Quote:
Originally posted by Spanky
Now I know you are wrong about this. All the common law systems in the the colonial courts were preserved. In most of the states the common law system in the state courts were not even slightly interrupted by the American revoution. If a common law precedent was not liked then the state legislature had to overturn it, even if it was prerevolutionary.
However, I don't remember anything about common law rights from law school. In fact I had only heard of them in the British system. But now that I think about it there were certain common law concepts like Habeus Corpus.
Since the Bill of Rights was not applied to the states until after the Civil war, people rights in these states against state law had to come from somewhere. Before that West Wing Episode I had just assumed these rigths came from state constitutions. But now I realize that some of these rights may have come from a common law tradition (Just like England). So if a colonial or state government abused someones rights prior to the civil war people may have claimed these rights from the common law tradition.
But of course I really don't know. But if this were true it puts a whole new perspective on strict construction now doesn't it?
|
I thought a bunch of the traditional first-year law classes were common law -- e.g. property and contracts and torts. Is the contracts stuff statutory? I had thought not, on the whole, which was why they had all those treatise thingies, but to be perfectly honest I knew what I wanted to do when I was in ls and my intellectual curiosity was pretty nonexistent.
ETA Are there statutes setting forth what torts are and contract interpretations? I thought there was basically common law and statutory law. It seems like common law comes in all the freaking time -- of course, I have most of the discussants in this discussion on ignore, so fuck if I know what people are claiming, but if anyone is claiming there is no common law in the US that is crap. Litigants and judges and stuff try to fill in around ERISA with "federal common law."
EATA how the hell did we do anything in the first few years after the revolution if there wasn't common law hanging around? Were there suddenly huge books of statutes? Why is it my impression that I've always heard that Louisiana's laws are all different because they are based on the Napoleonic Code whereas the other 49 states' laws are based on common law, if we don't have common law?
EYATA Is posting while feverish better or worse than posting under the influence?
