Find a Case on a Given Topic

Many times you won’t have a specific case in mind when starting your research. You may be looking for one or more cases on a specific subject, such as fair use of copyrighted materials. Or, you may already have a case but wish to find other cases on the same subject. Sometimes instead of a general topic you may have a specific law—a statute or a clause in the Constitution—and want to find cases related to it.

Legal Encyclopedias

Legal encyclopedias are large, multi-volume sets containing hundreds of brief, topically arranged articles that attempt to provide a comprehensive, systematic restatement of the law as developed in statutes and, especially, in case decisions. Footnotes provide citations to the major cases and statutes that established or defined each issue or concept.

There are two main legal encyclopedias useful for looking up federal and state cases:

• Corpus Juris Secundum, published by Thomson West (called West Publishing Company until it was acquired by the Thomson Corporation in 1996)
• American Jurisprudence, originally published by Lawyers Cooperative Publishing, but now also published by Thomson West (Lawyers Cooperative was acquired by the Thomson Corporation in 1989 and became the flagship of the Thomson Legal Publishing group; in 1996 Thomson Legal Publishing merged with West Publishing Company to form Thomson West)

Texas Jurisprudence, or Tex Jur III, is similar to American Jurisprudence, but the content is restricted to Texas law.

Each of these legal encyclopedias is organized pretty much the same way, so that if you have learned to use one, you should have no difficulty with the others. 

Here are the steps for searching legal encyclopedias:

1. Consult the General Index to determine which index terms and numbers to use.
2. Look up your index terms in the main volumes.
3. Locate the specific concept you are interested in.
4. Consult the footnotes for the relevant cases.
5. Check the pocket part in the back for updates.

Corpus Juris Secundum (originally published by West)
KF90 .C6

Because of its publishing history, this set is especially good for using in combination with products such as the West’s digests, case reporters, and the U.S. Code Annotated. For example, If there is an appropriate digest topic and key number for your subject in West’s Key Number system, C.J.S. will also provide these.

The articles in C.J.S. tend to be more longer and more detailed than those in American Jurisprudence, and the footnotes are more comprehensive, citing all relevant cases since 1938. You can also use the Table of Cases to find all articles related to a particular case.

If you need to search for cases decided before 1938, you can find them in the otherwise obsolete Corpus Juris. The older volumes of C.J.S. have tended to be more old-fashioned content and quaint in nomenclature, but gradually the entire set is being updated volume-by-volume with more modern content and presentation.

Be sure not to confuse the C.J.S. index topics and key numbers with the digest topics and key numbers used in West’s Key Number system. C.J.S. topics and key numbers are used only to index the articles in C.J.S.; the articles themselves contain cross-references to the West key topics and key numbers.

American Jurisprudence (originally published by Lawyers Cooperative)
AmJur (first edition) KF154.A4
AmJur2d (second edition) KF154.A42

This set cites only the most important cases for each topic, rather than all relevant cases. It also covers more statutory and regulatory law than C.J.S., which covers primarily court cases. The articles in American Jurisprudence include citations to other Lawyers Cooperative/LexisNexis products, such as U.S. Code Service and American Law Reports, but not to any West products (except the reporters) or West key numbers.

The UNT Libraries have discontinued their paper subscription to this encyclopedia, but it is available online to members of the UNT community through LexisNexis Academic.

Texas Jur III (formerly Texas Jurisprudence)
KFT1241 .T4 1979

This set has the same publishing history as American Jurisprudence, therefore the organization and appearance are basically the same. The only difference is that Texas Jur III deals only with Texas law. As with the other two encyclopedias, the earlier versions are obsolete for the most part, and should only be used for historical purposes.

Digests

Annotated cases contain headnotes summarizing each major point of law touched upon in a case.

A digest is a case‑finding tool, similar to an index, that compiles the headnotes from several cases and reprints them in a subject arrangement. The summaries are grouped under alphabetically arranged topics and further organized by subtopics within each topic.

The most comprehensive and widely used digest system in the U.S. is the American Digest System produced by West, commonly known as the Key‑Number Digests. The American Digest System is based on the headnote summaries of all cases published by West, including federal cases, state cases, and cases appearing in reporters related to specific practice areas.

