case law
18
5.6
- noun
- /keɪs lɔ/
- Specialized
:
jurisprudencia
- Judges often rely on case law to make their decisions, using past rulings as a guide.
- body of case law
- developing case law
- federal case law
And I mean, they go through citing case law like crazy.
- And I mean, they go through citing case law like crazy.
- We've reviewed case law and what's the bad stuff and what's the good stuff.
- Have you ever heard of case law, Right.
- The problem is a lot of clearly established law comes from something known as case law, which means work that courts do well.
- Mine is the case law for perceived serious harm.
- That it's case law that the more, you know, all business is case law.
- That it's case law, but the more, you know, all business is case law.
Examples
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When the statutory law and case law conflict with each other, the statutory law prevails over the case law.
Academic text (2017) -
"Clearly, such a conclusion would be inconsistent with our case law on design patents," said the court.
Academic text (1995) -
You have a century of case law on your side.
-
The case is the foundation of U.S. property law, the first case law students learn today.
Academic text (2008) -
Some of this case law supports the argument that a bail hearing is a critical stage.
Academic text (2017) -
Section IV describes some administrative law doctrine and case law applicable to Conservation Agreements.
Academic text (1997) -
Not surprisingly, practitioners read the Delaware case law and incorporated the signals that were sent from the bench into their deals.
Academic text (2017) -
Finally, some courts reject the extension of Atkins to serious mental illness as unsupported by case law.
Academic text (2017) -
The EEOC bolstered each of its conclusions with significant case law and a well-supported analysis.
Academic text (2017) -
The post-Daubert case law casts doubt on the reliability and admissibility of voice spectrograph analysis.
Academic text (2017)
Synonyms
19
3.8
A system where judges use past court decisions and customs rather than written laws
Rules judges make when they decide cases
How Codified
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'law derived from judicial decisions' is directly and transparently built from 'case' (a court matter) + 'law' (rules or statutes); a learner who knows both constituents can infer it refers to law coming from court cases rather than written statutes. This compounding follows common cross-linguistic patterns (many languages have an equivalent term), so a B1 learner would generally grasp the concept even if they lack detailed legal knowledge.
Etymology
Case law comes from the idea of rules made from individual cases, or past court decisions, rather than from written laws. When a judge decides a case, that decision can be used as an example for later cases, so many decisions together form the 'law' we call case law.