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West editors remove, add and reclassify key numbers as the law evolves.
For example, West recently revised the topic Civil Rights (78). New categories
were added and more than 300,000 digest paragraphs were reclassified. The key
numbers were expanded from 347 to 777. Since reporter volumes are not reprinted,
the retired key numbers still appear in the print reporters. In order to determine
the current classification to retrieve more recent cases discussing the point of
law, you will need to follow these steps:
- Access your chosen database and search using the old topic and key number.
An example would be the Federal Labor and Employment Cases (FLB-CS).
Search the topic and key number 78k9.13 -- "Educational requirements;
ability tests."
- Browse the headnotes and you will see that a retired key number will be
preceded the term "Formerly." The current classification will appear in the
line above the old one.
- Use the new topic and key number, 78k1142, to run a new search
to retrieve the more recent cases. This new search retrieved 301 documents
(242 under 78k9.13) including cases from 2003 and 2004.
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