When you pull up a statute in Westlaw, if you see a red or yellow flag, that means that there is negative treatment for that statute. A red flag indicates that the statute has been amended, repealed, superseded, or held unconstitutional in whole or in part. A yellow flag indicates other negative treatment.
How do I find negative references in Westlaw?
Westlaw also offers a "Negative Treatment" tab containing negative direct history and negative citing references. Clicking on the status flag next to the case name will also bring you to this Negative Treatment report. The Shepard's Report contains information about both subsequent history and subsequent citations for a case.
How do I know if a statute has strong negative treatment?
When you pull up a statute in Lexis, there are indicators that appear next to the statutory citation to signal if there is negative treatment for the statute. A red circle with a question mark in it indicates that a statute has strong negative treatment.
How do I review a case in Westlaw edge?
When reviewing a case in Westlaw Edge, you should look for a KeyCite flag at the top of the document. Not every case will have one, but if it does, it means the case has some negative treatment — such as being overruled, superseded, or not followed by another court for some reason.
What is the Westlaw edge citator warning?
Only Westlaw Edge has a citator warning that cautions you when a point of law in your case has been implicitly undermined based on its reliance on an overruled or otherwise invalid prior decision. State-of-the-art artificial intelligence identifies bad law that has no direct citations pointing to its invalidity.
Can you cite a case with negative treatment?
The only way to determine the extent to which you can rely upon a case with negative treatment is to carefully READ THE CASES that treat your case negatively. For more information on using Shepard's, see the Lexis Help page "Using the Shepard's® Citation Service." BCite is the citator in Bloomberg.
What do the different color flags mean on Westlaw?
When you pull up a statute in Westlaw, if you see a red or yellow flag, that means that there is negative treatment for that statute. A red flag indicates that the statute has been amended, repealed, superseded, or held unconstitutional in whole or in part. A yellow flag indicates other negative treatment.
What does depth of treatment mean on Westlaw?
The depth of treatment bars in the Depth column indicate the extent to which the citing case discusses the cited case, and the headnote numbers in the Headnote(s) column indicate which headnotes in the cited case contain the points of law discussed by the citing cases.
How do I access KeyCite on Westlaw?
Figure 1: The tabbed Westlaw page Page 9 Accessing KeyCite 4 Using KeyCite in westlaw.com Figure 2: The KeyCite page To view coverage information for KeyCite, click the Scope icon next to KeyCite . To access KeyCite information, type a citation in the Enter citation text box and click GO.
What does the Green C on Westlaw mean?
A green C indicates that the decision has no direct history, but there are treating cases or other citing references to the decision.
What does Blue H mean in Westlaw?
WESTLAW® QUICK REFERENCE GUIDE A blue H indicates that the case or administrative decision has some history. A green C indicates that the case or administrative decision has citing references but no direct history or negative citing references or that the statute or regulation has citing references.
How do you read a case on Westlaw?
0:006:11Reading a Case on WestlawNext - YouTubeYouTubeStart of suggested clipEnd of suggested clipRecord for that particular case. So if we look at this really quickly you'll notice that theMoreRecord for that particular case. So if we look at this really quickly you'll notice that the citation is at the very top it also indicates what court heard this case and you have your plaintiff.
How do you use the citator on Westlaw?
From your case, click the Citing References tab at the top. This lists all legal materials that cite your case (called citing references). The default View in Westlaw is All Results (cases, statutes, secondary sources, etc.). Change the View on the left by clicking on Cases.
What does it mean to Shepardize a case on Westlaw?
The term Shepardize means the process of checking a case's prior precedents. The term comes from the citation service called Shepard's, which up until the late 1990s was the only real game in town. Then Westlaw quit using Shepard's, Shepard's went to Lexis (Westlaw's main competitor), and Westlaw launched KeyCite.
What is a KeyCite search?
Check your citations using KeyCite Use the industry's most complete, accurate, and current citator to verify whether a case, statute, regulation, or administrative decision is still good law, determine if a patent or trademark is still valid, and find citing references to support your legal argument.
