This page provides information on our treatise.  If you want to learn more about another aspect of Garland's Digest, then click on one of the links shown in the navigation bar below on the picture on your left.
 

Treatise information

Overview
For the last two years, we have been reviewing all cases we have read in the last ten years and organizing all significant points of law into a treatise. At present the treatise does not include a section on the Family and Medical Leave Act, but the FMLA section should be online by the summer of 2008.

Update: September 5, 2007
In order to introduce our subscribers to our Treatise, we are asking our subscribers to send us their research questions and we will tell them whether the Treatise currently has a case on point -- and if so, how we navigated through the Treatise Index to find the case. Not only does this help our subscribers, but it gives us a chance to take actual research questions and evaluate the usefulness of this first version of the Treatise (and the Treatise Index). So subscribe and send us your questions.

Treatise is not narrative
All treatises are written in narrative form. For example, if the author is addressing pretext, he or she will write a few paragraphs on pretext with footnotes to cases supporting each particular point. The reader then looks to the footnotes and hopes there is a case from his or her circuit. If so, then the reader finds the case and determines whether the author has correctly cited the case.  In writing our treatise, we chose a different path.  The treatise is broken down into very narrow points of law and for each point of law, we hope to eventually have a quote from each circuit addressing that point of law.

So for example, let's assume you want to research whether the failure of the employer to follow company policy is evidence of pretext. You would go to our Treatise Index and look under "pretext." There you would find the following page link: 4.743.40 Failure to follow company rules or policies.

Click here to see a sample of that page of the treatise in a new window. Close that window to return here.

Continuation of "Treatise is not narrative" discussion
On this one page of the treatise, you hopefully found a case from your circuit with a citation directly on point. If not, you at least found cases from several other circuits. It took us two years to review cases from the last ten years and select various points of law. We now are going back and filling in gaps. But once again, not every circuit has addressed every issue.

Treatise index is open to the public
Our treatise index is open for your perusal. However, if you click on a link to a page of the treatise, you will not be allowed access because only subscribers have username/password combinations to access the treatise. If you wish to examine the treatise index, we suggest you start with "Pretext." To do so, click here and you will arrive at the "P" listings of the treatise index. Once on that page, scroll down to "Pretext."