Source: https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Common_law
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 02:53:18+00:00

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Common law, also known as case law or precedent, is a body of law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals rather than through legislative statutes or executive branch action. A "common law system" is a legal system that gives great precedential weight to common law, on the principle that it is unfair to treat similar facts differently on different occasions.
Seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Edward Coke, The First Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England, or, A Commentary on Littleton (London, 1628, ed. F. Hargrave and C. Butler, 19th ed., London, 1832), Third Institute. Compare: "Let us consider the reason of the case. For nothing is law that is not reason", Sir John Powell, Coggs vs. Bernard, 2 Ld. Raym. Rep. p. 911.
Learned Hand, Book Review, 35 Harv. L. Rev. 479, 479 (1922) (reviewing Benjamin N. Cardozo's The Nature of the Judicial Process).
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Southern Pacific Company v. Jensen 244 U.S. 205, 222 (1917) (Holmes, J., dissenting; opinion published (21 May 1917).
Quotes reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, The Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 212-213.
Sir Robert Atkyns, L.C.B., Trial of Sir Edward Hales (1686), 11 How. St. Tr. n. p. 1204.
It is difficult to struggle with the common law.
Lord Ellenborough, Kerr v. Willan (1817), 2 Starkie, 54.
Common law is common usage, and where there is no law there can be no transgression.
Fortescue, J., Rex v. Curl (1727), 2 Str. Rep. 790; 17 How. St. Tr. 159.
The common law does not consist of particular cases decided upon particular facts: it consists of a number of principles, which are recognised as having existed during the whole time and course of the common law. The Judges cannot make new law by new decisions; they do not assume a power of that kind: they only endeavour to declare what the common law is and has been from the time when it first existed. But inasmuch as new circumstances, and new complications of fact, and even new facts, are constantly arising, the Judges are obliged to apply to them what they consider to have been the common law during the whole course of its existence, and therefore they seem to be laying down a new law, whereas they are merely applying old principles to a new state of facts.
Brett, M.R., Munster v. Lamb (1883), L. R. 11 Q. B. D. 599.
There is no doubt whatever that as far as common law is concerned, the Courts in this country have been bound, most of them, by inflexible rules handed down in great measure from the time of the Plantagenets, and until certain modern statutes were passed there was no possibility of altering or improving them.
Lord Penzance, Cowan v. Duke of Buccleuch (1876), L. R. 2 Ap. Ca. 355.
Lord Kenyon, Rex v. Rusby (1801), Peake's N. P. Cases, 193.
The common law is the custom of the kingdom, and we are bound to know it, and must be all governed by it.
North, C.J., Whitebread's Case (1679), 8 How. St. Tr. 860.
Joseph Yates, J., dissenting in Millar v. Taylor (1769), 4 Burr. Part IV., 2377.
The Court of Common Pleas is the lock and key of the common law.
Joseph Yates, J., dissenting in Millar v. Taylor (1769), 4 Burr, Part IV., 2377.
I here give my opinion as a Common Lawyer; not presuming to say what the Court of Chancery would do upon the same question.
Co. 2 Inst. 22, p. 2381.
I shall always as far as I can by law endeavour to support the common law of the land and that excellent method of trial by juries, upon which all our lives, liberties and properties depend; and I shall endeavour as far as I can to prevent the encroachment of any jurisdiction whatever that proceeds by another law and another method of trial.
Willes, Lord Chief Justice, Welles v. Trahern (1740), Willes' Rep. 241.
Whatever is by the common law, can only be affected by statute.
In a perfectly new case—a case altogether primae impressionis—I think the Judges are bound to hold fast to the principles of the common law—to remember the maxim, "Salus reipublicae suprema lex," and if the condition be really in principle against the public good, to pronounce it in their judgment void.
Sir Frederick Pollock, 1st Baronet, Brownlow v. Egerton (1854), 23 L. J. Rep. Part 5 (N.S.) Ch. 382.

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