Opinion ID: 831187
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: nature of the common law

Text: The common law originated in the decisions of English judges, starting in the early Middle Ages, and developed over the ensuing centuries. Hall, ed., The Oxford Companion to American Law, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 125. Sir Edward Coke explained that the common law was the custom of the realm. Coke, The Complete Copyholder, p. 70 (1641). He indicated that if a custom was current throughout the commonwealth, it was a part of the common law. Id. Sir William Blackstone similarly discussed [g]eneral customs; which are the universal rule of the whole kingdom, and form the common law. 1 Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, p. 67. The common law and its institutions were systemically extended to America, at least insofar as appropriate for frontier conditions. Oxford Companion, p. 127. This was true in particular in Michigan where each of its constitutions (starting in 1835) generally adopted the common law. [5] Given that the common law develops through judicial decisions, it has been described as judge-made law. Placek v. Sterling Hts., 405 Mich. 638, 657, 275 N.W.2d 511 (1979). As this Court explained in Bugbee v. Fowle , the common law `is but the accumulated expressions of the various judicial tribunals in their efforts to ascertain what is right and just between individuals in respect to private disputes.' Bugbee v. Fowle, 277 Mich. 485, 492, 269 N.W. 570 (1936), quoting Kansas v. Colorado, 206 U.S. 46, 97, 27 S.Ct. 655, 51 L.Ed. 956 (1907). The common law, however, is not static. By its nature, it adapts to changing circumstances. See Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., The Common Law (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1991), p. 1 (noting that the common law is affected by the felt necessities of the time, the prevalent moral and political theories, [and] intuitions of public policy and that it embodies the story of a nation's development through many centuries). And as this Court stated in Beech Grove Investment Co. v. Civil Rights Comm .: It is generally agreed that two of the most significant features of the common law are: (1) its capacity for growth and (2) its capacity to reflect the public policy of a given era.    The common law does not consist of definite rules which are absolute, fixed, and immutable like the statute law, but it is a flexible body of principles which are designed to meet, and are susceptible of adaption to, among other things, new institutions, public policies, conditions, usages and practices, and changes in mores, trade, commerce, inventions, and increasing knowledge, as the progress of society may require. So, changing conditions may give rise to new rights under the law.... [ Beech Grove Investment Co. v. Civil Rights Comm., 380 Mich. 405, 429-430, 157 N.W.2d 213 (1968), quoting CJS, Common Law, § 2, pp. 43-44.] The common law is always a work in progress and typically develops incrementally, i.e., gradually evolving as individual disputes are decided and existing common-law rules are considered and sometimes adapted to current needs in light of changing times and circumstances. In re Arbitration Between Allstate Ins. Co. & Stolarz, 81 N.Y.2d 219, 226, 597 N.Y.S.2d 904, 613 N.E.2d 936 (1993) (noting that the law evolves through the incremental process of common-law adjudication as a response to the facts presented); [6] see also People v. Aaron, 409 Mich. 672, 727, 299 N.W.2d 304 (1980) (Abrogation of the felony-murder rule is not a drastic move in light of the significant restrictions this Court has already imposed. Further, it is a logical extension of our decisions....).