BLAW 243 STUDY GUIDE

Wednesday, January 11 2010

I. What is law?
a. Rules  rules come from who ever is in charge
b. Golden Rule: those who have the gold make the rules
c. We as people came upon 2 different ways of making rules
i. The Romans: wrote everything down and gave us statutory law
1. Statute: laws that are written down. Passed by major legislature.
2. Ordinance: a statute local in nature. Have limited effect because they’re in a limited area.
3. US government creates statutes ii. England: thought of all possible things that occur and established a court system to have power to create laws  DECISIONAL LAW
d. Decisional Law Example: person 1 shoots deer, person 2 brings deer down. Court must make a decision who the …show more content…

INSURANCE pays for damages from a minor, which is often why minors are sued
c. Once a judgment period is finished, the judgment is dropped
d. Procedural law tells you how to collect judgment INSTRUCTION MANUAL
i. Regardless of criminal or civil law, procedural law establishes rules ii. Example: eviction. Landlord must go through legal procedural law to kick someone out. Can’t just kick someone out without court order and approval.

III. Jurisdiction: comes from who has a cause of action: civil case and legitimate claim. Comes from decisional and statutory law. Most causes of action come out through decisional law
a. How does an attorney know what your rights are?
i. Attorney must research past cases to determine decisional law and if you have a cause of action ii. Attorney looks at statutes relative to your case because statutory law has a higher power and prevails over decisional law
b. Must have a cause of action  can’t sue arbitrarily
c. Causes of action exist within laws and equity

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Substitutive law
1. Statute 2. Decisional  Civil law (personal), Criminal law (society) Procedural law  how you put together substitutive law

I. Criminal Law
a. Goal: protect society’s rights
b. Pure statutory law (no statute, then no crime) however there is a place for decisional law when there is a question of statute interpretation
i. Example: in the definition of burglary, what does breaking and