7.2 Researching Statutory Issues: What Statutes Govern This Situation?

At this stage of your law school career, you are already familiar with foundational research techniques. This section of the chapter will highlight how to use those techniques when trying to identify whether a given situation is governed by a statute.

As with any research question, you don’t always have to start your research in a legal database. An all-purpose search engine such as Google or Bing can often lead you directly to a statute on point. As you may know, law firms frequently post short reports on their areas of expertise, and these reports can be useful to anyone conducting legal research. For example, searching “Ohio dog bite law” leads to several hits that include the most significant statute, Ohio Revised Code § 955.28. On the other hand, searching “Nevada dog bite law” brings up several hits that indicate that in Nevada, dog bites are governed by local ordinances and state common law rather than by state statute. Someone researching Ohio dog bite law could go directly from these reports to the state statute and continue the relevant research. Someone researching Nevada dog bite law should verify that laws have not recently changed, by searching, e.g., “dog and bite or bitten or attack” in the text of the Nevada statutes, in Nevada case law, and in appropriate secondary sources. Doing so reveals that there is no current statute but that general negligence rules apply. This research would reveal, however, that Nevada does have a statute defining and regulating dangerous dogs, and forbidding ordinances that single out particular breeds of dogs.

You should also be aware that while some issues are governed by federal law or state law (there is no national dog bite statute, for example), some issues are governed by federal law and state law. You have probably heard of “Title VII,” the federal law that forbids employment discrimination based on race and sex. In addition to this federal law, all states have enacted statutes that forbid employment discrimination based on race or sex; it is common for plaintiffs to bring suit under both the state and federal statutes. Thus, if you have found any relevant statutes in your state’s code, you should conduct federal research to see if the issue is also governed by federal law (and vice versa). Sometimes the match is not obvious. For example, states typically have laws that criminalize both car theft and using weapons to force someone to do something. In 1992, however, Congress passed a law that specifically targets “carjacking,” that is, using a weapon or intimidation to force someone to relinquish a car.⁹So be sure that you have searched for both state and federal statutes when conducting your initial research.