Citation support

Citation check answers one question: does this citation exist in the library. This endpoint answers the question a lawyer actually cares about: does the opinion behind that citation support the proposition it is cited for. A citation the library cannot resolve comes back unverified, with the same meaning as on the check endpoint, never a claim that the citation does not exist.

POST/citations/supportkey, session or site demoCheck whether one citation supports one proposition.

Request

Field	Type	Notes
`citation`	string	1 to 200 characters, as written: 488 U.S. 222.
`proposition`	string	10 to 600 characters. The legal statement you want the citation to support, in your own words.
`jurisdiction`	string, optional	Only `"tx"` is accepted today. Reserved for future jurisdictions; omit it for Texas.

Unknown fields are rejected (the schema is strict).

200 OK: supports

{
  "status": "found",
  "verdict": "supports",
  "quote": "A trial court abuses its discretion when it acts without reference to any guiding rules or principles.",
  "passage": "…A trial court abuses its discretion when it acts without reference to any guiding rules or principles. The mere fact that a trial court may decide a matter within its discretionary authority differently than an appellate court…",
  "case": { "name": "Downer v. Aquamarine Operators, Inc.", "citation": "701 S.W.2d 238", "court": "Tex.", "date": "1985-11-13" },
  "took_ms": 812,
  "request_id": "req_a1b2c3d4e5f6a7b8c9d0"
}

200 OK: unverified (citation not in the library)

{
  "status": "unverified",
  "note": "not in the DocketRouter library or the bulk citation table; absence is not evidence the citation is fabricated",
  "took_ms": 34,
  "request_id": "req_f6e5d4c3b2a1908070605"
}

Status and verdict

status is about the citation. verdict, present only when status is found, is about whether the resolved opinion supports your proposition.

Verdict	Meaning	quote / passage
supports	A passage from the opinion was found and, either by lexical overlap with your proposition's key terms or by the liaison model's judgment, supports it.	Both present. `quote` is the exact supporting sentence or clause.
does_not_support	A passage was found and reviewed but does not support the proposition.	`passage` present so you can see what was checked; no `quote`.
unclear	The citation resolved, but the index could not be searched, no passage restricted to that case was found, or the review was inconclusive.	Either or both of `quote` / `passage` may be absent.

A quote is verbatim or it is not there

Every quote is verified as an exact substring of passage before it is returned (whitespace differences aside). If a candidate quote does not check out, the verdict is downgraded to unclear and no quote is sent. DocketRouter never composes or paraphrases a quote on your behalf.

passage is capped at 1,200 characters. It is the retrieved text the verdict was based on, not the whole opinion, so read the source at case.citation before relying on the verdict in anything you file.

Examples

check whether a citation supports a proposition

curl https://docketrouter.ai/api/v1/citations/support \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer dr-…" -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "citation": "701 S.W.2d 238",
    "proposition": "A trial court abuses its discretion when it acts without reference to guiding rules or principles."
  }' | jq '{status, verdict, quote}'

Limits

Limit	Value	On breach
`citation`	1 to 200 characters	400
`proposition`	10 to 600 characters	400
Request body	64 KB	413
Calls per key or session	30 per minute, burst 10	429 with Retry-After
Calls from the site demo	10 per minute per IP, burst 3	429 with Retry-After

Retrieval is capped at 20 seconds and the liaison review at 30 seconds. Either one timing out degrades the response to verdict: "unclear", never a 500.

Something here wrong or missing? Mail hello@docketrouter.ai with the request_id and we will fix the docs or the API, whichever is broken.