In Exhibit 12-4, the first two notes are from a U.S. District Court decision applying Massachusetts law. The most important part of many digest volumes is the annual pocket part supplement, which provides access to the recent cases. For newly developing areas of law, such as social host liability, this may be the place where all relevant cases are found. Supplements too bulky to fit in the back of the volume are issued as freestanding pamphlets, and eventually the material may be recompiled and republished as two separate volumes. Each digest is further updated between annual supplements by an additional pamphlet issued every few months, and the latest cases can be found through digests in recent reporter volumes and advance sheets.
Researchers can access state digests in two ways.
This index, usually occupying three or four volumes, lists factual and legal concepts appearing in the digest. The basic format is the same from state to state because the indexes are based on digest topics and key number definitions, rather than state case law. Even if a state has no cases on a particular issue, it remains in the index. The descriptive-word indexes are not always responsive to developments in state case law. The index volumes are updated with annual pocket parts, but these are invariably scrawny supplements that do not even attempt to keep track of state case law developments.