Verbatim, or it doesn't exist.
Every holding in ClauseDelta is built from the actual language of a court's opinion — not a summary, not a paraphrase, not a model's interpretation. A deterministic provenance gate sits in the data layer itself: before any holding can be marked verified, both the quoted covenant language and the court's disposition must be found as an exact, character-for-character substring of the source opinion. Anything that fails is dropped or flagged unverified. A model that invents a quote cannot bank a holding.
Source from the primary record
Holdings are drawn from published court opinions (via CourtListener / the Free Law Project) and official regulatory actions — the primary record, not secondary commentary.
Extract the operative language
We isolate the verbatim covenant wording the court analyzed and the exact sentence stating how it was treated — enforced, struck, narrowed, blue-penciled, or split.
Gate on verbatim provenance
The provenance gate verifies both quotes are exact substrings of the source and that a resolvable citation/link exists. No verbatim match, no verified holding.
Link back to the source
Every published holding carries a link to the original opinion so you — or your counsel — can read it in full. Nothing is asserted that you can't check yourself.
We tell you how sure we are.
Verification is necessary but not the whole story. Each holding carries an explicit confidence band, and we never quietly inflate it.
Outcomes are colour-coded everywhere on the site by what actually happened to the clause:
When we don't know, we say so.
Restrictive-covenant law is decided state by state, and most disputes settle without a published ruling. So our coverage is deep where litigation is dense and thin elsewhere — and we show that honestly. If we don't yet have a verified ruling we can quote for your state, the checker says exactly that, rather than inventing a general answer. Coverage grows continuously as new decisions land and our engine ingests them.
FAQ
Where do the rulings come from?
Published court opinions and official regulatory actions — the primary record, accessed via CourtListener (the Free Law Project) and government sources. US court opinions are public domain.
How do you make sure nothing is fabricated?
A deterministic provenance gate requires both the quoted covenant language and the court's disposition to be exact, character-for-character substrings of the source opinion before a holding can be verified. Quotes that aren't found are dropped. The check is mechanical, not a matter of trust.
Is this legal advice?
No. It's an informational early-warning signal. Enforceability is fact- and jurisdiction-specific; consult a licensed attorney before acting.
Why doesn't my state have results?
Coverage is deepest where restrictive-covenant litigation is densest. If we don't yet have a verified, quotable ruling for your state, we tell you plainly rather than guess — and coverage expands continuously.
How current is the data?
The corpus is rebuilt and re-published on a recurring schedule as new opinions are ingested. Each holding is time-stamped, and the change-alert tier (in development) will notify you the moment a new ruling affects wording like yours.
About
ClauseDelta is a product of Cedarstone Ventures LLC — a company that builds decision-grade data products linking primary sources to real-world outcomes. The clause-risk engine is the flagship: a time-stamped record of which exact contract wording wins or loses, where and when.