Source: Judicial Learning Center, Levels of the Federal Courts, http://judiciallearningcenter.org/levels-of-the-federal-courts/.
As detailed above, the federal courts primarily are comprised of:
The U.S. Supreme Court -- The Supreme Court is the highest court in the United States. U.S. Supreme Court opinions are published in three different reporters: (1) United States Reports (U.S.), which is the official reporter; (2) Supreme Court Reporter (S. Ct.), published by West; and (3) United States Supreme Court Reports, Lawyers' Edition (L. Ed., L. Ed. 2d), published by Lexis.
13 Circuit Courts of Appeals -- The intermediate federal appellate courts are referred to as the circuit courts. There are twelve regional circuit courts and one for the Federal Circuit. Circuit court opinions are published in the Federal Reporter (F., F.2d, etc.).
94 U.S. District Courts -- The federal trial courts are referred to as district courts. Each district court comes within the jurisdiction of one of the circuit courts. The geographic boundaries falling within in circuit court is illustrated below. District court opinions are published in the Federal Supplement (F. Supp., F. Supp. 2d, etc.).
Source: Unites States Courts, About Federal Courts, http://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/federal-courts-public/court-website-links.
For additional information about the Federal courts and court reporters, visit the Library's Federal Case Materials Checklist.
Source: California Courts, California Judicial Branch, http://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/judicial-branch-overview.pdf.
As detailed above, the California courts primarily are composed of:
The California Supreme Court -- The California Supreme Court is the highest court in California. California Supreme Court opinions are published in three different reporters: (1) California Reports (Cal., Cal. 2d, etc.), which is the official reporter; (2) West's California Reporter (Cal. Rptr., Cal. Rptr. 2d, etc.), published by West; and (3) Pacific Reporter (P., P.2d, etc), which is a regional reporter published by West.
The California Courts of Appeal -- These are the intermediate California appellate courts. California Court of Appeal opinions are published in three different reporters: (1) California Appellate Reports (Cal. App., Cal. App. 2d, etc.), which is the official reporter; (2) West's California Reporter (Cal. Rptr., Cal. Rptr. 2d, etc.), published by West; and (3) Pacific Reporter (P., P.2d, etc), which is a regional reporter published by West.
California Superior Courts -- These are the trial courts in California. Superior Court opinions are not published.
For additional information about California courts and court reporters, visit the Library's California Case Materials Checklist.
Cases may be "published" or "unpublished." Published cases are those that have been certified for publication, and unpublished cases have not been certified for publication. Typically, the context of the case, such as which case reporter is reporting the case and/or introductory language identifying case as published or not, will allow you to determine whether any given case is published or not.
Only a small percentage of court opinions are published. While most, if not all, of the opinions of the federal and state supreme courts are published, less than half of intermediate appellate opinions tend to be published. State trial court opinions are never published, and only a tiny fraction of federal trial (district) court opinions are published.
Most courts allow citation to published opinions only. However, there are some exceptions. When preparing a document to be submitted to a court, it is always a good idea to check the applicable court rules to confirm whether only published cases can be cited in filings with that court.
Further information about publication of federal and California cases can be found in the Library's Federal Case Materials Checklist and California Case Materials Checklist.
Courts are required to follow the decisions of higher courts in the same jurisdiction. Accordingly, cases which are both (1) from a higher court, and (2) in the same jurisdiction are considered mandatory authority.
All courts, federal and state, are bound by the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court on U.S. Constitutional and other issues of federal law.
In the federal courts, circuit courts tend to follow decisions previously issued within that circuit. Moreover, each district court falls under the jurisdiction of a circuit court, and the opinions of that circuit court will be binding on that district court. For example, the 9th Circuit is the federal circuit court for California, and the Central District of California is the federal district court for Los Angeles. Accordingly, 9th Circuit opinions are binding in the Central District of California.
State courts are typically bound by the decisions issued by the higher courts in that state. For example, California trial courts are bound by the opinions issued by the California courts of appeals and the California Supreme Court. However, California courts are not bound by the decisions of other state courts, such as Arizona.
