PRIMAR LEGAL AUTHORITYCases James E Rogers 原发性法律的权威——病例杰姆斯罗杰斯.ppt

PRIMARY LEGAL AUTHORITY Case Law Primary Authority “The Law” generated by the three branches of government: Case Law from the Judicial Branch Statutory Law from the Legislative Branch Administrative Law from the Executive Branch Accessing primary authorities is the ultimate goal of nearly all legal research Case Law U.S. legal system inherited common law tradition from England Common Law Tradition: based on theory of stare decisis-- “let the decision stand” courts look to the past and follow early decisions, “the precedent” Importance of Precedent Major focus of research for attorneys with cases in court is to uncover the precedents Very rare that one case will unquestionably apply to current case Several options are open to a court in dealing with a precedent and attorneys’ arguments in court focus on persuading court to view precedent in favorable way Court’s Use of Precedent court can accept the precedent and apply it in the current case court can modify the legal rule involved or change its applicability court can distinguish the earlier case and decide it does not apply in current case court can overrule the precedent [may only be done by same or higher court] Importance of Common Law Common Law --development of legal rules on a case by case basis--was very important in early days of US Judicial system before statutory law became as pervasive as today Common Law still very important in the development of many areas of law Doctrine of precedent important even when courts interpret statutory law Federal Court System Publication of Court Decisions common misconception that any case that goes to court will be published and appear somewhere in the law library generally only the appellate level courts publish decisions, and even they do not publish every decision federal trial level courts (district courts) do publish some decisions Examples--Federal Cases Federal Supplement Editorial Summary Headnotes Attorneys/Judges/Author of Opinion Text of Decision with Numbe