2025 Self-Guided Law Library Tour

Using Digests

One of the first things you notice when you look at a typical case opinion in a book (or an opinion printed from Westlaw) is a collection of numbered headnotes at the top.

Click on this picture to see what typical headnotes look like.

What are they?

In any reporter published by Thomson or West, these are West Key Numbers and headnotes. Attorneys and editors at Thomson/West read the case, decided what the important holdings were, and then added these notes to the published version of the case. This links the case to the larger Digest System, which Thomson/West uses to classify every published case in the country by subject.

What is the Digest system?

Over 100 years ago, West Publishing Company divided the entire body of American law into a discrete set of "topics," broke each topic down into hundreds of individual elements, and then assigned each of those elements a "key number." Over the years, some topics have been added, others divided or their elements rearranged, but the basic system hasn't changed (also, the little picture of the key provided a nifty logo for West's books!). Take a look at the front of any digest book to see how the publisher divided up American law into topics. When, in the 1970's, West introduced its "Westlaw" computer databases, it assigned each topic a number as well; these can be difficult to find, but it's worth it to do so, if you want to use Westlaw to find more cases. More about that later.

How can this system help me?

There are two typical ways that the digest system is used:

1) You want to find other cases like a case you have already found.

For example, your firm has a discrimination case in federal court. You want to find cases saying that, even where most sexually harassing behavior in a workplace happened well before the statute of limitations for Title VII actions, if some harassment happened so recently as to be within the statute of limitations period, the plaintiff can sue and recover for all of the harassment, no matter how long ago it happened. This is called the "continuing violation theory." You have found a helpful case from the federal Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in Minnesota on this issue:

Jenson v. Eveleth Taconite Co., 130 F.3d 1287 (8th Cir. 1997). (Interestingly, this case was the basis of the movie "North Country," with Charlize Theron. Sadly, she will not appear in this guide.)

But you need to find law in the Ninth Circuit, because your case is filed in the federal court for the Southern District of California. How do you get from your Minnesota case to a case that is useful in California (or, hopefully, more than one)?

Look at the headnotes at the beginning of the Jenson case (you can click on the picture at left to see the entire case). Headnotes 19 through 23 address your issue. The key numbers associated with those headnotes are: Civil Rights (key) 342, Civil Rights (key) 373, and Civil Rights (key) 448.1. Make sure that you read the actual text of the opinion (that is, the part the court wrote) after the numbers [19] - [23] in the main part of the case, to make sure that you agree that the headnotes correctly reflect the holding of the court, and that the case really is helpful to you. (And, by the way, if you quote from a case, make sure you quote from the actual opinion, not the headnotes. It is very embarrassing to be discovered quoting language that was not actually written by a judge.)

Now you need to go to the correct digest. West has papered the country with digests, and the cases you want will be "digested" in more than one. There are:

State Digests (for example, West's California Digest, which digests all published federal and state cases which are authority for California courts);

Regional Digests (for example, West's Pacific Digest, whichdigests all the cases reported in the Pacific Reporter. This reporter includes not just the obvious Pacific states of Alaska, California, Hawai'i, Oregon and Washington, but also, bafflingly, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming. Perhaps they are preparing for when California falls into the sea.);

West's Federal Practice Digest, which digests all published federal court cases;

The Decennial Digests, which digest every published case in the country, and are issued every ten years; and

The General Digest, which is issued after the most recent decennial digest, to update it. (These are quite a slog to use. Avoid them unless your library has nothing else which covers your jurisdiction.); various specialized digests, such as West's Bankruptcy Digest; and, for something really obscure,

The Century Edition of the American Digest, which digests cases issued between 1658 and 1896.

In this case, because you are searching for cases which interpret a federal law (Title VII) and are binding authority in the federal courts of California,

West's Federal Practice Digest is probably the best digest for you. So, take your key numbers to the most recent edition of West's Federal Practice Digest (which happens to be the 4th). Look for the book(s) containing your topic ("Civil Rights") and your key numbers. Wait! Your key numbers don't seem to exist. Was there some huge typographical error? No, Civil Rights is one of those topics which has exploded with new and interesting developments over the past twenty years, and as a result was completely renumbered in 2003.

