What is common law?

Answer 1

Do your own homework

Answer 2

Common law has quite a few different definitions:

1. the body of law derived from juidical decisions, rather than from statutes or constitutions.

2. the body of law based on the English legal system, as distint from a cival law system.

3. General law common to the country as a whole, as opposed to a special law that has only one application.

4. the body of law deriving from law courts as opposed to those sitting in equity.

Answer 3

Do you mean common law or common law marriage? Common law is judicially created legal principles or standards. For common law marriage, it is the marital relationship that's created by agreement of the parties without formal license and legal solemnization by vows.

Answer 4

if you live with someone the state can assess you as COMMON LAW married after a certain period. Some are under a year . Check out your states law on this.

Answer 5

That which derives its force and authority from the universal consent and immemorial practice of the people. The system of jurisprudence that originated in England and which was latter adopted in the U.S. that is based on precedent instead of statutory laws.

Answer 6

There are, basically, two kind of systems of law in the world: the Roman-Germanic system of law, and the "Common Law". The latter one comes from the legal tradition of Rome, was developed by the countries of continental Europe and, then, transferred to Latin America. In this system, the laws are contained in legal dispositions, or statutory laws.

On the other hand, there is the "common law", which comes from the UK and then was developed by the USA. This system is based upon the activity of judges, whose precedents contain the rules of law. This is, thus a case-law system.

With respect to the origins and definition of common law, I have found useful to make reference to an article on wikipedia:

"The common law forms a major part of the law of those countries of the world with a history as British territories or colonies. It is notable for its inclusion of extensive non-statutory law reflecting precedent derived from centuries of judgments by working jurists.

There are three important connotations to the term.

* Common law as opposed to statutory law and regulatory law: The first connotation concerns the authority that promulgated a particular proposition of law. For example, in most areas of law in most jurisdictions in the United States, there are "statutes" enacted by a legislature, "regulations" promulgated by executive branch agencies pursuant to a delegation of rule-making authority from a legislature, and "common law" decisions issued by courts (or quasi-judicial tribunals within agencies). This first connotation can be further differentiated, into (a) laws that arise purely from the common law without express statutory authority, for example, most of the criminal law, contract law, and procedural law before the 20th century, and (b) decisions that discuss and decide the fine boundaries and distinctions in statutes and regulations. See statutory law and non-statutory law.

* Common law as opposed to civil law: The second connotation differentiates "common law" jurisdictions (most of which descend from the English legal system) that place great weight on such common law decisions, from "civil law" or "code" jurisdictions (many of which descend from the Napoleonic code in which the weight accorded on judicial precedent is much less).

* Law as opposed to equity: The third differentiates "common law" (or just "law") from "equity". Before 1873, England had two parallel court systems, courts of "law" that could only award money damages and recognised only the legal owner of property, and courts of "equity" that recognised trusts of property and could issue injunctions (orders to do or stop doing something). Although the separate courts were merged long ago in most jurisdictions, or at least all courts were permitted to apply both law and equity (though under potentially different laws of procedure), the distinction between law and equity remains important in (a) categorising and prioritising rights to property, (b) determining whether the Seventh Amendment's guarantee of a jury trial applies (a determination of a fact necessary to resolution of a "law" claim) or whether the issue can only be decided by a judge (issues of equity), and (c) in the principles that apply to the grant of equitable remedies by the courts.

Many important areas of law are governed primarily by common law. For example, in England and Wales and in most states of the United States, the basic law of contracts, torts and property do not exist in statute, but only in common law (though there may be isolated modifications enacted by statute). In almost all areas of the law, statutes may give only terse statements of general principle, but the fine boundaries and definitions exist only in the common law. To find out what the law is, one has to locate precedential decisions on the topic, and reason from those decisions by analogy. To consider but one example, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" - but intepretation (that is, determining the fine boundaries) of each of the important terms was delegated by Article III of the Constitution to the judicial branch, so that the current legal boundaries of the text can only be determined by consulting the common law."

Answer 7

It has something to do with when apes start talking and take over the world.