Transcript Digest Paragraphs, Headnotes and Statutory Annotations

Digest Paragraphs, Headnotes
and Statutory Annotations
Headnotes
• Cases as reproduced in the National Reporter System® are
a combination of primary and secondary authority.
• The opinion of the court is primary law.
• The editorial enhancements, such as the synopsis and the
headnotes, are secondary law, that are
– summaries of the opinion
– written by West attorney-editors
– written in universally recognized legal terminology in
place of outdated, slang, or regional words or proper
names
• Both headnotes and key numbers are in the digest (di) field
in Westlaw case law databases.
• Database: any case law database
Search: di(“social host” /p liab!)
Digests
• A headnote is assigned to a West Key Number reflecting a
specific point of law.
• Digest paragraphs are headnotes from cases arranged
alphabetically by topic and then numerically by Key
Number.
• Digests ease the retrieval of cases in any jurisdiction that
have addressed the same point of law.
Statutory Annotations
• Annotations (Notes of Decisions) are summaries of case
law that has interpreted, explained, or analyzed the
language of a statute.
• They follow the text and research aids in statutory
materials.
• West statutory materials use the headnotes from relevant
cases to annotate a statute as published by West.
• The annotations are secondary resources.
Do not cite the language of headnotes, digest paragraphs, or
annotations as primary law.
They are to be used only as a way to find relevant cases.
The language of the Case Headnote, the Digest
Paragraph, and the Statutory Annotation is identical.
The language of headnote
number 2 of the Koehnen
case. It references Minnesota
statute 340A.801
The language in the digest
paragraph that refers to
headnote 2 of the Koehnen
case.
The language of the annotation
to Minnesota Statute 340A.801
that refers to the Koehnen case.