Find the "Key Number Translation Table" right after the table of contents for the topic, and convert your old key numbers into new, improved key numbers. Click on the picture at left to see what the first page of this table looks like. Key number 343 becomes 1505, 373 becomes 1530, and 448.1 becomes (yikes!) 1717, 1723-25, 1727-1733, and 1746-1758. Probably best to look in the Civil Rights table of contents for these key numbers, and see which looks the most useful. Here, it's probably Civil Rights (key) 1505(7), which is described as "Time for proceedings; limitations; Continuing violations; serial, ongoing, or related acts."

Now you can look at the case annotations under this key number in the digest, and see cases from throughout the federal court system on the same subject. Click on the picture at left to see the first page of these case annotations. Here, the first case listed under Civil Rights (key) 1505(7) is Nat'l R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, in which the Supreme Court held: " We conclude that a Title VII plaintiff raising claims of discrete discriminatory or retaliatory acts must file his charge within the appropriate time period -- 180 or 300 days -- set forth in 42 U.S.C. sec. 2000e-5(e)(1). A charge alleging a hostile work environment claim, however, will not be time barred so long as all acts which constitute the claim are part of the same unlawful employment practice and at least one act falls within the time period ." Nat'l R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101, 122 (2002)(emphasis added). Sounds helpful. But even though this is a Supreme Court case, make sure that you Shepardize or Keycite it to make sure that it is still good law, and applies to your type of case in California. And whatever you find in the book, don't forget to look in the pocket part inside the back cover (or the paperback book following the volume, if it has grown too big to be a pocket part) and the supplement pamphlets at the end of the entire set, for even more recent cases.

2) You have absolutely no cases, and need to find some.

This means that you need to figure out for yourself which key numbers to look under. Let's say you have a case in which one party to a telephone conversation recorded that conversation without telling the other party to the conversation, and then sold the recording to a tabloid newspaper. Both parties were in California. Can the injured party sue for damages?

This time West's California Digest 2d seems like the best place to look. Look in the Descriptive Word Index books to find the correct topic and key number. For example, the index has lots of entries under "Telephones," including "Conversations; Interception. See heading Electronic Surveillance or Interception, generally." A look at that heading, in turn, leads you to "Civil liability, Tel (key) 498; See also heading TORTS, PRIVACY, invasion of." "Tel" means "Telecommunications"; key number 498 provides an interesting collection of cases which may be helpful. A look at the pocket part to the book shows that -- not again! -- the Telecommunications topic has been renumbered, and 498 has now become 1253, 1436, 1441, 1443 and 1451. But the new table of contents for Telecommunications shows that one of these key numbers is for cable television cases, and so is probably not useful here. Key numbers 1436 - 1451, though, provide some more helpful cases. According to the table of contents for the Torts topic, 8.5(5) is the key number for "Invasion of privacy; Publications or communications." In the supplement, this topic, too, has been renumbered, and 8.5(5) has become 350-54.

If this seems a bit indirect, you can also try looking for a discussion of your legal issue in California Jurisprudence or Corpus Juris Secundum; both of these, as Thomson/West publications, include references to the appropriate key numbers for each topic -- and will also probably give you some useful cases.

A few other helpful features of the digest system:

1) The Table of Cases for each digest allows you to find a citation for a case when all you know is the name. For example, if you have heard of the "Jenson Case" in some federal court, and know that the name of the other party has the word "taconite" in it (just what is taconite, anyway?), you can look under "Jenson" in the Table of Cases for the Federal Practice Digest and find the case easily. If you are not sure just where the case took place, you may need to look in the Tables of Cases of several different digests. This is particularly handy if you don't have access to Westlaw or Lexis, or some other online research tool.

2) The Words and Phrases volumes of each digest allow you to find cases interpreting particular terms. For example, you need to quickly find a case to cite for the definition of the obvious word "contract." Honestly, you learned this in your first week of Contracts, didn't you, and yet where is an actual California case that you can cite in court? Look the word up in West's California Digest, and you will find cases which you can cite. But remember: READ THE ACTUAL CASE before you cite it. You and the attorneys at West may not agree, and the opinion may have other details which are bad for your case.

