Speaker 1: Welcome to the Pikes Peak Library District's Law Collections informational video on using Westlaw case law research. In this video, we're going to look specifically at some of the tools for doing case law research in the legal research database Westlaw. To begin, there are a few different ways that you can start your search. You can either run a search in the search bar here, or you can also browse for cases below or look for cases by subject area using the topics and key numbers option. So let's just first take a look at browsing for cases and then we'll run some searches and look at how the case is structured within the database. So first, let's say I want to look by topic area. And so I can go in here into topic and key numbers. Now here is the whole key number system laid out for you. So you can always use this search bar now to search for whatever term or topic you're looking for. So that's one way to navigate this. You can also look through though the actual entries themselves here. And so let's say I'm interested in one of these areas, then what I can do here is, next to it after I put my mouse over a little eye appears, I click on that eye, then it's going to tell me which topics are included in that key number, but it will also tell me what topics are not included and where I can find information about those particular topics. If I go ahead and click into one of the key numbers, now it's subdivided even more. So you have a lot of different specific topics to describe a lot of different legal disputes. And so let's go ahead and click into one of these, gets subdivided even more in some cases. So I can go ahead and click in further. And then once I get to the end of that path, it has pulled up the 87 cases for federal jurisdiction for this specific topic area. And then you can see here in this hierarchy, it kind of tells me if I go up a level, there's even more cases if I keep going up, even more cases, you kind of see where it falls within the hierarchy, and then how many cases would be in each level of that hierarchy. For this topic, this is a matter of federal jurisdiction. But if you were looking at something else, you could always change the jurisdiction here to a specific state if you needed to do that. So then you could select a different jurisdiction. Or let's say I was only interested, maybe not in all federal cases, but I only wanted to see what the Supreme Court cases had to do with this topic, or the Court of Appeals. So then I could narrow it down if I needed to do it that way. So that's, in an essence, how the key number system works. And it's one way to browse for cases by topic area. Let's go back to the homepage, and I can do that just by clicking on the logo. You can also go in here to browse cases. So if you click on that, then it gives you all the different jurisdictions. So let's say I was only interested in Tenth Circuit cases in the federal court, since the Tenth Circuit covers Colorado, or maybe I'm only interested in U.S. Supreme Court cases, or perhaps I want to look at Colorado cases. I could click on the state that I was interested in, and then it has all the different levels of courts for the federal court system, as well as the state court system. Let's go back one more time to the homepage. You also have trial court orders. So cases, what cases is going to include are cases that get published. So this will be cases that are at the appeals level and higher, and generally cases that will change legal precedent in some way. So that's what you're looking at when you look at cases. If you go into trial court orders, and then into the specific state you're interested in, then you're getting what happens at those district level courts and lower level courts. And then back to home, we also have trial court documents. And so there are different types of documents that you can find in here. And so if you're looking for motions or pleadings, those types of documents are in trial court documents. All right, let's go back to the homepage one more time. You can also browse for cases just by going into the jurisdiction you're interested in. So if you go into federal materials, you'll see here you can go through to the federal cases, or you can go into the Supreme Court, or again, you can go into the specific circuit that you're interested in. You can do the same by going into state, choosing your state, and then you have all the cases here. So you could search all of the cases if you're interested in all levels of the court, or you could select a specific court if that's what you're interested in. Or if you're looking for those lower level courts, you can search by civil or criminal here. All right, now let's run a search and then we'll look at how the cases are laid out. So you can search a variety of different ways. One thing to note about the search bar is you do have your jurisdiction selection over here. So I'm going to change it right now from federal. I'm only interested in cases out of the Colorado court system. So I will change it and then I'll click Save. And now when you're searching, you can either search by citation, or if you don't have a citation and want to run a natural language search, so something like what you would put into Google, you can do either of those things in the search bar. So let me just first demonstrate how a citation search would work. So let's say I'm looking for this particular case and I have the citations. I don't even need to write out the party names or the dates or anything like that. I can just put in this piece of the citation. So this first number tells me this is the volume of the print reporter that this case appears in. It's part of the Pacific