Hello everyone,
A few people have been coming up to me with Westlaw questions, so I thought I’d put up a real helpful and easy way to find cases for points of law you need quickly.
WestLaw has several field restrictions that can help you narrow your search. The one I’m going to show you is the Digest field restriction, or DI(x), where DI stands for Digest, and “x” stands for the key words you’ll type in.
For example, if you want to find cases that contain points of law referring to the Federal Tort Claims Act’s Discretionary Function exception you might type in this:
DI(FTCA “Federal Tort Claims Act” /p “discretionary function”)
Or, maybe find something on equitable servitudes:
DI(“equitable servitudes”)
Now, we’ll turn to the Synopsis field restriction. The Synopsis portion of the case is a quick summary of the case that you see at the beginning of every case you pull up on WestLaw. So, let’s combine Synopsis and Digest field restrictions to find cases even quicker. The Synopsis field restriction is encoded as SY(x)
Let’s say you want to find cases involving automobile accidents and the negligence element of foreseeability. To link field restrictions together in the same search use the ampersand character (“&”).
So, for example, you might enter:
SY(auto! vehicle car truck motor! /p crash accident collision collide) & DI(negligence /p foreseeability foreseeable)
Try this out and let me know if it works, or if you have any questions.
G
January 31, 2010 at 9:10 am
Hi Erick,
My name is G and I’m a new follower of your blog. I am applying to SJCL for the fall session and I have enjoyed your blog about the different aspects of the law. I especially enjoy the topic of tribal sovereign immunity. I am a full time employee at Table Mountain Casino and many of the topics you write about are applicable to TMC. I have done some research on TMC’s past and it seems very similar to Chuckchansi’s(in terms if dis-enrollment). I had a question about another aspect of sovereign immunity. The casino recently put out a memo(which was attached to our checks) which stated that any employee who owes child support,a wage garnishment, ect. will not be immune to their liability because of tribal sovereign immunity. After they stated that we can not “hide behind” the tribes immunity, they also added that they will not risk their tribal immunity on us. I found it strange that they first stated it could not be done, but then made it clear they will not risk it on us. I would like to know if you have any information on this specific topic. I know that we are protected by sovereign immunity if we are acting within our employment at the casino, but I would like to know how far that extends. I would like to read any cases you know of that deal with this issue. Anyway, thanks for your time and I really enjoy your blog.
Thank you very much,
G
Erick
January 31, 2010 at 6:40 pm
Unfortunately, I don’t have any info on your specific topic. You’re correct that tribal sovereign immunity (TSI) extends to employees of the tribe while in the scope of their employment, but I don’t know off hand whether that extends to wage garnishments, etc. No cases I’ve read (thus far) point to a solution. Sorry I couldn’t be of any more help, but I hope you find an answer.
Good luck on your admission to SJCL, it is a fine school and feel free to look me up once you get here, or look me on Facebook, etc. And, of course, keep reading!
Thank you!