Are there any other digest or headnote systems?

The term "key number" is owned by Thomson/West, but many other publishers have developed their own digesting systems, often for specific subjects, like tax law, or specific sets of books, like the Lawyers' Edition (L. Ed.) Supreme Court reports.

In addition, until 2003 the digest of California's official case reports was McKinney's New California Digest, which used its own numbering and headnote system. Bancroft-Whitney discontinued this digest when the contract for publishing the official reports was awarded to another publisher.

Finally, Lexis-Nexis has developed its own headnote system, and is busily adding headnotes to many of the cases in its online databases. To see a table of these, click on the "Search Advisor" tab on your Lexis screen. And as with Westlaw, if you locate a case online which has a useful Lexis headnote, you can then search for cases with this headnote in other jurisdictions, although the Lexis headnote system is not as detailed as West's.

Using American Law Reports

The Problem:

A major client's son, who attends a public middle school, is being teased in a sexual manner by one of his male classmates. The school says that because the teasing is by a fellow male student, it can't constitute "sexual harassment," and that "boys will be boys" and the son just needs to get a thicker skin. The son is starting to dread going to school. Your job: to find some useful law that will encourage the school to take this situation seriously. Your helpful law librarian suggests James Rapp's excellent seven-volume set, Education Law (Matthew Bender, 1984). But -- oh no! -- the volume you need is out. Will you have to do some needle in a haystack Westlaw or Lexis search to find a relevant case, which will turn out to be from Idaho in 1972? No! This is the time to go to American Law Reports, or "the ALRs," a series of reporters begun in 1919 (and now up to its seventh "series") that contain "annotations" (really, they're like very detailed law review articles) on over 27,000 legal topics.

What is an ALR annotation?

Each ALR annotation addresses a single legal issue. The author discusses the most important cases and state or federal statutes governing that issue, and also points you to places where the issue is discussed in other research and practice sources, such as American Jurisprudence, Corpus Juris Secundum, L.Ed's Federal Procedure (which we don't have), Am Jur Proof of Facts, and Am Jur Pleading and Practice Forms.

In addition, annotations will usually include a list of law review articles on the topic, and may even give you West Digest key numbers and sample Westlaw and Lexis search queries, to help you find more cases. Finally, the annotation will include a list of other, related annotations, which may help you find one that is even more relevant to your issue.

Where are they?

The ALRs are all on the second floor, with the regional reporters and digests. If you look at them you will find -- yikes! -- the original ALR, as well as its successors, ALR 2d, 3d, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th as well as ALR Federal and ALR Federal 2d and ALR Federal 3d, hundreds of books altogether.

Why does the library need this many different versions of the ALR (some of them really ancient and out-of-date looking)?

Here's why: while most of the early ALR annotations have been replaced, over time, with new and more updated versions, some have not. For that reason, we still need to keep the older editions of the ALRs. Also, the ALR Federal discusses only federal laws and statutes (guessed that from its title, didn't you?), whereas the regular ALR discusses topics that are affected only by state law, or by a combination of federal and state laws. Note, though, that a topic affected by both state and federal law may be discussed in both the regular ALR and the ALR Federal. One of those annotations may be more comprehensive or up-to-date than the other, so you really should find and read both.

How do I find any annotations on my topic?

The ALRs have a ridiculous number of indexes, tables and digests. Fortunately, the indexes of many of the ALRs are combined, and some are overlapping, so you won't have to look at everything.

ALR Federal Table of Cases

If you are looking for information regarding a specific federal case, go to the ALR Federal Table of Cases, a group of paperback books at the end of the ALR Federal. Look up your case in the tables, which will then direct you to the most recent annotation about it in the ALR Federal, ALR Federal 2d, or the ALR Federal 3d.

ALR 5th and 6th Table of Cases

If you are looking for information about a specific state case, try looking in the ALR 5th and 6th Table of Cases, a group of paperback volumes located at the end of the ALR 5th. Keep in mind, however, that these books only include cases that are mentioned in annotations in the ALR 5th and 6th, not the earlier ALRs. Just because you don't find the case in this particular set of books doesn't mean that it isn't discussed somewhere in the ALRs (particularly if it was decided well before 1992, when the ALR 5th was first issued), and you will need to try to look it up by the area of law it addresses, as discussed below.

