common law

This important term can have several meanings :

1) N. legal rules that come from court decisions and not from statutes or constitutions.

Most rules in contract law are common law rules.

2) Adj. having to do with legal systems such as England and Wales, or countries which evolved from that system (the United States, Ireland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand)

The United States, the United Kingdom, and most Commonwealth countries, have a common law system as contrasted with the civil law systems of other European countries.

3) N. Within the English legal system, the part of the law developed in common law courts as opposed to the courts of equity (which emerged in the 15th and 16th centuries to correct certain defects in the common law court system) or ecclesiastical, commercial or admiralty courts.

Article VII of the U.S. Constitution provides for jury trials in all suits at common law.

4) N. Historically, those rules of law, common to all of England, developed in royal courts after the Norman conquest Ñ as opposed to the earlier law which continued to be applied in local courts.