reporter series. The second edition, it's on page 975. And I can just run that search. And since this citation only points to one case, it's just going to pull up that case for me. So here you can see the case laid out. Let me go back to the homepage, though. Let's run a natural language search. That's a lot of times we don't come in with a specific citation. And so we're going to look at real estate foreclosure notice. And so that's what I'm interested in searching. So I can go ahead now and run that search. And since I wasn't in a specific case area that we looked at when we were browsing, now I'm getting the overview page. So I'm getting cases here. There's the key numbers, trial court orders. So I can hop into any of these sections and look at what is available there. So if I wanted to just see what are those index terms that West has used to categorize these specific cases, I could look at the key numbers and then it would give me specific ones to look at. And then if any of these really match what I'm talking about, let's say I'm interested in the method of service and if mail could be used, then it'll pull up those specific cases based on that subject area. Let me go back, though. Let's say, though, I'm interested actually in trial court orders. I could click on that. And then it will give me those district court decisions. So these are ones that are not technically case law because they don't change legal precedent. They're only binding to the parties in the case at hand. But I want to see what happened in the district courts for this particular topic area. Or I could also look at the trial court documents down here. And so then we have a lot of different document types and you could go ahead and narrow it to the type of document that you wanted to if you scroll down. So if you only wanted to see the motions, you could do that. But a lot of times we're just going to go into cases because what we're looking for is case law. We want the actual cases that make up the decisions that the judges have to follow. So the ones that have changed legal precedent. So if we go into cases, you can always change how they're sorted here if you want to sort them by date or which ones get most cited, et cetera. You know, we have 158 results, which is kind of a lot to go through. So you can always scroll down here and add additional filters. So if you click on this jurisdiction, if I only wanted to see the ones that made it to the Colorado Supreme Court, I could look at that. You know, so you have some options here to kind of narrow it down a little bit. Another thing I want to point out is you see here, this second case has a red flag next to it. And so you really want to pay attention anytime you see a red flag or there are also yellow flags that appear like here in case number four. These flags are a part of what Westlaw calls key site. Key site is a very important function of this database, because what these flags are telling me is if this case has been overturned or challenged in any way, shape or form. So this second one, this Amos case with the red flag, this is telling me that this case has been overturned. So this is probably not one that I'm going to want to cite, but let's take a look at it anyways, because I want to show you where you can find more information about what this flag is about. And so here we're just on the main document page, but if I want to know what this flag is about, I can go to the negative treatment tab. So now it's going to show me which cases have either challenged or overturned this case. And so this will be really important to kind of understand how this case has moved through the courts and what portion of the case got overturned or challenged. And so I always like to think of the red flags, they're like a stop sign. The yellow flag is more of a proceed with caution. So maybe not the whole case has been challenged or overturned, but there's a part in there that's a little bit sticky with the courts. So you really want to be careful with those yellow flag cases. Okay, let's go back. I'm going to return to my list. I want to go into another one of these cases just to explain a little bit more about the layout of the case. So first, let's talk about these tabs that are along the top. So the document, that's going to be the case itself. If I go over to filings, that's going to show me those trial court documents here. So if I wanted to look at, you know, the brief or anything like that, those are available here to look at. The negative treatment tab is grayed out because you notice this case does not have a flag on it. This will only be active if there's a red or a yellow flag there. And history, history just shows me how this case moves through the courts. So this is the one we're looking at that's highlighted yellow, but you'll see it does actually go up to another level here. So you could read this case and then this is sort of the final decision we have. Citing references, this tab can be quite useful. And so what citing references are, these are cases and other kinds of documents that cite this specific case as an example. So let's say this is a case that's just right, you know, right in where you want to be researching. So it's a really good example for what you're trying to prove. You would want to then look at the citing references because then chances are you're going to find more cases that cite this case as an example. So then that gives you even more examples to use in your arguments. And so here it'll tell you the depth of how much this case is cited and used. What type of document is it? This is just a motion that cites it. Here's a case that cites it. And then it'll also tell you specifically