When law students search for the written law, they normally think in terms of accessing statutory codes or a court’s decision interpreting law on a subject. What if nothing is found on point? An important alternative often not considered by law students is the administrative code of a jurisdiction. The states’ administrative codes as well as the federal government’s Code of Federal Regulations publish rules and regulations of their administrative agencies (as well as commissions, bureaus, boards, etc.). These entities have been created and delegated administrative powers through acts of the normal legislative process. Their defined powers can be quite specific or very broad; often these agencies are given specialized duties which are too detailed and burdensome for the legislative branch to handle. Within these delegated powers, the agencies have the freedom to create and enforce policy and procedure for their subject areas so long as they pass judicial scrutiny.

ALABAMA ADMINISTRATIVE LAW

Most Alabama state agencies include their regulations in the ALABAMA ADMINISTRATIVE CODE (shelf 102, First Floor).1 While this set publishes regulations of high profile state agencies (i.e., Medicaid, Alabama Department of Environmental Management, Health Department, Education Department, Revenue Department and Department of Human Resources) it also includes many lesser known ones (i.e., Board of Funeral Service, Board of Auctioneers and Athletic Agents Regulatory Commission).

Unfortunately, not all agencies are required to publish their regulations in Alabama’s version; the Banking Department and the Insurance Department are two prominent agencies which do not.2

Legal researchers who already know the appropriate state agency for the subject matter in question can usually find the agency regulations without much problem; the agencies are organized in the code in alphabetical order with a table of contents at the beginning of each agency’s section. A common problem, however, is that the researcher may not know the name of the agency involved. In this situation, it is best to consult the subject index of WEIL’S GUIDE TO ALABAMA LAWS AND RULES (Shelf 102, First Floor). This index is cumulative for all agency entries and indexes sections of both the statutory and administrative codes for Alabama. However, there is insufficient detail to this index, causing considerable anguish to researchers looking for many specific topics. In many cases, online searching may be the best option. There are several other sections to this publication which can be of helpto the researcher. The “rule number” section lists administrative code sections in numerical order, providing the subject of the provision as well as its statutory authority. The “authority” section of the publication provides this information in reverse order; the list is prepared in order of statutory code section, giving the regulations that have been promulgated from its authority.

OTHER STATE ADMINISTRATIVE CODES

Due to the size of such sets and the costs involved to maintain them, few, if any, law libraries contain all fifty hard copy state administrative codes. Typically, a law library will only hold the code of the home state. Besides Alabama, the Cumberland Law Library holds administrative code sets for Tennessee and Georgia. If a legal researcher is needing state administrative regulations for states outside the local area, online research is a good possibility. Both LEXIS and WESTLAW have the administrative codes as well as commercial services (Regulation Tracking and RegAlert, from WESTLAW and LEXIS, respectively) which update this information, though not necessarily in official format. Many of the official state “administrative register” updates are available from LEXIS, though these databases tend to lag in information from the commercial service updates.

FEDERAL ADMINISTRATIVE LAW

Each year, the federal government publishes a new edition of the CODE OF FEDERAL REGULATIONS, the official rules and regulations of all federal agencies. This set is updated every business day by the federal government in the FEDERAL REGISTER. The CFR and FEDERAL REGISTER can be found in print format on shelf 330 (Third Floor) while online versions can be found on WESTLAW, LEXIS and the Government Printing Office website (http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr). For further information about how to use these two publications together, go to http://lawlib.samford.edu/reference/fedregs.html.

If you have any questions about using state or federal administrative materials, see Ed Craig or Brenda Jones in the Law Library.

1The ALABAMA ADMINISTRATIVE CODE can also be found online in such places as WESTLAW (database identifier AL-ADC), LEXIS (AL;ALADMN) as well as http://www.alabamaadministrativecode.state.al.us/ on the Internet.

2The Law Library does hold the Alabama insurance regulations in ALABAMA REGULATIONS: CONTAINING INSURANCE DEPARTMENT REGULATIONS AND BULLETINS, AND SELECTED ATTORNEY GENERAL’S OPINIONS, also referred to as the “NILS Service” (KFA185/.A4/Reference). These regulations may also be found in WESTLAW (database identifier ALIN-ADC) and LEXIS (INSURE;ALREGS). The Law Library does not currently hold the Banking Department regulations.