Finally, it should also be noted that state court decisions typically control on substantive issues of state law. You may have a federal court case with a state law issue. For the substance of the state law issue, decisions of the state supreme court would be binding, even though you are in federal court. Decisions of the state court of appeals may also be useful, but the federal courts might treat that as persuasive authority.
While it is always best to cite to controlling authority, sometimes it can be useful to cite to non-binding cases as relevant persuasive authority. For example, if there is little or no binding authority for your issue in your jurisdiction, you may want to cite to on-point cases outside of your jurisdiction.
When citing cases that are merely persuasive, rather than binding, it is important to explain why the court should follow that precedent. Such explanation may include:
Moreover, persuasive authority can be used as a tool to find cases that are binding. For example, if you are in the 9th Circuit, and you have found a relevant 5th Circuit case, you can use the 5th Circuit case to find 9th Circuit authority by following the techniques for headnote and citing reference searching discussed in the Caselaw Search Techniques section.
Secondary source citations to the leading cases on your topic can be invaluable to jump start your research. Some sources, such as ALR articles, will identify a great depth of cases, and other sources, such as jury instructions, may only identify a handful. Most secondary sources fall somewhere in between in their range of case citations.
Once you have located an on point case, you can use other techniques discussed on this page, particularly headnotes and citing references, to find other relevant cases.
Headnotes typically are included at the beginning of cases, before the court's actual opinion. Each headnote is a short summary of a single legal principle discussed in the case. Headnotes are written by editors, not the court. While headnotes are not part of the actual opinion, they are a valuable research tool.
Each headnote is assigned a legal topic / subtopic. In Westlaw, these topics / subtopics are referred to as Key Numbers. In Lexis, they are referred to as legal topics. In Bloomberg, they are considered topics but are assigned an alpha.numeric designation. To see the topic that each designation represents, click on the "Show Topic Path" link that follows the designations.
The topics / subtopics correspond to those in the online digests discussed at that tab on this page.
Using the following approach, you can use one relevant case that you have found to find other relevant cases:
Once you have identified a relevant case, you can use the available citator to find cases that discuss and cite to your case. Westlaw, Lexis, and Bloomberg all offer citator services identifying cases and secondary sources that reference your case.
One of the most effective way to use the citator is to start by identifing a relevant headnote. Headnotes are discussed in more detail at the Headnotes/Topic & Key Number Systems tab on this page. Both Westlaw and Lexis, include a feature that allows you to see what cases cite to your case for the legal proposition identified in the headnote. If there are cases that cite to the specific legal principle in the headnote:
Westlaw will include a link in that headnote to "Cases that cite this headnote" identifying how many cases cite to your case on the issue represented by that headnote.
In Lexis, headnotes include a comparable link, "Shepardize -- Narrow by this Headnote."
Clicking on these links will take you to a list of cases that cite to your case for that legal proposition. In both Westlaw and Lexis, there are filters at the left of the list that can be used to narrow your search results.
Another way to use the citator to find other relevant cases is to explore all sources (cases, secondary sources, etc.) that cite to your case.
When you are in a case in Westlaw, look at the tabs above the case name for "Citing References." Explore the Citing References to see what cases and secondary sources have cited to your case. When looking at cases that have cited to your case, you can use the filters at the left to narrow your search results by jurisdiction, depth of treatment (i.e. how detailed is the discussion of your case), by headnote topic, and by other factors. In addition, there is a search feature at the left that allows you to keyword search within the search results.
In Lexis, you can see a similar report of citing references, with similar features to narrow your search results, by clicking on the link "Shepardize® this document" at the right of your case.
In Bloomberg, the citing reference report is available by clicking on "BCITE ANALYSIS" at the right of your case and then selecting "Citing Documents." You can also go directly into the citing cases in Bloomberg by selecting "Case Analysis."
Citators also play a crucial role in helping you determine if the cases you find are still "good law." Using citators for this purpose is discussed in the Validating Your Research section below.
When your topic involves a statute or a regulation, using annotated codes is a terrific starting point to identify relevant cases. As discussed in the Statutory Research and Regulatory Research sections of this research guide, annotated statutory and regulatory codes will identify cases that discuss and cite to the statute or regulation at issue.
