Case Finding

Case Reporters | Finding Cases | Updating Cases | Other Case-Finding Tools

1. CASE REPORTERS

A. Generally

Two types: official and unofficial reporters. The unofficial reports are usually faster; often there will not yet be an official parallel citation for very recent cases.

In many states, the West regional reporter has been designated the official reporter. Check the Bluebook for this information.

The Bluebook now requires that in a document submitted to a state court, all citations to cases decided by the courts of that state (not of other states) should include a citation to the official state reporter, if available, in addition to a regional reporter. In all other documents, including ordinary legal memoranda and law reviews, the Bluebook requires citation only to the appropriate regional reporter.

B. Organization

State Court Opinions

The regional reporters contain opinions from each state's highest court and each state's appellate court.

California and New York are treated differently. The Pacific Reporter has only California Supreme Court opinions and the West California Reporter (Cal. Rptr.) has both the California Supreme Court and California intermediate appellate court opinions. The North Eastern Reporter has decisions for the New York Court of Appeals (New York's highest court) only and the New York Supplement (N.Y.S.) has both the New York Court of Appeals opinions as well as the opinions of New York's intermediate appellate courts.

Federal Court Opinions

• Federal Cases (F. Cas.) contains federal court decisions from 1789 to 1879.
  
• Federal Reporter (F.) contains decisions of the U.S. District Court and the U.S. Courts of Appeals from 1880-1924.
  
• Federal Reporter, 2d Series (F.2d) contains decisions of the U.S. Courts of Appeals from 1924 to 1993 and decisions from the U.S. District court from 1924-1932.
  
• Federal Reporter, 3d Series (F.3d) contains decisions of the U.S. Court of Appeals from 1993 to date.
  
• Federal Supplement (F. Supp.) contains decisions of the U.S. District Court from 1932 to date.

NOTE: Unlike U.S. Supreme Court decisions, not every case from the lower federal courts is represented by a decision published in one of the reporters. Some matters are settled or tried to a jury verdict and don't result in any written opinion. Decisions in some cases are issued as slip opinions but are never published in the reporters. Some of these "unpublished" opinions are available in topical looseleaf services and some can be found online, but others can be obtained only from the clerk of the court.

Specialized Federal Reporters

• Federal Rules Decisions (F.R.D.) contains selected opinions of U.S. District Courts, from 1939 to date, and not published in F. Supp., on matters relating to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. It also contains some textual material such as speeches and articles.
  
• Federal Rules Service contains decisions, from 1939 to date, from all levels of the federal court system.
  
• Federal Rules of Evidence Service contains decisions, from 1979 to date, which construe the Federal Rules of Evidence.

• Others:
  
• Federal Claims Reporter (previously called U.S. Claims Court Reporter)
• West's Bankruptcy Reporter
• West's Military Justice Reporter
• West's Education Law ReporterAmerican Maritime Cases
• Bankruptcy Court Decisions

United States Supreme Court Opinions

• United States Reports (U.S.)--the official reporter for Supreme Court opinions. Cite to this if available, but it is very slow to publish and a U.S. citation might not be available for a year or even two years after a case is decided.

The unofficial reporters are:

• United States Supreme Court Reports, Lawyers Edition (L. Ed.)
• Supreme Court Reporter (S. Ct.)

What to do with a citation you do not understand:

Several sources provide interpretations of abbreviations. One of the most complete is Bieber's Dictionary of Legal Abbreviations KF 246.B46 1993).

2. FINDING CASES

Digests

Digests are subject indexes to cases. Digests published by West Publishing Co. are based on the West Key Number System. West's Decennial Digest covers all reported federal and state court opinion and is updated by the General Digest. Other digests cover various smaller geographical, jurisdictional or topical units.

There are digests for four of the regional reporter series -- (Atlantic, North Western, Pacific and South Eastern) and there are state digests for every state but Delaware, Nevada and Utah. There are also U.S. Supreme Court digests and the current digest for federal court cases is West's Federal Practice Digest 4th.

Specialized digests include West's Bankruptcy Digest, Military Justice Digest, United States Claims Court Digest, American aritime Cases Digest, Public Utilities Reports Digest and more. Also, many loose-leaf services include a topical digest.

Using the Digests

Identify the topic and key number relevant to your research:

1. From the headnotes of a particular case known to be on point, or

2. Descriptive Word Index (the index to the digest), or

3. Topic Analysis (topic outline located at the beginning of each topic in the digest)

Digests also contain a Table of Cases and a Defendant-Plaintiff Table which are alphabetically arranged by case name and which give for each case its citation and the key numbers assigned to its headnotes.

Updating Digests

1. Pocket parts.

2. Pamphlets

3. Mini-digests in reporter volumes and advance sheets.

4. WESTLAW

3. UPDATING CASES

Use headnotes to determine if a case might be relevant, and to note where within the case your point of law is discussed. READ the case--DO NOT rely on the headnotes. Note the headnote number of the point of law you are interested in (you will need this for Shepardizing).

Use Shepard's to determine if your case is still good law and also to find other cases that cite your case.

A. Shepard's

CoverageState Shepard's--can Shepardize under either official or regional citation. Yields references to any home state or federal case from within the state, legal periodicals from the state and other "major" law reviews, state attorney general opinions, and ALR annotations. It does not include any citations from courts in other states.

Regional Shepard's--can Shepardize only by regional citation. Yields citing cases from courts in other states as well as home state.

