Case Law

A Case Law is a body of law that consists of written decisions of courts and judges which interpret and create precedents for future legal decisions.

• AKA: Precedent Law, Judge-made Law.
• Context:
  • It can include decisions from trial courts and appeals courts.
  • It can be a primary source of law with precedential value.
  • …
• Example(s):
  • U.S. Case Law,
  • Canadian Case Law,
  • Judicial Decisions,
  • Legal Precedents,
  • Court Rulings,
  • …
• Counter-Example(s):
  • Statutory Law - Enacted by a legislature.
  • Regulatory Law - Created by executive agencies and departments.
  • Constitutional Amendments,
  • Legislative Acts.
• See: Precedent, Common Law, Legal Case, Court, Legal Citation, Judicial Decision, Stare Decisis, Judicial Review.

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References

2023

• (GM-RKB ChatGPT, 2023) ⇒ Summarize the concept Case Law in 1- 2 paragraphs, promt.GM-RKB ChatGPT (model: gpt-4-1106-preview) Retrieved: 2023-12-10
  • QUOTE: Case law refers to the body of judicial decisions that come about from the interpretation and application of statutes, regulations, and legal principles by courts. When a court decides a case, its verdict can establish a precedent, which becomes a guiding principle for future cases with similar circumstances or legal issues. This system, also known as precedent or judge-made law, is a fundamental component of common law legal systems, such as those in the United States, the United Kingdom, and other countries that were once part of the British Empire.

    Under the doctrine of stare decisis (" to stand by things decided "), courts look to these past decisions or "cases" to help resolve current disputes. Over time, case law evolves and forms a comprehensive library of legal interpretations and rules that govern various aspects of law, including torts, contracts, property law, and criminal law. The accumulation and constant refinement of case law promote a degree of consistency and predictability in the legal system, as similar cases are generally decided in a consistent manner, unless there is a compelling reason to overrule or distinguish a precedent.

2016

• (Wikipedia, 2016) ⇒ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/precedent Retrieved:2016-5-18.
  • In common law legal systems, a precedent or authority is a principle or rule established in a previous legal case that is either binding on or persuasive for a court or other tribunal when deciding subsequent cases with similar issues or facts. Common law legal systems place great value on deciding cases according to consistent principled rules so that similar facts will yield similar and predictable outcomes, and observance of precedent is the mechanism by which that goal is attained. Black's Law Dictionary defines "precedent" as a "rule of law established for the first time by a court for a particular type of case and thereafter referred to in deciding similar cases." Common law precedent is a third kind of law, on equal footing with statutory law (statutes and codes enacted by legislative bodies), and Delegated legislation (in U.K. parlance) or regulatory law (in U.S. parlance) (regulations promulgated by executive branch agencies). Case law or common law is the set of decisions of adjudicatory tribunals that can be cited as precedent. In most countries, including most European countries, the term is applied to any set of rulings on law which is guided by previous rulings, for example, previous decisions of a government agency. Precedential (whether strongly binding or weakly persuasive) case law can arise from a ruling by either a judicial court, or by an executive branch agency. Cases, trials, and hearings that do not result in written decisions, decisions from tribunals that are not in the "chain of command" that binds the later court, written decisions that are designated "nonprecedential" by the tribunal, or written decisions of agencies that are not issued and indexed with sufficient formality to gain precedential effect, do not create binding precedent for future court decisions.

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