Each publisher of code annotations uses its own editors and algorithms to generate case references. Accordingly, there will be some differences in the cases identified in the statutory annotations for each code publication.
Moreover, the features for reviewing citing cases varies a bit between Westlaw, Lexis, and Bloomberg. For example, as discussed in more detail below, Westlaw can be used to filter cases both by jurisdiction and topic, and Lexis can be used to view cases that cite to subsections of statutes.
Once you pull up a relevant statute or regulation, to review case annotations:
The case references are available at the "Notes of Decisions" and "Citing References" tabs. While not including case law, the "Context & Analysis" tab provides references to secondary sources and other materials that discuss in-depth the statute/regulation at issue. Accordingly, this tab should not be overlooked.
The "Notes of Decisions" provides a topical index to certain cases that discuss the statute or regulation. Cases relating to each subtopic are linked to from the index. It is a good starting point for finding cases relevant to a statute/regulation but does not include all citing references, as it tends to focus only on those with in-depth analysis relating to the identified subtopics.
Select "Citing References" To see the full list of cases, secondary sources, and other materials that cite to the statute/regulation. To just look at cases, select "Cases" from that list. You will get the list of cases, and at the left, there will be options for filtering the results by jurisdiction, by publication status, and by whether or not the case was identified in the Notes of Decisions.
Citing References can be filtered by jurisdiction but Notes of Decision cannot. However, within Citing References, there also are filters to select cases that are referenced in the Notes of Decision and to view the specific "Notes of Decision Topics" covered. These filters can be used to hone in on cases within a particular jurisdiction covering a specific topic. For example, if you were working with the above statute and wanted to see what topics within the Notes of Decisions were represented by cases from the 9th Circuit, you would go to the Citing References, and select "Cases." From there you would go to the filter for "Jurisdiction," expand the menu for "Courts of Appeals," and select "Ninth Circuit Ct. App." Then you would scroll down to the filter for "Referenced in Notes of Decisions," select "Yes", and click on the link to "Select NOD Topics." That opens up a list of topics addressed by the cases from the 9th Circuit that were identified in the Notes of Decisions. The filters and topics look like:
In Lexis -- The annotations are at the end of the document, after the statutory/regulatory language and history notes. The annotations include "Case Notes," which is a topical index of certain cases that discuss the statute/regulation. Following the case notes are "Research References & Practice Aids," which identifies related statutes, regulations and secondary sources that discuss the statute.
Additionally, there is a link at the right of the document to "Shepardize® this document." Selecting that option will create a report of citing cases and other citing sources. Filters are available at the left of the reports to narrow your search results. It is often helpful to look both to the "Case Notes" and to the Shepard's report to see all the case citations for a given statute/regulation.
Lexis also allows you to view citations to subsections of statutes and regulations. This is very useful when you are working with a large statute/regulation and only portions of it are at issue. To get to the case citations by subsection, first get into the Shepard's report for your statute/regulation. From there, select "Citing Decisions," and you should see an option towards the top of the report for "Subsection reports by specific court citation." This should look like:
Selecting subsections reports opens up a menu identifying the different ways courts have cited to your statute/regulation. This includes references to specific subsections, when those subsections have been specifically cited. Select the subsection that is most relevant for your research to open up a report of citing references for that subsection.
To see subsection references in secondary sources, follow the same process as detailed above but view "Other Citing Sources" (rather than "Citing Decisions" ) in the Shepard's report.
In Bloomberg -- To the right of the code/regulation section there is an icon to select "Smart Code™." Selecting that opens up a link to "Launch Smart Code™." The Smart Code report will identify cases that cite to the statute/regulation and gives you options to filter the results.
Keyword searching for documents on legal databases is similar to the kind of searching you would do in Google -- just with more options. When doing keyword searches for cases, it is not uncommon to get a large number of search results that are not particularly on point, especially if your search terms are quite broad or non-unique. However, keyword searching is an important research skill and a good supplement to other research methods.
Some tips for effective keyword searching include:
Narrow your search to the relevant jurisdiction.
Generate a list of keywords relevant to your research question, including common synonyms for each of your keywords.