Quick Index

If you are looking for information on a topic that you know is governed entirely by federal law, but you don't know the specific statute or regulation that may govern it, go to the soft-bound Quick Index at the end of the ALR Federal 2d, and try to find the topic there. If you can't find it, then you will need to ...

ALR Index

... go to the (huge) more detailed, combined ALR Index, which covers the ALR 2d, 3d, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th. as well as the ALR Federal, ALR Federal 2d, and the ALR Federal 3rd (the ALR Federals do not have their own detailed index). Make sure you look in the pocket part at the back of whatever index volume you are looking at, so that you will catch any annotations that have been added since the bound volumes were issued -- for example, annotations in the ALR 6th and the ALR Federal 2d, which aren't included in the main volumes at all (unless the index has been reissued since this guide was written).

Table of Laws, Rules and Regulations

If you are looking for information regarding a specific state or federal statute or regulation, a uniform or model law (like the Uniform Probate Code), a Restatement section or a code of ethics (like the old Code of Professional Conduct), go to the Table of Laws, Rules and Regulations for the ALR 2d, 3d, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th, and ALR Federal, ALR Federal 2d, and ALR Federal 3d. This is one hardbound volume at the end of the combined ALR Index, at the very end of the whole set of ALR books. This book contains a collection of tables where you can look up your statute or regulation and be directed to the most recent annotation about it in the ALR 2d, 3d, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th as well as the ALR Federal, ALR Federal 2d, and ALR Federal 3d. Again, don't forget to look in the pocket part of whatever index volume you are looking at, or you could miss the perfect annotation.

If you still can't find a relevant annotation...

If you have no idea what laws cover your topic, or even if there IS any law covering the topic, first check the Quick Indexes for both the regular ALR and for the ALR Federal. If you don't find anything in either of these indexes, then go to the big combined ALR Index for the ALR 2d, 3d, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th, and ALR Federal, ALR Federal 2d, and ALR Federal 3d.

As a last resort, if the issue is very venerable (that is, REALLY OLD), and not some developing area of law, look in the Quick Index and four volume detailed Index of the original ALR. These indexes are located before the newer detailed indexes and tables, at the end of the ALR 6th.

If you happen to have a West "key" (or headnote) number related to your issue, go to the ALR Digest. This is a set of books that classifies all the ALR annotations using the West Topic and Key Number System. This system is discussed in detail in our Legal Skills Guide "Using the West Digest System."

In the "Problem" above...

You probably don't know whether the situation is governed by state law, federal law, or both. So first, you'll want to take a look at the Quick Index at the end of the ALR Federal 2d. The heading "Schools and Education -- Sex and sexual matters -- harassment -- student's peer" (ah ha!), sends you to 141 ALR Fed 407. That is, volume 141 of the original ALR Federal, at page 407. This turns out to be a 37 page annotation entitled "Right of Action Under Title IX of Education Amendments Act of 1972 (20 U.S.C.S. secs. 1681 et seq.) Against School or School District for Sexual Harassment of Student by Student's Peer," by Belinda Bean, J.D. (Great name!). But what if this issue is governed by state laws, too? Best to check the ALR Quick Index at the end of the ALR 2d, 3d, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th.

Keep in mind that this index covers only the regular ALRs, and not the ALR Federals. Interestingly, this index does not have the precise heading "Schools and Education -- Sex and sexual matters -- harassment -- student's peer," which you found in the Quick Index for the ALR Federal, but under the more general heading "Schools and Education -- Sex and sexual matters," and also under the heading ""Schools and Education -- discrimination," you will find the entry "Liability, under state law claims, of public and private schools and institutions of higher learning for teacher's, other employee's, or student's sexual relationship with, or sexual harassment or abuse of, student, 86 ALR5th 1." And if you go to page one of volume 86 of the ALR 5th, you will find a 56 page annotation with just this title. If, on the other hand, you had looked in the combined ALR Index for the ALR 2d, 3d, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and ALR Federal, ALR Federal 2d, and the ALR Federal 3d, you would have been referred to both annotations. But either way works, in this case!

