PLA 3108 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Supremacy Clause, Branch President, American Law Reports
6 Apr 2016
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Common law is the system of law developed in england and transferred to most of the english-speaking world. Louisiana, with its french and spanish heritage, is the only state in the u. s. that is a civil law jurisdiction. A traditional common-law system emphasized case law or common law over legislation. Common law is developed case by case from court decisions and considers prior case law to be a very high source of authority. Common law is predictable, yet it allows legal principles either to be expanded to fit new situations or to be replaced with a new legal principle that better accommodates new or changing social and economic conditions. Today, statutory law has increased in importance. Statutes have replaced the common law as the primary source of law. Civil law is based on a civil code, a systematic and comprehensive written set of rules of law. Judges look to the civil code to settle disputes, rather than rely on precedent.
