Expanding Statutory Research
Expanding Statutory Research
• KeyCite Citing References
• Case law that has interpreted or applied the statute
– Annotations (Notes of Decisions)
• Legislative history
• Secondary sources
– American Law Reports
– American Jurisprudence 2d
KeyCite Citing References
Citing References
Many USCA sections have many citing references.
In the right frame are some of the 25,756+ citing
references to 11 U.S.C.A. 523.
Expanding Research Using KeyCite
• KeyCite Citing References consists of citations to legal
documents that discuss or mention the statute.
• Citing references include:
• Pending legislation
• Notes of Decisions (Annotations)
• Cases on Westlaw that do not appear in notes of
decisions
• Administrative materials (includes agency decisions)
• Secondary sources, such as ALR® articles, Am Jur 2d®
sections, law reviews, and treatises
• Briefs
Limiting KeyCite Citing References
Limit KeyCite Display
• 11 USCA 523 (the Exceptions to Discharge statute) has
25,756 citing references.
• Click the Limit KeyCite Display button near the bottom
of the screen to limit the citing references to the ones of
most use to you.
You can limit citation
results by any number
or combination of:
Student Loans
Cases
• Notes of Decisions
(by sub-topic)
• Locate terms
• Jurisdiction
• Date
• Document type
Apply
Select the desired criteria and click Apply.
The original 25,756 citing documents have been reduced to
the 12 documents that meet the criteria we specified.
Expanding Research Using the Notes of
Decisions
• Many statutes are obscurely worded and must be
interpreted by case law.
• Notes of Decisions (or annotations) are headnotes of cases
that significantly interpret or apply the statute.
• Case law compares the language of the statute with the
language of other statutes, reconciles language within the
statute, and explores legislative history concerning the
statute to discover the intent of the legislature.
• The language of the case law often becomes more useful
for the researcher than the language of the statute.
Notes of Decisions
• Notes of decisions can be accessed by clicking the Notes of
Decisions link on the Links for tab when viewing a statute.
• Notes of Decisions are preceded by a main index and, if
needed, subdivision indexes.
• Each subdivision deals with one topic of interpretation of
the statute by the courts.
Link to Notes of Decs.
Notes of Decisions Index
• Above are the Notes of Decisions for 11 USCA 523 under
the Educational or Student Loan subdivision.
• Note the links to the full-text cases.
Print Notes of Decisions
• As in the online Notes of
Decisions, the print Notes
of Decisions are the last
portion of the annotated
statute format.
• The Notes of Decisions
for some statutes may be
hundreds of pages long.
Legislative History
Because so many statutes are obscurely worded:
• courts often look to the legislative history of a statute to
determine the intent of the legislators.
• debates in Congress or congressional committees, early
drafts of the bill, testimony of experts, amendments to the
language of the proposed statute, etc., often reveal the
intent of the legislature.
Committee reports provide the most definitive evidence of
legislative intent.
Earliest Legislative History
Legislative history may include documents that exist even
before a bill is enacted.
• Presidential recommendations.
• Congressional and committee hearings in sessions in
which the bill was discussed but not passed.
• Agency memorandum.
You should not limit your research only to the
legislative session in which the bill was enacted.
Legislative History in Annotated Statutes
You can access Legislative History directly from the link
on the Links tab in the left frame. Text Amendments are
also called Credits. They are the public laws that created
and amended the statute.
Text Amendments
Credits
Public Laws
Text Amendments
Expanding Research-Legislative History
You can also link to the Editor’s Notes, also called the
Historical and Statutory Notes, that follow each USCA
section. Editor’s Notes give more detailed information
regarding the legislative history of the statute, including
House and Senate Reports, Committee Reports and
explanations of the change in language from one report or
public law to the next.
Editor’s Notes
Editor’s Notes
Editor’s Notes
Early Legislative History on Westlaw
• Early congressional hearings and testimony can be found
in several databases on Westlaw, including
USTESTIMONY, USPOLTRANS, CQ-NEWS,
BNA-TRACK and APN-HO.
• Presidential messages can be found in the PRES-DAILY,
USPOLTRANS, USCCAN, BNA-PRSCAL, and
CQ-NEWS databases on Westlaw.
• Committee Reports, the most definitive evidence of
legislative intent, can be found in the LH database.
Discussion and Testimony Regarding a
Bill
Discussions/debates regarding a federal bill can be found in
– the Congressional Record in print and on Westlaw in
the CR database
– United States Code Congressional & Administrative
News (USCCAN) in print and in the USCCAN
database on Westlaw
Legislative History of Modification of
Bills
Language of bills as they are modified in the legislative process
can be found in:
• microfiche in government depositories, including many
law libraries
• materials from the clerk of the legislature
• Congressional Record and USCCAN in print
• CR, USCCAN, CONG-BILLTXT, and LH federal
databases on Westlaw
• XX-BILLTXT (where XX is state’s two-letter postal
abbreviation) databases on Westlaw.
The Current Status of a Bill
The status of a bill can be found in
•
Federal materials
– print status tables
– US-BILLTRK (United States Bill Tracking)
•
State materials
– XX-BILLTRK (where XX is the two-letter postal
abbreviation of the state) databases on Westlaw
Bill Referred to Committee
Under My Westlaw link
above the toolbar, you
can set up a Legislative
History tab page.
Bill Referred to Committee
When you click any step in
the legislative process, a
search screen is displayed
showing databases where
that material can be found.
Databases
Expanding Research-Secondary Sources
Secondary Sources
• Secondary sources are analytical materials that comment
on, explain, and analyze a wide range of legal topics.
• Secondary-source materials are prepared by legal experts
in a non-litigious context.
• Most contain a detailed discussion of the legal topic.
• Most are carefully researched.
Most include references to relevant
cases and statutes and other
secondary sources.
Secondary Sources
• The following are some of the secondary sources that are
available in print and on Westlaw that can be used to
expand your statutory research.
• American Law Reports (ALR) – ALR database
• American Jurisprudence (Am Jur 2d) – AMJUR database
• Law review articles – JLR (Journals and Law Reviews)
database
• Restatements – REST databases
• West’s Digests – -HN is suffix for digest (headnote)
databases, e.g., MN-HN, ALLFEDS-HN
This is a portion of an ALR
article discussing the
legislative history of 11
USCA 523 in reference to
whether student loans can be
discharged in bankruptcy.
The same ALR article
could have been
retrieved using the
ALR link on the Links
for tab while viewing
the statute in the right
frame.
ALR
One of several American Jurisprudence sections that
discuss whether loans can be discharged in bankruptcy.
This section discusses exceptions to the student loan
exception of discharge of debt in bankruptcy.