Can I still rely on this case, and to what extent?
That is the one question a treatment classification has to answer. A flag on an opinion cannot answer it, because a litigator does not cite opinions. A litigator cites a holding. This is the classification standard Legawrite.AI holds its treatment data to: every relationship between a later opinion and an earlier holding, classified by scope, severity and mechanism.
Your citator flags the case. The law happens to the holding.
The unit of classification is the specific holding, not the case.
A single citing opinion may overrule one holding of a cited case, distinguish a second, and follow a third, all within the same opinion. Each of those relationships is classified separately. The classification describes what the later court did to the earlier holding’s authority. It does not describe what the later court did in general, and it does not describe who won.
A misclassification cuts both ways. It can lead an attorney to cite dead law in a brief, or to abandon a perfectly valid argument because its authority looks undermined when it is not. So the governing philosophy is conservative: when in doubt, over-flag rather than under-flag. It is far less harmful to investigate a flagged holding and find it sound than to rely on one that has been silently gutted.
Three dimensions of every classification
- Scope
- Does the treatment reach the entire case, a specific holding, a specific factual application, or mere dicta?
- Severity
- How much damage, or support, does it do to the holding’s authority?
- Mechanism
- Direct appellate reversal, coordinate-court disagreement, legislative supersession, doctrinal shift, factual distinction.
The idea is two centuries old. In 1819 Joseph Story advised Simon Greenleaf that a citation index should record the degree of negative treatment, because some cases were not fully overturned but had doubt cast on them, had only parts reversed, or were limited to specific cases. Recounted in Ogden, 85 Law Library Journal 1 (1993).
Before you classify the treatment, find the thing being treated.
Holding
The court’s resolution of a legal question that was necessary to the disposition. Three parts: the rule or standard, the material facts it was applied to, and the conclusion reached.
Dicta
Statements the outcome did not need. Dicta cannot be overruled, because it was never binding. When a later court repudiates influential dicta, that is its own classifiable event, not an overruling.
Alternative holdings
Two independent grounds for one result are both holdings. Neither is dicta. A later case that undermines one and leaves the other intact has weakened the case, not destroyed it.
Levels of generality
A holding can be read broadly or narrowly, and later courts may undermine one reading while preserving the other. Treatment is classified at the level at which the citing court engages.
Posture decides what a disagreement means.
A case that survives a motion to dismiss and a case that fails at summary judgment are not in conflict. They are ships passing in the night.
The first court held only that the complaint stated a plausible claim. The second answered a different procedural question, under a higher evidentiary burden. That is a distinction on procedural posture, not negative treatment on the merits. The same discipline applies on direct appeal, where the standard of review decides what a reversal means.
The critical rule
When an appellate court reverses on factual grounds, the legal holdings of the reversed case are not overruled. The law the lower court announced may be perfectly correct; it simply got the facts wrong. And when a court affirms in part and reverses in part, each component is classified separately. A holding the appellate court never reached stands by default.
| Standard of review | What it reviews | What a reversal means | How the treatment is classified |
|---|---|---|---|
| De novo | Pure legal questions, statutory interpretation, constitutional law. | The appellate court disagrees with the legal conclusion. | Reversed, on the specific legal holding. |
| Abuse of discretion | Procedural rulings, evidentiary decisions, discovery, sanctions. | The ruling was so unreasonable no rational judge could have reached it. | Reversed, with the narrow scope noted. The legal standard itself may be undisturbed. |
| Clear error | Factual findings in bench trials. | A definite and firm conviction the finding was wrong. | Reversed on the facts only. Legal holdings survive unless separately addressed. |
| Substantial evidence | Agency fact-finding. | The finding lacked any reasonable evidentiary basis. | As with clear error, the legal framework typically survives. |
More than thirty treatments, five signals.
Without major caveats.
- Overruled
- Reversed, on the holding you are citing
- Vacated
- Superseded by statute, on the rule you are citing
- Abrogated
Check which part, which grounds, which court.
- Questioned
- Abrogated by statute
- Overruled in part
- Undermined
- Reversed on other grounds
- Declined to follow, in your jurisdiction
The reasoning may not be endorsed.
- Criticized
- Limited
- Declined to extend
- Affirmed on other grounds
Positive treatment.
- Followed
- Affirmed
- Adopted
- Approved
- Harmonized
Neutral, informational.
