(DOWNLOAD) "Putnam's Handy Law Book for the Layman" by Albert Sidney Bolles * eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Putnam's Handy Law Book for the Layman
- Author : Albert Sidney Bolles
- Release Date : January 05, 2010
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 256 KB
Description
It is a law book. At the outset the explanation of a few terms, often used, may be helpful to the reader. Among these are the terms statute and common law. Statute law or statutes mean the laws enacted by the state legislature and by the federal congress. Common law means the decisions made by the state and federal courts. These decisions may relate to the interpretation and application of statutes, or to the application of former decisions or precedents, or to the qualification and application of them, or to the making and application of new rules or principles where none exist that are needed to decide the case in hand. It is a rule of the most general application that legal decisions are precedents which are to be followed in other cases of the same character. The decisions of the highest court in each state must be followed by the lower courts, but no courts in any state are obliged to follow the decisions of the courts in any other state. The courts in every state must also follow the decisions of the federal courts in all matters of a national character. Thus if a federal court decides the meaning or interpretation of a federal statute, a state court must follow the interpretation in a case requiring the application of that statute. Again, common law decisions are not binding on the courts that make them like statutes or legislative commands. A decision may be modified or set aside when it is regarded as no longer applicable to the present condition of things. It may also be set aside or changed by legislative action. The common law is therefore always slowly changing like the ocean and is never at rest. The common law forms much the largest part of the great body of law under which we live. This book is a collection chiefly of common law principles; a few statutes are interwoven here and there to complete the subjects presented.