Define: Case Review
Case Review is a contract clause requiring a structured examination of a specific incident, dispute, complaint, or procedural failure to determine what happened, whether obligations were met, and what remedial action is needed. It sets out who conducts the review, the timeline, the scope of documents examined, and how findings must be reported to the parties.
Legal accuracy standard set & glossary spot-checked by Imad Mohammed Nazar , Skadden-trained M&A lawyer, Legal Engineer at GenieAI
What Case Review Means in a Contract
A Case Review clause obligates one or both parties to undertake a formal examination of a discrete event, transaction, or performance failure once it has occurred. Unlike ongoing monitoring, a case review is retrospective and triggered, usually by a complaint, an incident, a dispute over deliverables, or a regulatory inquiry. The clause exists to give the parties a documented, repeatable process for finding out what actually happened before liability, remediation, or termination decisions are made.
In practice, the term functions as a procedural safeguard. It tells the reader that when something goes wrong, there is a defined mechanism, rather than an ad hoc conversation, for establishing facts. This matters commercially because it reduces the risk that one party unilaterally decides the outcome of a dispute without the other having an opportunity to be heard or to see the evidence relied upon.
Case Review provisions are common in service agreements, employment-adjacent contracts, and regulated industries where an audit trail of decision-making is expected by regulators or insurers.
How Case Review Is Defined or Measured
Because.
Relevant Circumstances
- Assessment of medical incidents within a health-care facility or clinic
- Evaluation of business procedures within an organization