- Cited
- Discussed
- Explained
- Distinguished, in other factual contexts
Severity runs from overruled, reversed and vacated at the top, through abrogated and superseded, questioned and declined to follow, undermined, criticized and limited, down to declined to extend. Distinguished sits below all of them because it is neutral, not negative.
Six places where the wrong word changes the brief.
Overruled, abrogated, undermined
The difference between the first two is explicitness. “We overrule Smith” is overruled. A rule from a court with authority that makes Smith logically impossible to follow, without ever naming it, is abrogated. Tension is not incompatibility: if both rules can coexist, even uncomfortably, the word is undermined.
Reversed and vacated
A reversal destroys the judgment but not necessarily the reasoning. If the appellate court reversed on one issue and never reached another, the unreached analysis may still persuade. A vacated opinion has been set aside as a legal nullity, and in theory should not be cited at all.
Limited and distinguished
Distinguished is a finding that the case does not fit these facts. It remains fully authoritative for its own. Limited narrows the holding as a matter of law: the case has lost legal territory, permanently. One is neutral. The other is a warning.
Declined to follow and overruled
A coordinate court cannot overrule another coordinate court. When one circuit reaches the opposite conclusion from another, neither case is overruled. Both remain good law where they were decided, and the split itself is a fact worth knowing.
Superseded and abrogated by statute
Superseded means the legislature expressly targeted the rule. Abrogated by statute means a statute made the holding inoperative without aiming at it. Either way the case may keep its value for matters arising under the old law, and for reading the statute that replaced it.
Drift that no flag records
Holdings can shift over time without a single opinion declaring the old rule overruled. A standard articulated in one decade is applied with growing skepticism in the next and quietly abandoned in the one after. Both lines coexist in the corpus, and no negative treatment signal was ever generated. Seeing that drift takes aggregation across cases, not a flag on one. When a case is distinguished again and again on grounds that look pretextual, the pattern itself is the treatment.
Contested law, in How it works →Eight ways a treatment gets misread.
Different result means overruled
That is a circuit split. Neither case is overruled. Both are good law in their own circuits.
Reversed means every holding is dead
Look at what was reversed. A reversal on issue B leaves the analysis of issue A standing as persuasive authority.
Cert denied means approved
Denial of certiorari carries no precedential weight. It says nothing about the merits.
Old means bad
Age alone is not negative treatment. Many foundational cases are decades old and remain pillars of their doctrines.
The dicta was overruled
Dicta cannot be overruled, because it was never a holding. Record the disagreement for what it is.
Same topic means treatment
If the newer case never cites or engages the older one, there is no treatment to classify.
Distinguishing is negative
Distinguishing is neutral. The case remains fully authoritative for its own facts and legal context.
Posture mismatch
Surviving a motion to dismiss and losing at summary judgment answer different procedural questions.
Eight questions, then two examples.
Asked before any classification is applied
- Which holding?
What specific holding of the cited case does the citing case engage with?
- Authority?
Does the citing court have the power to overrule the cited case?
- Same case?
Is this a direct appeal in the same case, or a different case?
- Posture?
What was the procedural posture of both cases?
- Standard of review?
If appellate, which standard applied?
- Express or implied?
Did the court say it, or does it follow by necessary implication?
- How much?
Does the treatment reach the entire case or only one holding?
- Result or reasoning?
If the holding survives, is the reasoning endorsed too, or only the result?
Distinguished or limited?
Case A holds that a warrant is required to search a home, including any structure attached to it. Case B holds that Case A does not reach a detached garage fifty feet away: distinguished, and Case A is undisturbed. Case C holds that Case A applies only to the dwelling itself and not to attached structures such as screened porches: limited, and Case A has permanently lost legal territory.
Superseded by statute
Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 550 U.S. 618 (2007), held that the limitations period for a Title VII pay discrimination claim runs from each discrete pay decision. Congress answered with the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, which resets the period with each paycheck. The statute was enacted in direct response to the decision: superseded by statute, on that rule.
The doctrinal claims in this standard are supported by more than ninety treatise and law review sources, on stare decisis and hierarchical authority, the holding and dicta distinction, standards of review, vacatur, statutory supersession, plurality opinions, unpublished opinions and the Erie doctrine.
Your citator flags the case. We flag the sentence.
Bring a motion you’re nervous about. In a demo we check the holdings you are relying on, one proposition at a time, on your own authorities.