Digests

A digest is a collection of summaries, similar to headnotes, collected in topical order. They act as an index to case law. For instance, the Pacific Reporter has the Pacific Digest. The Federal Reporter and Federal Supplement have the Federal Practice Digest. The Supreme Court Reporter has the Supreme Court Digest. In addition, West publishes the American Digest System. There are basically three parts to that system:

• The Century Digest
  This digest summarizes cases from the 1600’s to 1896. Very old authority.
• The Decennial Digest
  This digest collects material from all digests, state and federal, over ten year periods. Because it contains so much material, it can be very useful. More recent editions have been forced to split the Decennial into five year Sections. For instance, the Tenth Decennial Digest, Part One and Part Two.
• The General Digest
  The Decennial Digest does not have pocket parts, but since there are at least five years between Decennials, they need to be updated. The General Digest updates the Decennials.