The most common strategy for research within a digest is:

• Begin with the digest most relevant to the jurisdiction in question. Start with its most recent edition and pocket parts.
• Work from the newest to the oldest series.
• Examine recent bound volumes and advance sheets for material not yet found in the updates to the digest.
• If you find no cases on your topic, broaden your search by examining other jurisdictions besides the jurisdiction in question. The Decennial and General Digests, while the most time consuming to examine, contain all the headnotes in the American Digest System.

Here are some specific techniques for using West’s American Digest System to find information on specific topics:

Headnotes
If you have already located a case in one of the West’s reporters, you can use the headnotes preceding the opinion to identify other cases on the same points of law in the digests. 

1. Go to the headnotes section of the case.
2. Look at the specific points of law the case deals with.
3. If there are any points of law that particularly interest you, make a note of the topics and key numbers.
4. Look those topics and numbers up in any West’s digest to find other cases dealing with the same point. If you don’t find any entries for a particular keyword and key number, you will know that there are no relevant cases in that particular jurisdiction and time period.
5. Be sure to consult the pocket part at the end of the volume to see if there are any recent updates.

Descriptive Word Index
The Descriptive Word Index is a comprehensive list of subjects covered by the corresponding Digest. This part of the digest, usually located at the end of the digest set, is useful for identifying the specific words used by West to index cases on your topic:

1. Go to the Descriptive Word Index at the end of the digest set. 
2. Look under index words that seem likely to pertain to your subject. These index words will refer you to the appropriate key words and key numbers for that topic.
3. Look up the key words and key numbers you have identified. You will find a list of relevant cases, each accompanied by a citation (and often parallel citations) and a digest of the main facts of the case.
4. A pocket part at the end of each volume will include the latest cases.
5. Once you have identified relevant West key words & key numbers, you don’t need the Descriptive Word Index. You can go directly to the main volumes of any West digest to find similar cases. 

Table of Cases
If you know the name of a case dealing with a particular point of law, you can identify other cases on the same point by consulting the Table of Cases. This is also helpful if you sort of know the name of a case, but don’t know the exact or full name. 

The Table of Cases will tell you:

• The full name of the case
• Parallel citations to the case in reporters by different publishers
• The history of the case (whether affirmed, reversed, or modified on appeal or rehearing)
• The topics and key numbers of points of law dealt with in the case

Words and Phrases
The Words and Phrases volumes in the digest set provide an alphabetical list of legal words and phrases that have been defined in related judicial opinions, along with citations to the cases that defined them. Within each state and federal digest there is a Words and Phrases section for that jurisdiction. There is also a large encyclopedic set of separately published volumes, titled Words and Phrases [KF156 .W6 , located on Third Floor of Willis Library], which compiles case abstracts taken from headnotes.

Keyword Searching Online

Electronic sources often do not have subject arrangements or subject searching capabilities. An alternative to subject-searching is searching by keywords, where you enter text in a search field and find materials that contain that text. You may be able to choose whether to search the full text of each document or limit your search to specific fields such as the title or the author.

A commercial database such as LexisNexis provides the most sophisticated keyword searching. It can also be very expensive.

Internet searching is usually free, and is usually much less sophisticated than searching in a database such as Lexis, but it can often be very effective when you are searching for something that is currently a hot issue. You might be able to type in a few words in Google and come up right away with exactly what you were looking for. Cornell’s Legal Information Institute maintains a search engine that will search U.S. circuit courts of appeals opinions available on the Web. Some individual court sites may have search engine specific to their own online records. 

There are two main types of keyword searching: Natural Language  and Boolean.

Natural Language Searching

Natural Language searching is easier to learn, but less reliable and more limited in the results it gets. There are three ways to enter a natural language search:

• Type in one or more keywords related to your topic.
• Type in one or more phrases related to your topic (enclosing each phrase within quotation marks).
• Type in a specific question you want answered.

The search service will interpret your string of words (not always the way you intended) and return a predetermined number of results. The same number of results will be returned every time, no matter how many relevant documents are in the database. This can be effective if all you want is a couple of cases on your topic, but it’s not a very good way to do thorough research.

Boolean Searching

Boolean searching is more complicated and takes more time and effort to learn, but the extra effort will usually pay off with more complete and more relevant results. The specific syntax required for Boolean searching can vary considerably, depending on what search tool you are using. Most search engines will provide hints on the most effective way to construct your search. Tutorials are available on how to search Lexis effectively. There is usually no one right way to construct a Boolean search, and the most effective strategy is developed through much practice and many trial-and-error attempts.