California Case Law
California has a three-tiered state court system:
California Supreme Court
California Court of Appeal
California Superior Court
California case law research often focuses on appellate cases. These are reported in West's Pacific Reporter, as well as the following state reporters:
California Reports (abbreviated Cal.) for Supreme Court cases (Official)
West's California Reporter (abbreviated Cal. Rptr.) for Supreme Court and Court of Appeal cases
West's Pacific Reporter (abbreviated P.) for Supreme Court only
California Appellate Reports (abbreviated Cal. App.) for Court of Appeal cases (Official)
California Court of Appeal and Supreme Court opinions are available to La Verne's College of Law students through subscription legal databases (Lexis and Westlaw).
Unpublished Opinions from California State Courts
Many California Court of Appeal cases, for various reasons, cannot be cited. This includes cases that were never certified for publication, and those that have been "de-published" because the state's Supreme Court has agreed to hear them on appeal.
In the subscription databases, these cases will be marked by a red stop sign (Lexis - see example below) or a red flag (Westlaw).
Although unpublished and de-published cases are not to be cited, they can still be useful for research because they provide citations to primary and secondary sources related to particular legal issues.
HeinOnline's library of historical state case law reporters includes a number of sources for California case law. To access it from the HeinOnline homepage(go to the list of databases for La Verne's College of Law, click State Reports: A Historical Archive > State Reports. Then click California in the map. HeinOnline may be accessed below:
HeinOnline
Overview - Getting Started
The law library subscribes to Lexis™ and Westlaw™ databases.
Online Tutorials
Lexis™ and Westlaw™ both offer short, helpful, online tutorials for law students who want to get started learning how to perform searches using various filtering tools. Each tutorial is generally 4 to 7 minutes in length.
Westlaw™
(Information in this section is courtesy of University of San Francisco School of Law, 1/11/2023)
Getting Started with Lexis™ and Westlaw™
Access to Lexis™ and Westlaw™ - Use the links below to connect to Lexis and Westlaw: Be certain to clear all filters so you see everything.
If you are looking for a very specific case or set of cases, such as every opinion that a certain judge has written or dissented in or a case with a particular party name, you can conduct a segment search. In both Westlaw and Lexis, you access this option by navigating to the Cases page then selecting the Advanced Search option. Note that you do have to navigate to the Cases page first; if you just go to "Advanced Search" from the home page, you won't see the advanced options that are specific to cases.
Lexis™: On the home page, select "Cases," then pick the particular jurisdiction of interest (e.g., All federal, 9th Circuit - US Court of Appeals Cases, California Federal District Courts, etc.). Click on "Advanced Search" just above the search bar.
The advanced search form contains a section for Terms and a section for Document Segment/Fields. The Document Segment/Fields section allows you to search by Party Name, Court, Date, Number, Citation, History, Disposition, Core Terms, Summary, Headnotes, Overview, Outcome, Attorney Name, Judges, Written By, Opinion By, Opinion, Concurrence By, Concurrence, Dissent By, and Dissent. In the right sidebar, you can click on the images under "Segment Examples" to view illustrations of where each segment is located in a case.
Westlaw™: On the homepage, select "Cases," then select the particular jurisdiction of interest. Click on the "Advanced" link next to the search bar to access the advanced search form.
The advanced search form contains sections for finding documents that have specific terms, excluding documents with specific terms, and document fields. The Document Fields include Date, Party Name, Citation, Synopsis, Digest, Synopsis/Digest, Judge, Attorney, Court Name/Prelim, Docket Number, Background, Concurring, Court Abbreviation, Dissenting, Full-Text, Headnote, Holding, Lead, Notes, Opinions, Panel, Topic, Words & Phrases, and Written By. In the right sidebar, you can click on the image of the sample case to view where each advanced search field is located on the document.
Both Westlaw™ and Lexis™ provide access to federal case law. You may filter for case law and for a particular jurisdiction, ensuring you are searching for federal case law. Below are examples of types of federal case law and federal agency decisions.
Employment Law Cases and Agency Decisions
Employment law disputes can often involve various federal agencies as well as the federal courts. There are several databases that allow searching of employment law-related agency or court decisions.
Westlaw™
Westlaw™ contains primary Law for all U.S. jurisdiction plus secondary sources and analytical material. See also Lexis™.
Lexis™
Lexis™ contains primary Law for all U.S. jurisdiction plus secondary sources and analytical material. See also Westlaw™
Below are sources of official California Codes:
Administrative Code (Official)
Statutes:
As an example, Federal Employment Law is codified in several sections of the US Code. The annotated version of the US Code is available in Westlaw™ or Lexis™.
The United States Code is a consolidation and codification by subject matter of the general and permanent laws of the United States. It is prepared by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel of the United States House of Representatives.
Westlaw's Labor and Employment Statutes
Regulations:
Agency regulations involving employment law can be found in the Code of Federal Regulations. To find specific regulations, consult the CFR's index or search the CFR on Westlaw™ or Lexis™.
(Courtsey of Illinoise College of Law Library, https://libguides.law.illinois.edu/FedEmploymentLaw)
Federal Law Law
Federal Labor Law is distinct from a closely-related area of law: Federal Employment Law. That area of law is concerned with other issues that may arise during an employee/employer relationship, such as harassment or discrimination claims, the minimum wage, overtime claims, or similar issues.
If you are looking for the statutes, regulations or court or agency decisions that make up the primary labor law in the United States, see the Statutes, Regulations and Decisions tab. If you are looking for secondary sources, try the Treatises, News, Periodicals and Handbooks tab.
Finally, for research of broader labor and employment issues, try the Labor & Employment Relations Digital Library.