Here's what our Sally Wise, our law librarian had to say about this
problem:
{start quote}
Michael-
There has been much discussion of this issue on the law
library director's list. The following looks like the most reasonable
theory of what West has done.
--Sally
-----Original Message-----
From: Stiverson, Keith Ann [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Friday, June 13, 2003 1:00 PM
To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'
Subject: [Lawlibdir] "editing"of Supreme Court Reports
For those still interested in the topic, what follows is from Tom Gaylord
on our reference staff:
The Cranch summary missing from Westlaw at 2 Cranch 240 does appear, both
on Westlaw and in print, at 16 F. Cas. 1009, where West in 1895 or so
published the report of the District Court of Maryland's decision in the
case. Although West retrospectively published Federal Cases to bring all
the lower federal reports under the West umbrella up to the beginning of
Federal Reporter, they never did this with the early Supreme Court
reports, thus Cranch's summary only appeared in the West print universe at
16 F. Cas. 1009.
My theory is that when West created Westlaw, they made the logical (at
least to them) decision to track their print publications. Therefore,
Cranch's summary of the facts of the case remains, in Westlaw, at 16 F.
Cas. 1009, and a West-drafted headnote replaces it at 2 Cranch 240.
Further research of other non-West-published early Supreme Court cases
that had lower court reports in Federal Cases might bear this theory out.
Keith Stiverson
--
Please visit http://www.icannwatch.org
A. Michael Froomkin | Professor of Law | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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