Use the keywords, including the synonyms, to craft your search. Consider using the search builder techniques discussed in the Search Building section of this research guide. That section identifies strategies for crafting effective searches and provides several sample searches to illustrate each technique.
Explore the advanced search features available in the search engine you are using to see if any of those features will assist in making your search more effective.
Some search engines give you overview type search results, almost as an introduction to the complete set of results. It is useful to review the overview results, but be mindful also to look at the full listing of results.
Once you have run your search, use the filters available in the search engine to refine your search, particularly if your search gave you more results than are practical for you to review. Commonly used filters for cases include published / unpublished, jurisdiction, and court.
When reviewing search results, be mindful of your options for sorting results. You should have the option to sort results by relevance or by date (most to least recent and visa versa). You may also have the option to sort cases by most cited. If you have more results than are practical for you to review, you may want to consider sorting by relevance and reviewing the first fifty or so results and then resorting by date (newest first) and also by most cited (if available) and reviewing the first 50 or so hits for each sort. This will allow you to hone in on the most relevant, most current, and most prominent results.
If your first search was not spot on (and it rarely is), refine your search. The search results from your prior search(es) should provide some good clues on how to make your searching more effective. For example, maybe you need to make better use of boolean techniques, or perhaps you need to adjust your keywords.
For more information on crafting effective searches and working with search results, see the Search Building section of this research guide.
At its most basic, a digest organizes the universe of case law by topic. The topics used in digests correspond to the topics used in headnotes, discussed in more detail in the Headnotes/Topic & Key Number Systems tab on this page. In fact, digests typically are compilations of case headnotes.
Within each broad digest topic, there usually are numerous subtopics, each with their own numerous subtopics. For example, in the Westlaw digest, the topic "Constitutional Law" includes twenty eight broad subtopics, and each of these subtopics has anywhere from three to well over a hundred subtopics. An on point digest topic / subtopic is a valuable research tool. Digests were originally published in print. Today, while print digests still exist, most researchers use them online. Westlaw, Lexis, and Bloomberg all have online digests.
The most common way to identify a relevant digest topic / subtopic, is from the headnotes of cases. Headnotes appear at the beginning of cases. Each headnote is a short summary of a single legal principle discussed in the case, and each headnote is assigned a legal topic / subtopic. A relevant headnote can be used to access the corresponding legal topic / subtopic in the online digest, which will identify other cases discussing that same legal principle.
Digests can also be searched and browsed to determine relevant topics / subtopics. The following will assist you with working with the online digests in Westlaw, Lexis, and Bloomberg.
It happens. Cases get reversed, overruled, or superseded. 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.
As discussed in more detail below, Westlaw, Lexis & Bloomberg, each have their own citator services. Each citator service is quite good, but is important to keep in mind that these citators are fallible. Each is only as good as its algorithm and its editors. For most cases that you cite in your documents, it is fine to rely on one service. However, if there is a case that truly is critical to your analysis, you would be wise to run it through a second citator service to double check that your case is good law.
Determining whether your case is still good law requires reviewing the citator report to see if your case was reversed, overruled, or superseded. It is also possible that your case could be so roundly criticized or so thoroughly distinguished by other cases that you may not want to rely on it. To determine the validity of your case, you must review those cases that offer negative treatment of your case.
There are several types of negative treatment. 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. In those circumstances, you may decide that you can, in fact, cite to the case. The only way to determine the extent to which you can rely upon a reversed/overruled/superseded case is to carefully READ THE CASES that indicated that your case was reversed/overruled/superseded. There is simply no shortcut or substitute for reading those cases. If you assume you cannot rely upon a certain case based solely on the citator report, without actually reading the negative treatment cases, you may end up losing the opportunity to cite to case that is valid for your issue and supports your position.
Other types of negative treatment include other cases distinguishing, disagreeing with, or criticizing your case. These types of negative treatment tend to not invalidate your case, but you should still evaluate these negative treatment cases to see if they compromise your reliance on the original case. For example, there might be a case that distinguishes your original case, and the distinguishing case is more factually similar to your issue than 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.
