Digest Law and Legal Definition
Digest is an index of legal propositions showing which cases support each proposition. It can also be a collection of summaries of reported cases, arranged by subject and subdivided by jurisdiction and court. The main purpose of a digest is to make the contents of reports available and to separate, from the great mass of caselaw, those cases bearing on some specific point. The American Digest System covers the decisions of all American courts of last resort, state and federal, from 1658 to present.
In Civil law digest refers to a compilation and systematic statement of the various areas of law, chiefly, the Pandects of Justinian in 50 books, known as the Digest. This is also referred to as digesta.
