Restatements of the Law

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Restatements of the Law
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Restatements of the Law

• Restatements of the Law are written by
  prominent legal scholars.
• Restatements must be formally adopted by the
  members of the American Law Institute.
• Restatements are the attempt of the American Law
  Institute to clarify the ever-increasing amount
  and complexity of case law by clear, concise
  restatements.
• More than any other secondary source,
  Restatements are often accepted by the courts as
  persuasive authority.

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Comments

• Restatements are divided into chapters, then into
  narrower titles, and then into numbered sections.
• Each section begins with a blackletter
  statement of the law.
• The blackletter statement covers a fairly broad
  issue.
• Sub-issues are often discussed in the authors
  Comments and Illustrations that follow each
  statement. These comments and illustrations are
  often cited by the courts.

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Current Restatements include

• Agency (Second)
• Apportionment of Liability (Third)
• Conflict of Law (Second)
• Contracts (Second)
• Foreign Relations (Third)
• Judgments (Second)
• Law Governing Lawyers (Third)
• Products Liability (Third)
• Property (Third)

• Prudent Investor Rule (Third)
• Restitution (First)
• Security (First)
• Suretyship and Guaranty (Third)
• Torts (Second)
• Trusts (Second)
• Unfair Competition (Third)
• Wills and Donative Transfers (Third)

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• Features of the Restatements include1
• Appendix volumes
• Instead of citing relevant cases, appendix
  volumes contain summaries of cases that have
  cited each section of the Restatement.
• Indexes
• Restatement, First Series, has a one-volume index
  to all Restatements.
• Restatements, Second and Third Series, do not
  have a comprehensive index.
• Some have subject index for each volume.
• Recent Restatements have an index in the last
  volume or in a separate volume.
• 1 Features vary by series and by volume.

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• Features (continued)
• Reporters Notes are at the end of each section
  or in the Appendix volumes of the agency, torts,
  and trust restatements.
• Recent volumes have cross-references to the West
  Key Number System and ALR annotations.
• Updating Restatements
• Drafts of new series are published in soft-cover
  format
• Cumulative annual supplements
• Interim case citation pamphlet
• Pocket parts

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• Restatement databases on Westlaw are
• REST all Restatements of the Law
• REST-AGEN Agency
• REST-CONFL Conflict of Laws
• REST-CONTR Contract Restatement
• REST-FOREL The Foreign Relations Law of the
  United States
• REST-JUDG Judgments
• REST-LGOVL Law Governing Lawyers
• PL-REST Product Liability
• REST-PROP Property
• REST-RESTI Restitution
• REST-SEC Security and Suretyship and Guaranty
• REST-TORT Torts
• REST-TRUSTTrusts
• REST-UNCOM Unfair Competition

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TOC

• Online documents contain the text, comments, and
  illustrations of the Restatement, Case Citations
  to Restatements, Reporters Notes and Cross
  References.
• A Table of Contents link on the Links for tab
  opens the Table of Contents for the Restatement
  at the Restatement section being displayed.
• Drafts of future series are included in the
  databases.
• Database REST-TORT
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