Westlaw uses KeyCite warnings to provide context about point of law authority. Legal standing and authority can change over time, and it is important to verify that the points of law within cases are still valid, or "good law."
KeyCite Flags and Meanings
Red Flag 
Indicates that the case is no longer good law for at least one of the points of law addressed within the case. For example, the decision may have been reversed on appeal or overturned by a decision of the same court.
Yellow Flag 
Indicates that the case has negative history, but has not been reversed or overruled. The reasoning of the decision may have been criticized or its holding may have been limited to a specific set of facts.
Blue-striped Flag 
Indicates that the case has been appealed to the U.S Court of Appeals or the U.S. Supreme Court.
KeyCite Overruling Risk Icon 
Indicates that the case may have been implicitly undermined due its reliance on another case that has been overruled.
To view the negative treatment of a case, click on the Negative Treatment tab on the case dashboard bar. This will list all negative direct history and negative citing references and indicate the documents that have the Most Negative Treatment.
Use KeyCite, the citation research service, to help determine whether a case is good law and to retrieve documents that cite the case. KeyCite covers every case in West’s National Reporter System and more than 1 million unpublished cases. There are several ways to access KeyCite information:
Click the Negative Treatment tab to view negative direct history and negative citing references for a case. Negative citing references are displayed in a table format. The depth of treatment bars in the Depth column indicate the extent to which citing cases discuss the cited case, and the headnote numbers in the Headnotes column indicate which headnotes in the cited case contain the points of law discussed by the citing cases.
Click the History tab to view the direct history of a case and related references. The cases included in the direct history and related references are listed in the left column. Direct history is also displayed in a graphical view in the right column. You can restrict direct history by choosing an option from the View drop-down list.
Click the Citing References tab to view a list of cases, administrative materials, secondary sources, briefs, and other court documents that cite your case. To change the order in which the citing references are displayed, choose a date or depth of treatment option from the Sort By drop-down list on the toolbar.
To narrow the list of citing references, you can:
