Evidence is not unfairly prejudicial simply because it is detrimental to a party’s case.
State v. Kooyman, 112 P.3d 1252 (Utah Ct. App. 2005)

Court’s inherent power to sanction is not a broad reservoir of power, ready at the imperial hand, but a limited source, an implied power squeezed from need to make the court function.
In re Pastran, 2011 WL 5835726 (Bankr. N.D. Tex. Nov. 21, 2011)
Suggested by Barbara A. Bozonie, Principal Attorney Editor, Westlaw

A major challenge of issue-based legal research is that most legal search engines are very literal. Literal search engines – such as Natural Language on westlaw.com – rely heavily on the actual words you use to search. This makes it necessary for you to write a search query that includes every possible variation of how your issue could be described.

Enter WestSearch^® on WestlawNext^®.

Descriptive Terms for Relevant Results

WestSearch – a new and highly innovative algorithm created at West – dramatically improves the quality and ranking of search results.  Check out this video to learn how the WestSearch algorithm works, and how to use it:

For additional training resources, visit: www.westelearning.com

See our entire YouTube archive at westlawinsider.com/videos

Under the Hood of WestSearch

Let’s take a look at the key components of the WestSearch algorithm:

• West Key Number System – This is the foundation of WestSearch. Because thousands of West attorney-editors have read, summarized and classified the law by topic for over 100 years, WestSearch can identify the topics of law best represented by the terms of your search and return highly relevant documents for those topics – even if the documents don’t have the terms you put into the search box.
  
• KeyCite – KeyCite maps the citation network among all federal and state cases in West’s^® National Reporter System^® (as well as over 1 million unpublished cases), federal and state statutes, and thousands of secondary source publications. WestSearch analyzes the rich connections among documents, making your results more inclusive and bringing the most relevant documents to the top of the list.
  
• West Secondary Sources – With thousands of practice guides, legal encyclopedias, and authoritative treatises, WestSearch can find primary law that is heavily discussed in each jurisdiction and detect similar phrases that apply to your concepts.

By leveraging these assets, WestSearch can identify legal issues, follow connections between documents, and even return highly relevant documents that don’t contain your exact search terms. For example, if two documents share the same Key Number and cite to the same authority, WestSearch can connect those two documents, even if they do not share the same language. This is the same process that attorneys perform on westlaw.com today – researching Key Numbers and investigating KeyCite for citing references – WestSearch just automates the process so you can find the right answers in a matter of minutes instead of hours.

Terms “really mean” and “really stupid,” as they were applied in TXO in evaluating propriety of ratio between compensatory and punitive damages, are removed from lexicon of reviewing amount of punitive damage award.
Alkire v. First Nat. Bank of Parsons, 475 S.E.2d 122 (W. Va. 1996)
Suggested by Chip Smith, Senior Research Librarian; Bowles Rice McDavid Graff & Love; Charleston, WV

Where God and man collaborate in causing flood damage, man must pay at least for his share of the blame.
Mark Downs, Inc. v. McCormick Properties, Inc., 441 A.2d 1119 (Md. Ct. Spec. App. 1982)

State presented insufficient evidence that defendant, who threw balls of wet toilet paper at correction officer, attempted to cause injury by means of a dangerous instrument to support conviction for attempted assault in the second degree; instruments consisted of compressed balls of wet toilet paper, some of which were mixed with banana, defendant threw balls from distance of 12 to 15 feet, and ball which struck officer was small enough to pass through one of the 2 1/2-inch openings in protective grate.
People v. Travis, 711 N.Y.S.2d 514 (App. Div. 2000)
Suggested by Andrea Wan, Senior Court Attorney; New York Unified Court System; Brooklyn, NY

Term “summary judgment” is something of a misnomer; it suggests judicial process that is simple, abbreviated, and inexpensive, while in reality, process is complicated, time-consuming, and expensive.
Fesler v. Whelen Eng’g Co., Inc., 794 F. Supp. 2d 994 (S.D. Iowa 2011)
Suggested by David F. Herr, Partner and Thomson Reuters Author; Maslon Edelman Borman & Brand, LLP; Minneapolis, MN

Since one twin was ordered by court to give handwriting samples after being arrested for using stolen credit card, the other twin’s appearing and giving the handwriting samples was designed to prevent his brother from so doing and amounted to obstruction of justice.
Elliott v. U.S., 385 A.2d 183 (D.C. 1978)
Suggested by Kara Boucher, Principal Attorney Editor, Westlaw

Negotiation of class counsel’s attorneys’ fees is not exempt from truism that there is no such thing as a free lunch.
Staton v. Boeing Co., 327 F.3d 938 (9th Cir. 2003)

It is a well-recognized fact that big persons fall harder than small ones.
Garbutt v. Schechter, 334 P.2d 225 (Cal. Ct. App. 1959)
Suggested by Sara Dudley, Librarian; Severson & Werson; San Francisco, CA