Transcript Ensuring Currency and Validity of Law

Ensuring Currency and Validity
of Law
KeyCite History
• Once you have found the relevant cases and statutes, you
must determine the current status of the law.
• Check the validity of any relevant case or statute before
continuing your research.
• A case may be reversed, vacated, remanded, or overruled.
• A statute may be repealed, amended, declared
unconstitutional, or preempted.
KeyCite History
• Online citators have distinct advantages over print citators:
– There is a single source of information. (Checking the
validity of a case in print citators involves checking in
multiple volumes and updating pamphlets.)
– Online citators are extremely current. (Print citators
cannot be as current due to the necessity of printing and
mailing updating pamphlets.)
• KeyCite is the citation research service available on
Westlaw.
KC History
• One of the cases in the results of your key number search,
LaBrane v. Lewis, displays a yellow flag in the upper left
corner and and on the Links for tab in the left frame.
• The yellow flag indicates the case has some negative
history, but hasn’t been reversed, overruled, vacated, or
remanded.
• Click either yellow flag to display this negative history.
• The negative history includes cases in which factual
distinctions led to a different outcome.
• These would be very valuable cases to read as you try to fit
the Acme case into the texture of Louisiana cases.
Judgment Reversed
• Another case retrieved in your key number search, Moore
v. Blanchard, is tagged with a red flag on both the case and
the Links for tab.
• The KeyCite Direct History of the case indicates that the
judgment was reversed by a higher court.
• When you see a red flag on a case, you should investigate
before relying on that case to support your argument.