Sometimes there are such a large quantity of these kinds of negative treatment cases that it impractical to read them all. Some tips for narrowing the quantity of cases that you must read include focusing on cases:
KeyCite® is the citator in Westlaw. KeyCite, quite literally, flags cases that are not good law. Also, Key Cite provides a report of all the instances that a case has been treated negatively in other courts.
When you pull up a case in Westlaw, there are tabs that appear immediately under the case title that give you information about the case history, negative treatment by other cases, and citing references. For all cases that you think you may rely upon, you should click on the "History" tab to review the case history. This is important, even if there is no negative treatment (discussed below), as the case history can identify important case information, such as whether there may be an appeal pending.
This is an example of what you would see from clicking on the History tab:
If a case has negative treatment identified by Westlaw, next to the case name, Westlaw will include a red, yellow, or blue striped flag. A red flag, as in the above sample, means a case is no longer good for at least one point of law. A yellow flag means that a case has some negative treatment but has not been reversed or overruled. A blue striped flag means that a case has been appealed to a U.S. Court of Appeals or to the U.S. Supreme Court. 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.
The negative history report for the red flagged case identified above, looks like:
The report identifies that the case was reversed and also was distinguished by two other cases.
While helpful, you cannot rely solely on these flags and notations to determine the extent to which you can use any given case. As discussed in more detail in the discussion at the left regarding evaluating negative citing references, sometimes the issue on which the case was flagged is not the issue for which you are using the case. 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 KeyCite, see the Westlaw User Guide for Checking Citations in KeyCite and other tutorials available from the Westlaw Training & Support Center.
Shepard's® is the citator in Lexis. Shepard's indicates when cases are no longer good law. Also, Shepard's identifies instances when a case has been treated negatively by other cases.
When you pull up a case in Lexis, there are indicators that appear next to the case name to signal if the case is good law. A red stop sign indicates that a case may have been overruled or reversed. An orange box with the letter "Q" inside means that the validity of a case may be in question, such as when a case is superseded. A yellow triangle means that a case has other negative treatment such a being distinguished, limited, or criticized. For more information, see Shepard's Editorial Phrases.
This is an example of what a red stop sign case looks like:
To the right of the case name, as can be seen above, there is a box marked "Shepard's®" with certain summary information about negative case treatment and other citing references. You should always click on the link to "Shepardize® the document" to see the full Shepard's report of case history, negative treatment, and other citing references.
When you access the full Shepard's Report, you will see separate tabs on the left to view the case history, citing cases, other citing sources, and other available information. It is recommended that you at least skim each of these for cases you intend on using.
If you pull up the Shepard's report for the above case, and click on "Appellate History," you would see:
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. The filters include "Analysis," which allows you to view the negative treatment cases only.
For example, if you clicked on "Citing Decisions" for the above case, and then selected "Questioned", under the "Analysis" menu, you would see:
While helpful, you cannot rely solely on these indicators and notations to determine the extent to which you can use any given case. As discussed in more detail in the discussion at the left regarding evaluating negative citing references, sometimes the issue on which the case was treated negatively is not the issue for which you are using the case. 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.
BCite is the citator in Bloomberg. BCite indicates when cases are no longer good law. Also, BCite identifies instances when a case has been treated negatively by other cases.
When you pull up a case in Bloomberg, there are indicators, referred to as "operators," that appear next to the case name. 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. A blue box with a slash in it indicates that the case has been distinguished.
This is an example of what a red box case looks like:
To the right of the case name, as can be seen above, there is a column with three icons, the middle of which is "BCite Analysis." Clicking on that icon will open up a column with BCite information, allowing you to review case history, negative case analysis, and other information. The BCite column looks like:
Use the links provided in this column to navigate to a list of the cases identified by Bloomberg for each category. When you access the case lists, you will see a series of filters on the left of the list that will allow you to narrow the results.
For example, to see the cases that distinguish the above case, click on the link "Distinguished" to see:
While helpful, you cannot rely solely on these operators and notations to determine the extent to which you can use any given case. As discussed in more detail in the discussion at the left regarding evaluating negative citing references, sometimes the issue on which the case was treated negatively is not the issue for which you are using the case. 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 BCite, see the Bloomberg Law Product Help page for BCite (under "Litigation Intelligence Center").
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