Topical Shepard's--specialized subject Shepard's are published for a variety of topics including Federal Energy Law, Labor Law, Federal Tax, Insurance law, UCC and more.

Shepard's Acts and Cases by Popular Name--provides citations of cases or statutes that are more generally known by names other than the names of the parties involved or any other official title (like the "Slaughterhouse Cases" or the "Mann Act").

Important Things to Remember About Shepard's

The volumes are not cumulative--make sure you look in all the appropriate volumes and supplements. The usual arrangement is: ed bound volumes, red supplement pamphlet, white newsprint supplement pamphlet. Sometimes there is also a gold or blue supplement pamphlet.

To see what constitutes a complete set of Shepard's for the relevant unit, check the listing under "What Your Library Should Contain" on the cover of the most recent supplement pamphlet.

Check the appropriate places in the front of the volume for a list of abbreviations used, explanation of the symbols used, and coverage. (The abbreviations used by Shepard's will sometimes be unique.)

Shepard's is literal. If a case is cited only by its unofficial reporter citation, Shepardizing the case using the official reporter citation will not find the citing case.

4. OTHER CASE-FINDING TOOLS

A. ALR (American Law-Reports)

Each volume contains selected cases, each accompanied by an extensive annotation analyzing decisions on the issue raised in the case. Most annotations begin with a table of contents, a subject index and a table of jurisdictions represented. This is followed by sections describing the scope of the annotation and listing related annotations. The rest of the annotation summarizes cases on point from throughout the country.

There may not always be an annotation relevant to every legal problem, but an annotation directly on point can save considerable time.

Annotations are updated, so even older annotations continue to provide references to recent case law.

There are several different series of ALR with various ways of updating and indexing:

ALR (1919-1948)
Covers state and federal cases.
Update with ALR Blue Book.

ALR 2d (1948-1965)
Covers state and federal cases.
Update with Later Case Service.

ALR 3d (1965-1980)
Covers state and federal cases.
Update with pocket parts.

ALR 4th (1980-1991)
Covers state cases only.
Update with pocket parts.

ALR 5th (1992-date)
Covers state cases only.
Update with pocket parts.

ALR Federal (1969-date)
Covers federal cases only.
Update with pocket parts.

The basic tool for subject access to ALR is the multi-volume Index to Annotations. Note, however, that the annotations in the first series of ALR are indexed in a separate ALR First Series Quick Index.

B. ENCYCLOPEDIAS

Provide an introduction to an area that is unfamiliar to the researcher; can explain basic concepts and terminology; numerous footnotes provide references to cases supporting the statements in the text.

Corpus Juris Secundum (CJS) and American Jurisprudence 2d (AmJur 2d) are the two national legal encyclopedias. AmJur has fewer case citations than CJS, but provides references to ALR annotations.

There are some state-level legal encyclopedias such as Virginia Michie's . States with legal encyclopedias are: California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania,Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia/West Virginia. Some state encyclopedias are available online.

C. PERIODICALS

Footnotes and other supporting citations from articles in law reviews and other legal periodicals can provide access to relevant cases. There are various indexes that can provide citations to legal periodical literature.

Index to Legal Periodicals provides the only access for articles before 1980. Current Law Index (also called Legal Resource Index or LegalTrac in its CD-ROM or online version). Began in 1980.

Current Index to Legal Periodicals is a weekly subject index to the most recent articles, too new to be covered by the above mentioned indexes.

LEXIS and WESTLAW both have law review databases. Also, under some subscription plans, Index to Legal Periodicals and Current Law Index are available for searching online. The latest eight issues of Current Index to Legal Periodicals can be searched online through WESTLAW.

D. WORDS AND PHRASES

A multi-volume encyclopedic collection of abstracts of cases which have interpreted or defined legally significant words and phrases. Arranged alphabetically by word or phrase judicially defined (not by key number). Covers both federal and state cases.

NOTE: West publishes "Words and Phrases" tables as part of each of its federal and state digests.

E. ANNOTATED STATUTES

Annotated codes provide citations to and abstracts of cases applying, interpreting or construing the statutory provisions.

There are two annotated codes for federal statutes (United States Code Annotated--USCA, and United States Code Service--USCS), and at least one annotated code is published for every state. Dependin on who publishes the annotated code, you can sometimes also get references to relevant key numbers, ALR annotations, or citations to CJS or Am Jur 2d.

F. TREATISES

Provide analysis as well as extensive references to cases in footnotes. The GMU online catalog in the law library is the primary means of finding relevant texts and treatises. Citations to treatises can often be found in cases and law review articles. There are also printed bibliographies and guides that list legal publications by subject. Two useful ones are the Encyclopedia of Legal Information Sources (Gale Research, Inc., 1993) and The Legal Information Buyer's Guide and Reference Manual (Rhode Island LawPress, 1996).

G. LOOSELEAF SERVICES

Provide comprehensive and current access in selected areas of law. Most services are frequently supplemented and provide prompt access to primary legal source materials (cases, statutes, rules and regulations), as well as finding aids, analysis and secondary material. All looseleafs provide subject access to cases and some even publish cases that are not available elsewhere.

If you can find a looseleaf service on your subject, you will find, all in one place, many of the materials you will need for your research. To determine whether a service is published on a particular topic, check with a reference librarian, or a lawyer or professor who specializes in that area. There is also a useful book you can consult called Legal Looseleafs in Print (Infosources, Pub., published annually).

This guide has been developed by the Reference Department at George Mason University School of Law Library.