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 — 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.