What are headnotes in Westlaw?
Headnotes are summaries of specific points of law addressed in a particular case, drafted by Westlaw Attorney Editors to ensure that topics include relevant cases even where those cases may use atypical language.
How do you get to KeyCite?
There are several ways to access information in KeyCite. From the Tabbed Westlaw Page—At the tabbed Westlaw page (Figure 2-1), type a citation in the KeyCite this citation text box and click Go. From Any Page—At the top of any page, click KeyCite to display the KeyCite page (Figure 2-2).
How to determine if a case is still good law?
To determine whether a case is still good law, you need to check the subsequent history of the case as well as subsequent citations to see how other cases have treated your case by using citators (Shepardizing on Lexis or KeyCiting on Westlaw).
What is a reference in a case?
Citing References include all cases that cite to this case. Citing References also include other materials such as secondary sources and court documents, but to ensure that a case is still good law, you only need to check the cases.
Can you cite unpublished opinions?
For instance, the case might be bad law on a different issue, the case itself might have been overturned, or the case may simply be unpublished (in some jurisdictions, court rules indicate that you cannot cite unpublished opinions).
Does Westlaw have a negative treatment tab?
Westlaw also offers a "Negative Treatment" tab contain ing negative direct history and negative citing references. Clicking on the status flag next to the case name will also bring you to this Negative Treatment report.
What Are Notes of Decisions?
If the issue you are researching involves a statute, regulation, or court rule, an efficient strategy for finding relevant cases involves checking the Notes of Decisions (Westlaw) for that statute, regulation, or court rule.
What are Citing References?
In the annotated version of a statute, regulation, or court rule, Citing References (Westlaw) contain all cases that cite to that statute, regulation, or court rule. If you have identified a relevant case, you should also check Citing References to see what subsequent cases have been cited to that case.
What are Head Notes?
Headnotes are summaries of a point of law that appear at the beginning of a case. Headnotes are written by editors at Westlaw and Lexis (sometimes the language is verbatim from the text of the opinion).
What is a Table of Authority?
Whereas Citing References identify all cases that cite to a particular case (looking forward in time at the subsequent cases), the Table of Authorities identifies all of the cases relied upon and cited by a particular case (looking backward in time).
Is the Case Still Good Law?
To determine whether a case is still good law, you need to check the subsequent history of the case as well as subsequent citations to see how other cases have treated your case by using citators (KeyCiting on Westlaw).
West Key Number System
The West Key Number System is a classification system of U.S. law that indexes cases into over 400 topics and more than 98,000 legal issues. Westlaw assigns a topic and key number to each legal issue within a case.
Flags
Some cases will have flags in front of the name. Green flags mean the case has received positive treatment from other cases and is good law. Yellow flags mean the case has received some negative treatment from other cases. Part of the case maybe overruled. Look at the negative treatment tab and the distinguished by to read the other cases.
Negative Treatment
Under the negative treatment tab, you can see other cases that have talked about your case in a negative way. The Depth column on the right side shows the how detailed your case was talked about. Only one bar means the case was cited but not talked about in detail. Three or four bars means there is a paragraph or more about your case.
History
Under the history tab, there is a graph showing you a visual of your case.
Citing References
The Citing References tab list materials that listed your case. You can narrow the results to just cases, by jurisdiction, or by depth (how detailed your case was talked about). The green quotation marks mean that your case is directly quoted.
Table of Authorities
The Table of Authorities tab shows you a list of cases your case used to make its argument. The treatment, depth, and quoted columns will show you in how much detail the cases were used in your case's arugment.
Check your citations using KeyCite
Use the industry’s most complete, accurate, and current citator to verify whether a case, statute, regulation, or administrative decision is still good law, determine if a patent or trademark is still valid, and find citing references to support your legal argument.
Citing References
Quickly access Citing References, which show how other authorities have interpreted a document, as well as the depth of the discussion and the topics discussed
KeyCite warnings on Westlaw
KeyCite warnings, including the Overruling Risk icon, will appear throughout your research so you can see at a glance the status of a document. The most negative treatment is displayed next to the flag or Overruling Risk icon, making it simple to determine whether further investigation is needed.
