Common Law and prep books Forum

[Scotusnerd]

I finally just decided to these questions ask on a forum where I can be a boob without having my identity revealed.

1) What exactly is common law? How is it applied? Is it constitutional, since the legality principal seems to make it unconstitutionally vague? Where can I go to find an overview of what common law is?

2) Also, the prep books, like E&E...they're not statutes, correct?

3) The Restatement of Torts is not a source that you can quote in front of a judge, right? I've noticed that my state laws are pretty...vague with regards to torts.


(P.S. I'm a 0L, and yes I'm studying way too early. But this is bothering me, and it's been bothering me for some time, and I doubt I'm going to get a good answer out of a professor any time in the near future.)

[BlueDiamond]

wait til school starts for this.. go drink a beer..

[Detrox]

wait til school starts for this.. go drink a beer..

This. But since you probably won't follow that advice.

1. I don't even want to try to answer this one in any complete manner. The phrasing of your question makes it seem like you have some idea of what it is already. It's law resulting from the compilation of hundreds of years of judicial precedent. You'll learn how it is applied and why asking that question and expecting an answer that isn't a book is ridiculous. It is constitutional and is even incorporated in our Constitution and in later decisions interpreting constitutional provisions.

2. E&E's are sets of hypotheticals and questions that address major course issues and are utilized to study for class finals and often mimic issue spotters and the like.

3. You can quote the restatement of torts to a judge, just like you can quote a dictionary, or a work of literature or anything. The restatement of torts is part summary, part recommendation of how to formulate legal standards and substantive definitions for torts as based off of relevant precedent. It can be incredibly relevant or utterly useless, depending on which restatement, which jurisdiction, and which specific section to which you are referring.

Now seriously, go have that beer.

[Scotusnerd]

I had some idea of what common law was, but the definitions are pretty cruddy. I think it refers to multiple things and no one told me. I'll hold off besides that.

Thanks for the advice. I think I'll make it a crown instead of a beer though, if it's all the same to you. Sitting around unemployed (horrible horrible economy) makes you gun, whether you want to or not...

[tedalbany]

The legality principle just has to do with crim law. In Crim law there can't be any common law crimes that haven't been codified (or close enough... haven't taken crim pro).

Common law is what governs everything else for what there isn't an explicit statute on. Or deals with the interpretation of statutes. There are some common law rules that haven't been codified, some common law is just the interpretation and application of statutes.

And you really shouldn't quote the restatement in any sort of court doc. It's only persuasive authority at best.