what point of law is it connecting to on this case. And so there's these headnote numbers, which we'll look at in a minute. But these headnotes are kind of the different points of law that get discussed in this case. So this is telling you this one specifically touches on this area of law. Here we have contracts discussed, etc. And if it's directly quoted within the document, then you'll have these little quotation marks. So citing references can be an easy way to find more documents in the same area without having to do a lot of work. Table of authorities can also be useful. These are the authorities. So the other cases that this Estates and Eagle Ridge case is using in their arguments. So again, these ones have come before this case where citing references come after this case, but it can still be a useful way to find more cases and documents pertaining to whatever it is that you're researching. And then also remember, again, you have your document delivery things over here. So if you wanted any of these lists, you could email them, print them or download them for yourself. Let's go back to the document, though. So I want to talk a little bit about the structure of the case itself. And so here, you know, along the top, it's telling me which Court of Appeals heard it, division for when it was heard, and then the citation for it in the print environment. And so you could also look at a scan of how it looks in the print books. And then here again is that citation and all that information. Then you have the party's names. So your plaintiffs are the people bringing the lawsuit to the court. And then you have the defendants listed second. This number, this is the number that the courts, that the Colorado courts assigned to this case. And then you have information about when the case was heard and decided. This synopsis, this is something that's written by an editor at Westlaw. So this is not officially part of the decision. So this is not something you would necessarily cite in a brief, but it's very useful for you to get a quick sense of what this case is about and whether or not it's going to be useful for you to keep reading it. And then the holdings are kind of the things that were found in the decision. And if we keep scrolling down, now we have those headnotes. And so these are the different points of law that get discussed in this case. And so pay attention to these blue boxes because they'll appear throughout the case. So you'll know when this particular headnote is being discussed. And then they map right on to those key numbers again. So again, if you're looking through the headnotes and see, okay, well, this is actually the point of law that I'm trying to prove as well. So then you can always just click through to those key numbers and it'll pull up all of the cases in these specific topic areas. So this can be another way to streamline your research and that once you find one really good case, you want to start looking at these key numbers and headnotes and citing references because that's where you'll find more of the same. So you can find more examples saying the same thing. And so you can see this case has quite a few headnotes. So let's scroll through all of those. Now we have the attorneys and law firms that were involved in the case. And then you see the word opinion here. This is where the actual decision is starting. And so this is from Justice Loeb. And so that's the name of the justice or judge who heard this case and wrote the decision. And then scrolling through the case, you'll see anytime a statute is referenced, it's hyperlinked. So you can click on that and read that specific statute or here's a court rule that you could click through and read that specific court rule. And if you keep scrolling down, a couple other things I want to point out, anytime you see a green number, this is just the page number in the print environment. So if I was looking at this in a book, this tells me this is where page 841 starts. Keep scrolling. Any other cases that get cited are also hyperlinked. So you can look at those. So that could also be another useful way to find similar cases. And then here you see this blue box. This is where that headnote number one is getting discussed. So here's where this specific point of law is getting discussed in the case. So that can be helpful to identify, well, where is this actually get shown in this decision? And let's just keep scrolling. I want to show you a few things at the bottom. And so sometimes there might be more footnotes and other citations for you to look through here. Here we just only have one. But then here are the other two, since this is an appeals court, you generally have more than one judge deciding the case. So here are the other two judges that were on the panel, and lets you know that they both concurred with the opinion that was written by the first judge. So that's where you'll find all of that information. So again, there's a lot of good information and tools in these cases. Let me just go back up to the top. So again, remember to use these tabs when you're looking at a case, and to also pay attention to these head notes and key numbers, because this will shorten your research time tremendously if you're using these built-in tools to find other cases on similar topics. And then the last thing, just to remind you again, you do have your way to email the case to yourself, print it out, or download it. So that way you can take a copy of the case with you. So this is just a very quick and dirty overview of how to do case law research in Westlaw. But please feel free to reach out to us if you have more questions, and check out our other videos on Westlaw. Thank you.