Another #@$!% Traffic Ticket, at http://www.cnn.com (Jan. 9, 2003)

Warning! Keep your pants on when sitting in the massage chair. That safety tip is the winner of the annual Wacky Warning Label contest. The text of the label reads: "Do not use massage chair without clothing ... and, never force any body part into the backrest area while the rollers are moving." The second place label warns not to use a snowblower on a roof. That's followed by the label that warns: "Do not allow children to play in the dishwasher." The contest is sponsored by Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch. The group wants to show that fear of lawsuits has led to a loss of corporate common sense.

Warning! These Warnings Are Absurd!, at http://www.cbsnews.com (Jan. 9, 2003).

The City Council has taken the first step to repeal the city's 82-year-old ban on fortune telling.

The council voted Wednesday to remove the law from the city's books. Two more "yes" votes are needed to end the ban.

Public Safety Commissioner David Zahn predicted last fall that the repeal was likely after a religious leader who said fortune telling is used in his faith approached the city about rescinding the ban.

City staff decided it would be best to repeal the law because a court challenge based on freedom of religion might win.

"We decided to repeal it to see how it plays out and then go from there," Zahn said. "Whether we get into licensing is yet to be determined."

Iowa Repeals Fortune Telling Law, at http://www.cnn.com (Jan. 10, 2003).

A man who erased his drunk-driving record from a police computer and replaced it with a winking "smiley face" graphic ended up with a suspended license and a fine when police failed to see the funny side.

The 19-year-old computer whiz had been arrested for drunk driving and summoned to appear in court in Besancon, in eastern France, the French daily Liberation reported Tuesday. Finding an unmanned computer as he arrived at the police station for his hearing, the man decided to test the good humor of the court by sneaking into the database.

He deleted his file from the computer's hard drive and inserted ";)" -- the text message shorthand for a winking smiley face -- in its place.

But rather than smiling at the prank, the judge handed the man a three-month suspended prison sentence, a $425 fine and suspended his driving license for three months.

Cops Not Amused at Drunk Driver's Smiley, at http://www.cnn.com (Jan. 21, 2003).

For additional information, see http://webpages.charter.net/southernsisters/conference.html and http://webpages.charter.net/southernsisters/schedule.html.

Southern Sisters in Crime is the Birmingham chapter of Sisters in Crime, which is "an international organization of writers, readers, booksellers, librarians, agents, editors, reviewers and teachers interested in promoting the work of women mystery writers."

There are two new HP 4400C ScanJet scanners in the Lower Level Lab. In order to start scanning, please click on the HP Precisionscan Pro icon on the desktop of Lower Level Lab computers 6 and 9.

Double clicking the icon will start the HP Precisionscan Pro software. From the Precisionscan screen, click the Start a New Scan button once. The scanner will start to warm up.

If OCR is selected, be sure to choose Scan To. This will allow the document to be scanned to WordPerfect, Word, or Adobe Acrobat. Remember to save the scanned document to a disk or CD as nothing may be saved to the hard drive of the computer.

If there are any questions, contact Grace Simms at glsimms@samford.edu or call 726-2714.

Students may request the number of pages added back to print accounts if they fall under an exemption. Exemption forms are available at the Circulation Desk as well as the Lower Level Lab. Exemptions include résumés, poor quality, and directed research. Read the print policy: http://lawlib.samford.edu/labs/ppolicy.pdf

Be patient with the printers. If a print job does not print quickly, don't hit the print button again. This will just send another print job to the printer. Selecting print again will not make the printer print any faster. If the printer fails to print, contact Grace Simms at 2687, or, in the evenings and on Sundays, Brenda Jones at 2624.

When working in the labs, always save documents frequently to a disk or CD-ROM. The lab computers are no longer able to save work to the hard drive.

If help is needed with the above or other lab questions, contact Grace Simms (glsimms@samford.edu).

The CHECK IT OUT is published three times a semester. Your opinion is important to us! Send your ideas and/or comments to: Becky Hutto at rmhutto@samford.edu.