West's National Reporter System is comprised of various multi-volume works called court reporters. These reports contain judicial opinions from the state courts and federal court system. Each opinion is preceded by a summary or a synopsis of that opinion, followed by one or more editorial abstracts called "headnotes." Each headnote is assigned a topic and key number that correspond to the legal issue addressed in that headnote. West's American Digest System provides subject access to opinions found in the court reports by reprinting and organizing the headnotes alphabetically by topic and then by key number. Digests themselves are not legal authority, nor are the headnotes contained within the digests. Various federal digests provide access to federal court cases, while state and regional digests provide access to state court opinions.
West publishes the comprehensive American Digest System -- a master index to all the case law in the United States. This series begins with the Century Digest for cases before 1897, continuing with the 1906 Decennial Edition of the American Digest covering the period from 1897 to 1906. Publication continued for these "decennial digests" in ten-year intervals until the Tenth Decennial Digest, covering 1986-1996, was split into two five-year periods. The decennial digests are cumulative for each time period covered.
Updating is accomplished through use of the General Digest, comprised of approximately fourteen volumes annually. Each volume in the General Digest contains all the topics for which cases are reported in the time period covered. A Table of Key Numbers is included in each volume to eliminate the need to search volumes which have no cases addressing the researcher's particular topic or key number. This table cumulates every tenth volume, and begins cumulating anew in the most recent table published since the latest ten-volume cumulative table. Once publication is completed for the ten-year period, the General Digest is replaced by a new set of the Decennial Digest. The American Digest System is the appropriate tool for locating cases from throughout the country.
On the federal level, West publishes the United States Supreme Court Digest and five separate federal digests which cover distinct time periods: Federal Digest = through 1939; Modern Federal Practice Digest = 1940-60; West's Federal Practice Digest 2d = 1961-75; West's Federal Practice Digest 3d = 1975-mid 1980s; West's Federal Practice Digest 4th = mid 1980s-present. The United States Supreme Court Digest is cumulative from the inception of the Supreme Court in 1790, and a researcher need consult only one volume and pocket part to find all Supreme Court cases on a particular legal issue.
The judicial opinions of each state and the District of Columbia are published by West in one of nine regional reporters: Atlantic, California,* New York Supplement,* North Eastern, North Western, Pacific, South Eastern, Southern, and South Western. Access to these is through regional digests and, in some states, individual state digests as well. The Law Library contains the state digests for Oregon, California and New York, and the regional digest for the Pacific Reporter; access to all other state cases is through the American Digest System. The digests are updated by annual pocket parts and supplemental pamphlets. State digests also include the indexing of decisions of federal courts sitting in that state and decisions from the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and U.S. Supreme Court that arise in that state.
Access to cases is accomplished through West's topic and key number system or through one of the following other finding aids: a Table of Cases, Defendant-Plaintiff Table, Descriptive-Word Index, and Words and Phrases. Descriptive-Word Indexes are detailed subject indexes to the contents of the digests. Words and Phrases compiles an alphabetical list of words and phrases judicially defined, with citations to the cases defining 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, which is a collection of case abstracts taken from headnotes.
Locating a Case by Party Name
If you want to find the case of Hogan v. Gridelli concerning breeding gamecocks in Oregon, decided in 1994, use the Table of Cases in the green Pacific Digest volumes. The cite is 879 P.2d 896; that is, the case may be found in volume 879 of the Pacific Reporter, Second Series, on page 896. A parallel cite is 129 Or. App. 539, in Oregon Reports Court of Appeals. If the jurisdiction of the case is not known, consult the Table of Cases in the American Digest System. Look in several time periods within a digest series if the year of the decision is not known.Locating a Case by Subject
If you are looking for cases on cockfighting in Oregon, use the Descriptive-Word Indexes located in separate volumes at the end of each series of digests to help find the commonly-used term for your subject. Once you have the common legal terminology, find this term in the volumes themselves. For instance, under the topic "Animals," key number "38 Cruelty, 40 --- Offenses," you will locate the Hogan case. Note that when you arrive at the actual case, the topic/key number(s) is reproduced as a headnote after the case summary and before the text of the opinion.Locating a Case by Topic and Key Number
A primary feature of West's Digest System is that this same topic and key number can be used to locate similar cases. This allows research to be expanded to other jurisdictions, i.e. to see how other state or federal courts have dealt with an issue. Thus headnote 8 in Hogan v. Gridelli may be used to search the West digests for additional cases dealing with animal cruelty. Important: If the numbered headnotes were taken from a non-West reporter, they have no application to a West digest.
*The number of lower court cases for California and New York are so numerous that separate reporters have been created for them.