ARE 306: Agricultural LawCitatorsStatutory, regulatory, and case law are all subject to subsequent review by the judicial branch of the states and federal governments. For example, having found a case that supports the position of a litigant, a trial lawyer (or a thorough student) needs to know whether the law established by that decision remains in effect. In general, the court system holds to the principle of stare decisis, to stand by (previous) decisions. Have later cases affirmed the earlier decision in a case? Or have later cases overturned the original decision? Perhaps there has been considerable debate or criticism of the decision that has left its authority eroded. Citators are the tool to determine the current status of statutory, regulatory, or case law. The prime publisher of these volumes is Shepard's, and the verb, "to Shepardize," is used to mean that the subsequent history of a cited case has been examined to determine its continued relevance to a new case at hand. For a student, shepardizing a case is a good way find whether a case has been cited by subsequent cases, and to trace how a law has been interpreted and applied over a period of time. Citators exist for the different levels of the states and federal judicial systems, for bodies of regulatory law, and for statutory law. The NCSU Libraries provides access to Shepard's Citator through the LexisNexis Academic product.
The only way to search for a case in Shepard's is to use its
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