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.
Access to cases is accomplished through West's topic and key number system or through one of the following 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.