Blue-striped flag
Available exclusively on Westlaw, KeyCite Overruling Risk warns you when a point of law has been implicitly undermined based on its reliance on an overruled or otherwise invalid prior decision.
The most intelligent legal research service ever
Westlaw combines advanced artificial intelligence with 100 years of editorial enhancements to help you find answers faster and build stronger legal arguments. Plus, you can feel more confident that your research is complete with access to the most comprehensive collection of legal information.
When the citator reveals negative authority for your statute, must you read the material?
When the citator reveals negative authority for your statute, you must READ THE MATERIALS to determine the extent on which you can rely on the statute. When cases declare statutes invalid, frequently only a portion of the statute is at issue, with the remaining portions remaining valid and controlling.
What is a keycite in Westlaw?
Citators: Shepard's & KeyCite. KeyCite® is the citator in Westlaw. KeyCite, quite literally, flags statutes that are not good law. When you pull up a statute in Westlaw, if you see a red or yellow flag, that means that there is negative treatment for that statute.
What is the history tab in Westlaw?
When you are in a statute in Westlaw, there are tabs that appear immediately toward the top of the document that give you information about the statute. One of these tab is "History.". When you click on the History tab, select the catagory "Validity" to see materials that may effect the validity of your statute.
What does a red circle with a question mark on the Lexis citation mean?
A red circle with a question mark in it indicates that a statute has strong negative treatment.
Do negative treatment cases compromise the validity of a statute?
Similarly, the other negative treatment cases do not compromise the validity of the statute under most circumstances. If you were to review the proposed legislation section of the report, you would see that there has not been much legislative activity on any of the pending bills.
What happens if Westlaw has no flag?
If there is no flag, then Westlaw has not identified any negative treatment for the case. When you pull up a case that has been flagged, in addition to the "History" tab, you also should click on the tab marked "Negative Treatment" to get the full negative history report.
How do you know if a case is still good law?
They also get criticized and distinguished. The only way you can know if your case is still good law is to validate your research. "Validating" your case research means to run your case through a citator service to see if there are subsequent legal authorities that invalidate your case and then reading those cases that negatively impact your case.
What does a red box with a minus sign mean?
A red box with a minus sign in it indicates that the case has been overruled in full or in part. An orange box with a circle in it indicates that the case has been superseded by statute. A yellow box with a triangle in it indicates that the case has been criticized.
What does a red stop sign mean in Lexis?
A red stop sign indicates that a case may have been overruled or reversed.
How to see all citations in Lexis?
To see all citing cases, including other negative treatment cases identified by Lexis, you must click on "Citing Decisions.". That generates a list of all the cases, identified by Lexis, that have cited to your case. At the left of that list is a series of filters that will allow you to narrow the results.
Is it good to have a case overruled?
Cases that have been reversed, overruled, or superseded are no longer good law and typically should not be relied upon. However, sometimes cases are simply reversed/overruled/superseded in part, or sometimes the issue on which the case was reversed/overruled/superseded is not the issue for which you are using the case.
Do you want to rely on the original case?
In that circumstance, you probably would not want to rely on the original case. Accordingly, when you see references to cases that include this kind of negative treatment that does not tend to invalidate your case, you should READ THE CASES to determine the extent to which you want to rely on your original case.
Overview
There are two main case law citators to verify the status of your case - on LexisNexis, it is Shepards and on Westlaw it is Keycite. Keyciting and Shepardizing are also a method for finding other cases and secondary sources relevant to your topic.
KeyCite & Shepards Symbols
There are differences between the citator symbols used by Westlaw and Lexis, but as a general rule, in either Westlaw or Lexis cases with a red flag or red stop sign may no longer be good law and should not be relied upon without doing further research.
Bloomberg Law
BCite is a citation analysis tool similar to KeyCite and Shepards, which gives you links to all cases citing your case.
CALI Lesson on Using Citators as Finding Tools
Available to Law Students only (see a reference librarian if you do not have a CALI activation code).