You might also have found these annotations using the ALR Digest. Let's say that in your first, desperate moments of trying to find some California law, you did a Westlaw search and found the case Doe v. Petaluma City School District, 949 F. Supp. 1415 (N.D. Cal. 1996), involving a junior high school student who was harassed by her peers. The case itself doesn't solve your problems; it focuses on the narrow issue of the standard for bringing a claim under Title IX, and doesn't really discuss what constitutes harassment in schools; but it does yield a potentially useful key number: Civil Rights (key) 128. If you go to the books in the ALR Digest containing the Civil Rights key numbers -- Wait!! They start at 1001! Is this a cruel joke?

Well, as discussed in our guide "Using the West Digest System," when areas of law grow and change, their West topics are re-numbered. Most digests include conversion tables to help you keep up. Unfortunately the ALR Digest does not, so you will need to go to a regular digest (such as the Federal Practice Digest 4th) to discover that Civil Rights (key) 128 has now become Civil Rights (keys) 1066 and 1067(1-5). But once you do this (and you might take note of the potentially useful cases under those key numbers in the regular digest), a look at the ALR Digest under those key numbers directs you to the annotations we've already discussed, as well as a few more that are less relevant to your issue.

Furthermore, if you had found that Petaluma case, you could also have looked it up in the ALR 5th and 6th Table of Cases, to see if it was discussed in one or more annotations.

Important!! Don't forget to update your research!

The editors of the ALR series are constantly adding new information to their existing annotations, writing new annotations to replace old ones, and generally making changes. Don't run out of the library, clutching photocopies of an annotation, before you've done these things:

First: Check the pocket part in the back of the book where you found your annotation. If your annotation was in the original ALR, there are no pocket parts (had they not invented those handy pockets yet?), so you will need to check in the battered blue ALR Blue Book of Supplemental Decisions, located after the ALR 6th.

If it was in the ALR 2d, look in the blue books entitled ALR 2d Later Case Service, at the end of the ALR 2d. But all the subsequent ALRs and the ALR Federals have pocket parts -- or, if a pocket part has become too big to fit in the back of its book, a pamphlet next to it.

Next: Particularly if your annotation is quite old, check the "Annotation History Table" in the back of the Table of Laws, Rules and Regulations for the ALR 2d, 3d, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and ALR Federal, ALR Federal 2d, the hardbound volume at the end of the combined ALR Index. This will tell you if your annotation has been superseded by a more recent annotation, which you (or the index) may somehow have missed. Don't forget to check the pocket part in the back of this volume, too!

Can I search the ALRs online?

What if your boss wants a memo on her desk by the time she gets back from lunch, and you don't have time to go to the library, search the ALRs, and get back? No fear! The ALRs are available on Westlaw, updated weekly, in the "ALR" database (although it may not be included as part of your firm's license, in which case you will pay a $12 fee for each annotation you actually view). A bonus: unlike the print annotations, the online versions are updated weekly, and superseded annotations are generally removed from the database.

Just in case, though, you would be wise to "Keycite" any useful annotation that you find, to make sure that part of it has not been superseded by a subsequent annotation. Another bonus: some annotations are included in the online database that are not included in the books, for whatever reason.

As with any search on Westlaw, you will probably want to try several different queries. In this case, a terms and connectors search of (school or student) /3 "sexual harassment" yielded 66 documents, including, at result 13, "Right of Action Under Title IX of Education Amendments Act of 1972 (20 U.S.C.S. secs. 1681 et seq.) Against School or School District for Sexual Harassment of Student by Student's Peer," 141 ALR Fed 407; and at result 30, "Liability, under state law claims, of public and private schools and institutions of higher learning for teacher's, other employee's, or student's sexual relationship with, or sexual harassment or abuse of, student," 86 ALR 5th 1, which are discussed above; also, at result 36, an annotation entitled "Tort liability of public schools and institutions of higher learning for injuries caused by acts of fellow students," 36 ALR 3d 330, which might also be useful.