Common Law

Stare decisis binds courts to follow the reasoning of higher courts in later similar cases, generating predictability and equal tr...

Habeas corpus, Latin for you shall have the body, commands the custodian to bring a detainee to court and show lawful cause for ho...

Criminal law generally requires a culpable mental state, mens rea, paired with the forbidden act. Doctrine grades it into purpose ...

Actus reus comprises the prohibited act, result, or circumstance, together with any required causation, and must ordinarily be vol...

Tort law spans negligence, intentional wrongs like assault and trespass, and strict liability for dangerous activities and defecti...

Modern negligence analysis asks whether the defendant owed the injured person a duty of care, whether conduct fell below the stand...

Common law requires consideration, something of legal value bargained for, to enforce a promise, distinguishing contracts from gif...

A contract forms when an offer is met with acceptance supported by consideration, creating obligations the law will enforce. Forma...

Strict liability attaches regardless of care in a narrow class of cases, chiefly abnormally dangerous activities like blasting and...

The modern rules date to the 1843 M Naghten case in England, asking whether the defendant knew the nature and quality of the act o...

The presumption of innocence places the burden of proof squarely on the prosecution to the criminal standard, requiring nothing of...

The rule against double jeopardy bars retrial after acquittal or, in most systems, after conviction, rooted in Roman law and Magna...

Burden of proof has two faces, the burden of production, who must adduce evidence first, and the burden of persuasion, who loses i...

The jury of ordinary citizens decides contested facts, a lineage running from Athenian panels through Magna Carta to the modern pe...

The trust splits ownership, giving a trustee legal title to manage for beneficiaries holding equitable interest, an invention of m...

Limitation periods, commonly two to six years for civil claims by type, force aggrieved parties to sue while evidence lives and gi...

The maxim nemo tenetur seipsum accusare grew from the struggles against ecclesiastical inquisitions and Star Chamber into the Fift...

Descended from Magna Carta's law of the land clause, due process entered the American Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments and spread t...

Called the oldest of the common law confidences, the privilege protects communications made for legal advice so clients may speak ...

In the adversarial model, opposing parties investigate, present evidence, and test witnesses through cross examination, while the ...

Modern discovery lets parties compel documents, answers, and depositions before trial, overturning the old ambush model where evid...

Civil fraud requires a false representation made knowingly or recklessly, intended to be relied on, actually relied on, and causin...

Property law organizes ownership through estates, led by the fee simple absolute, present and future interests, and co-ownership f...

Aristotle argued that it is better for the law to rule than any individual, and English lawyers from Bracton to Coke insisted that...

Latin for a matter judged, res judicata holds that once a court has reached a final judgment on the merits, the same parties may n...

Often called squatters' rights, adverse possession allows a person who possesses land openly, continuously, exclusively, and witho...