Restatements of the Law
Restatements of the Law
• Restatements of the Law are written by
prominent legal scholars.
• Restatements must be formally adopted by the members of
the American Law Institute.
• Restatements are the attempt of the American Law Institute
to clarify the ever-increasing amount and complexity of
case law by clear, concise restatements.
• More than any other secondary source, Restatements are
often accepted by the courts as persuasive authority.
Comments
• Restatements are divided into chapters, then into narrower
titles, and then into numbered sections.
• Each section begins with a “blackletter” statement of the
law.
• The blackletter statement covers a fairly broad issue.
• Sub-issues are often discussed in the author’s Comments
and Illustrations that follow each statement. These
comments and illustrations are often cited by the courts.
Current Restatements include
• Agency (Second)
• Apportionment of
Liability (Third)
• Conflict of Law (Second)
• Contracts (Second)
• Foreign Relations (Third)
• Judgments (Second)
• Law Governing Lawyers
(Third)
• Products Liability (Third)
• Property (Third)
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Prudent Investor Rule (Third)
Restitution (First)
Security (First)
Suretyship and Guaranty
(Third)
Torts (Second)
Trusts (Second)
Unfair Competition (Third)
Wills and Donative Transfers
(Third)
• Features of the Restatements include1
– Appendix volumes
• Instead of citing relevant cases, appendix volumes
contain summaries of cases that have cited each
section of the Restatement.
– Indexes
• Restatement, First Series, has a one-volume index to
all Restatements.
• Restatements, Second and Third Series, do not have
a comprehensive index.
– Some have subject index for each volume.
– Recent Restatements have an index in the last
volume or in a separate volume.
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1
Features vary by series and by volume.
Features (continued)
– Reporter’s Notes are at the end of each section or in the
Appendix volumes of the agency, torts, and trust
restatements.
– Recent volumes have cross-references to the West Key
Number System® and ALR annotations.
• Updating Restatements
– Drafts of new series are published in soft-cover format
– Cumulative annual supplements
– Interim case citation pamphlet
– Pocket parts
Restatement databases on Westlaw are
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REST – all Restatements of the Law
REST-AGEN – Agency
REST-CONFL – Conflict of Laws
REST-CONTR – Contract Restatement
REST-FOREL – The Foreign Relations Law of the United States
REST-JUDG – Judgments
REST-LGOVL – Law Governing Lawyers
PL-REST – Product Liability
REST-PROP – Property
REST-RESTI – Restitution
REST-SEC – Security and Suretyship and Guaranty
REST-TORT – Torts
REST-TRUST–Trusts
REST-UNCOM – Unfair Competition
TOC
• Online documents contain the text, comments, and
illustrations of the Restatement, Case Citations to
Restatements, Reporter’s Notes and Cross References.
• A Table of Contents link on the Links for tab opens the
Table of Contents for the Restatement at the Restatement
section being displayed.
• Drafts of future series are included in the databases.
• Database: REST-TORT
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