Common Law

Jessica

BUSN 420

Week 1

Common law is defined as, “The body of law developed from custom or judicial decisions in English and U.S. Courts, not attributable to a legislature.” (Miller, 2012, p. 7) The beginnings of Common law began when the king’s courts wanted to establish a uniform set of rules for the country as a whole. Common law is just simply a set of general rules that applied to everyone in the English realm. It has now become a tradition of all nations that were once British colonies, to include the United States. Courts establish common laws based on decisions made by underlying judges in actual legal controversies. It is important for Judge’s to be consistent and common laws help provide a foundation to follow. Decisions made by Judge’s affect the laws and it was important for them to make similar rulings on similar cases which is what we know as precedent. Precedent is defined as, “A court decision that furnishes an example or authority for deciding subsequent cases involving identical or similar facts.” (Miller, 2012, p. 7) Basically precedent is using a decision made in a similar case that happened before to help decide the ruling on the current case. It is important to decide cases that are the same in nature in the same way. Laws are open to interpretation and precedents help when making new decisions.

There are many laws and many different sources of American Law. There are both primary sources of law and secondary sources of law. Primary sources of law are, “Documents that establishes the law on particular issues.” (Miller, 2012, p. 5) Examples of primary sources of law include the U.S. Constitution and the constitutions of the various states, statutes or laws passed by Congress and state legislatures, case law, and regulations created by administrative agencies. Secondary sources of law are articles and books that clarify the primary source of law. Examples include legal encyclopedias, and compilations. Officials’ comments to statutes...