On Friday, April 15 Westlaw informed users across the nation
that various hard-copy reporters and their online counterparts contained
errors. Some 600 cases published since November 2014 erroneously omitted small
portions of case text.
In March, Thomson Reuters became
aware that small portions of text were missing in a number of new cases posted
to Westlaw due to the introduction of an upgrade to our PDF conversion process
in November 2014. We immediately conducted an investigation, which revealed
that approximately one-half of one percent (0.5%) of total decisions added to
our collection during this period were affected by these issues.
The email said that none of the omissions “resulted in any
change to the meaning of the law.” The errors should not impact headnotes or
Keycite classifications. The online versions should reflect the corrections.
According to the FAQ released with the general email:
We traced the problem to an upgrade
to the PDF conversion process that takes opinions from the courts and puts them
in a format that can be published on Westlaw and in print. The problem has now
been resolved, and we have created new processes to keep the error from
reoccurring.
Westlaw posted a full list of the corrected cases and
included examples of the omissions.
So far, Westlaw has not disclosed how the error came to
light. Did its in-house quality control discover it or was it tipped off by an
outside source?
Westlaw identified 104 reporters that the Kathrine R.
Everett Law Library currently contains in its collection that will be
re-printed and replaced. The Law Library will post more information on the
replacement of the affected volumes once those details become available.
Posted by Stacey L. Rowland on Wed. April 20, 2016 9:24 AM
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