Research guide
How to check if a case is still good law in Australia
Before you cite an Australian case in a submission, an essay, or a brief to a supervising solicitor, you need to know the current status of the authority. A case that was leading when it was decided can be overruled, distinguished into a narrow fact pattern, or overtaken by a legislative change. This guide walks you through the four-step check that a careful researcher runs before relying on any authority.
Last updated 12 April 2026. Written by the CaseSharp team in Sydney. This is research guidance, not legal advice. Consult a qualified practitioner before relying on an authority in a live matter.
Short answer
Open the authority page on a case citator. Look at the treatment badge at the top: followed, applied, distinguished, or overruled. Read the paragraph-level citator for later cases that have touched the authority. Check whether the underlying legislation has been amended or repealed. If everything checks out, cite with confidence. If any step raises a red flag, find a newer authority or escalate to a practitioner.
What does “good law” mean?
An authority is “good law” when the proposition you want to rely on is still accepted by later courts and has not been overturned, distinguished into irrelevance, or superseded by legislation. The test is not whether the case exists. It is whether the point you are citing the case for is still sound.
This matters because an Australian court, a supervising solicitor, and a marker all judge research by whether the cited authorities actually support the proposition. Citing a case that has been overruled on the point you relied on is the fastest way to lose credibility in a submission or an assignment.
The four-step check
Find the case
Open a case citator that covers Australian case law across federal, state, and territory jurisdictions. Search by citation if you have one, by party name if you have the parties, or by plain English if you only have the issue. Once you have the case open, note the citation, the court, and the decision date. You need those three facts for the later steps.
Check direct treatment
Look at the treatment badge on the authority page. CaseSharp surfaces four core treatments: followed, applied, distinguished, and overruled. Followed means a later court expressly adopted the reasoning for a similar fact pattern. Applied means a later court used the reasoning without needing to adopt it as precedent. Distinguished means a later court accepted the reasoning but held it did not apply to the facts in front of them. Overruled means a higher court expressly rejected the reasoning. A single case can carry more than one treatment depending on which part you are relying on, which is why the paragraph-level view matters.
Read the paragraph-level citator
Scan the list of later cases that cite the authority, and the specific paragraphs they rely on. If the later case distinguished on a fact pattern similar to yours, the authority may no longer speak to your matter. If the later case applied the principle across a wide range of fact patterns, you can cite with more confidence. The paragraph-level citator is the difference between knowing a case was cited and knowing what it was cited for.
Check legislative overlay
If the case turns on statutory interpretation, check whether the relevant section has been amended or repealed since the decision. An authority can be good law on the common law point and superseded on the statutory point in the same judgment. The legislation explorer on CaseSharp maps each section of an Australian Act to every case that has interpreted it, so you can see at a glance whether a later amendment has moved the ground beneath the authority.
A worked example: Donoghue v Stevenson
Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] UKHL 100 established the modern law of negligence. A manufacturer owes a duty of care to the ultimate consumer of their product, even where there is no contract between them. The neighbour principle in Lord Atkin’s speech is the part most cited.
Running the four-step check on Donoghue v Stevenson in an Australian research context: step one confirms the case and its citation. Step two shows that later Australian courts have followed and applied the neighbour principle for decades, most recently refined by the High Court in Sullivan v Moody (2001) 207 CLR 562 on the duty test and the appropriate salient features for novel categories. Step three shows that the paragraph-level citator lists hundreds of later Australian cases that apply the principle, with distinguished treatment limited to specific fact patterns. Step four reveals the statutory overlay: the Civil Liability Acts in each Australian state and territory now govern the duty, breach, and causation analysis for personal injury, so the common law principle is still sound but the statute controls the application.
The conclusion: Donoghue v Stevenson is still good law for the core neighbour principle, but a modern submission on duty of care in a personal injury matter would cite the relevant Civil Liability Act alongside the common law foundation.
Red flags that should stop you citing
- An overruled treatment badge on the paragraph you want to cite.
- A distinguished treatment in a later case with the same fact pattern as yours.
- A statutory amendment to the controlling section after the decision.
- A High Court decision that revisits the area and narrows or rewrites the test.
- An inconsistent line of intermediate appellate authority on the point, suggesting the area is unsettled.
Frequently asked questions
- How often should I re-check an authority I rely on regularly?
- Before every substantive use. Treatment can change overnight when a later case lands. A watchlist on CaseSharp can alert you when a new authority cites or distinguishes a case in your research history.
- Is an “applied” badge the same as “followed”?
- Close, not identical. Followed signals expressly adopting the reasoning. Applied signals using the reasoning in practice. A followed badge carries more persuasive weight, but both indicate the authority still speaks to the area.
- What if I cannot find the treatment I need?
- Absence of treatment is itself a signal. A case with no later treatment in an active area of law may have been quietly set aside by practice. Ask a supervising solicitor or a tutor before relying on a case with a silent citator trail.
- Can CaseSharp check this for me?
- Yes. Every authority page on CaseSharp surfaces the treatment badge at the top, the paragraph-level citator, the legislation overlay, and an AI-generated plain-English summary grounded in the verified judgment text. The four-step check collapses into a single glance.
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