One purpose of a citator (such as KeyCite or Shepard's) is to update statutes. For a particular statute (the cited statute), a citator will give you the history of a statute and reveal every time a later case or secondary source (a citing reference) refers to the cited statute.
A citator for statutes has THREE basic purposes.
- Purpose One: Current Version - You want to make absolutely sure you are looking at the most current version of your statute. There are two things that you want to know about your statute.
- Are you looking at the most current version (or is there a recent amendment that hasn't been incorporated into the text)?
- Is there a pending bill that might pass tomorrow and amend your statute (not as important)?
- Purpose Two: Validity - It is very important to make sure your statute (or part of your statute) hasn't received negative treatment from a court before you cite it. (Important note: Just because one part of a statute is invalid doesn't mean the whole statute is invalid.) Examples of negative treatment from case law:
- Unconstitutional
- Unconstitutional as applied
- Preempted
- Recognized as unconstitutional
- Invalid
- Purpose Three: Research - Citators are great for statutory research. Once you find a statute on your specific legal topic, you can look at the citing references - cases that interpret your statute and secondary sources that explain it.
