Since each entity publishes its own laws and decisions, this makes it difficult to locate a specific law or decision. Therefore, a citation is necessary to find the law . A citation operates like an address, it gives you the physical address of the actual statute or decision in whatever set of volumes or electronic database it is published. A citation leads you to all of those places where the law or decision has been published. Statutory law consists of the laws, rules, and ordinances passed by a governing body such as the Texas State Legislature.
Case law consists of decisions handed down by the courts as they hear cases.
In our system, both statutory law and case law have equal validity and authority. In addition, the law is both jurisdictional and chronological . Jurisdiction refers to the geographical entity or authority over which that statute or decision would apply. Each one of these above examples demonstrates the varying levels of jurisdiction, be it national, state, county, or circuit. Each congressional or legislative body passes it's own laws and those laws are the law within the political boundaries of that geographical area.