Stealth Overruling and Shepardizing

An article in the May ABA Journal explains how the Supreme Court has recently taken to hollowing out precedents it wishes to overrule, rather than explicitly overruling them. This can create problems for attorneys doing legal research, because these drastically-changed, hollowed out opinions do not say "overruled" when you try to validate them in KeyCite and Shepard's. This is just one reason why, when you intend to use any case that has been treated negatively (i.e. cases that have yellow, orange, and red KeyCite and Shepard's symbols), you need to do a brief review of that negative treatment and its effect.


Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat