the decision on which you want
to rely, if not, the flag is not as significant
 If yellow/caution flag check:
– if it means: criticism, modification,
distinguished
– if it is from a binding jurisdiction (remember,
your court is not bound by decisions of a
lower or co-equal court

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Updating Caselaw w/Shepards
There are two types of Shepard’s (Lexis) reports:
 Shepard’s for Research (FULL) provides a
complete report for your case, including prior
history subsequent history and every citing
reference.
 Shepard’s for Validation (KWIC) provides a
more limited report that allows you to quickly
determine precedent. It includes only those
citing references with editorial analysis, and
excludes any prior history.

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Westlaw Signals (con’t)
 Blue H: In cases or administrative decisions,
a blue H indicates that there is some history but it
is not known to be negative history.
 Green C: A green C indicates that the case has
citing references, but no direct or negative
indirect history.
 Quotations marks: Quotation marks indicate
that the citing case directly quotes the cited case.

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Westlaw Flags
 Red Flag-In cases and administrative
decisions, a red flag warns that the case or
administrative decision is no longer good
law for at least one of the points of law it
contains.
 Yellow Flag-In cases and
administrative decisions, a yellow flag
warns that the case or administrative
decision has some negative treatment, but
has not been reversed or overruled.

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Depth of treatment stars (West):
 4 Stars - The citing case contains an extended
discussion of the cited case, usually more than a
printed page.
 3 Stars - The citing case contains a substantial
paragraph but less than a printed page.
 2 Stars - The citing case contains some
paragraph.
 1 Star - The citing case contains a brief reference
to the cited case, usually in a string citation.

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How an unreported case looks in
Westlaw or Lexis
“Unreported” cases are cases the court does not
want to have precedent. Here are some examples
of citations that should alert you to unreported
status of a case:
 185 Fed. Appx. 716 (Federal Appendix)
 2006 U.S. App. LEXIS 28127
 2007 WL 465219
Note: if a case has a Westlaw or Lexis number, but
also has a regular reporter citation, such as F3d,
it is a reported case, not an unreported case.

Case research online. Legal system and the source's

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