Legal standard

“ Wherever, by either the common law or the statute law of a State, a right of action has become fixed and a legal liability incurred, that liability may be enforced and the right of action pursued in any court which has jurisdiction of such matters and can obtain jurisdiction of the parties. ”

“ That the common law, as it is called, has adapted itself, upon grounds of public policy, to a totally different and limited rule that would guide us at this day, and the condition which was then so strongly denounced is just as good a condition now as any that was ever inserted in a contract, because a partial restraint, created in that way, with a particular object, is now perfectly legal. ”

“ Rules, that is, definite, detailed provisions for definite, detailed states of fact, are the main reliance of the beginnings of law. In the maturity of law they are employed chiefly in situations where there is exceptional need of certainty in order to uphold the economic order. With the advent of legal writing and juristic theory in the transition from the strict law to equity and natural law, a second [Pg 116] element develops and becomes a controlling factor in the administration of justice. ”

“ The development of a legal system consists in the progressive substitution of rigid pre-established principles for individual judgment, and to a very large extent these principles grow up spontaneously within the tribunals themselves. That great aggregate of rules which constitutes a developed legal system is not a condition precedent of the administration of justice, but a product of it. ”

“ It is requisite that the law should postulate one or more first causes, whose operation is ultimate, and whose authority is underived. In other words there must be found in every legal system certain ultimate principles, from which all others are derived, but which are themselves self-existent. Before there can be any talk of legal sources, there must be already in existence some law which establishes them and gives them their authority. ”

“ Legal tribunals have also powerfully assisted to shape and modify conceptions of proprietary right by means of the distinction between Law and Equity, which always makes its first appearance as a distinction between jurisdictions. ”

“ The Constitution of the United States, in creating and defining the judicial power of the General Government, establishes this distinction between law and equity, and a party who claims a legal title must proceed at law, and may undoubtedly proceed according to the forms of practice in such cases in the State court. ”

“ Personal statutes are of universal validity; real statutes have no extra-territorial authority. The determination of the class under which a particular law ought to fall is one of great difficulty, and one in which there is often a conflict of legal opinion. ”

“ Whenever there is a right, there should also be an action for its enforcement. That is to say, the substantive law should determine the scope of the law of procedure, and not vice versa. Legal procedure should be sufficiently elastic and comprehensive to afford the requisite means for the protection of all rights which the substantive law sees fit to recognise. In early systems this is far from being the case. We there find remedies and forms of action determining rights, rather than rights determining remedies. The maxim of primitive law is rather, Ubi remedium ibi jus. ”

“ Legal or equitable rights, acquired under either system of laws, may be enforced in any court of either sovereignty competent to hear and determine such kind of rights and not restrained by its constitution in the exercise of such jurisdiction. ”

“ This sketch would, of course, have to be modified in many ways if we attempted to treat the unofficial fragments of customary law in the same way as the paragraphs of royal codes, and even more so if we were able to tabulate the indirect evidence as to legal rules. ”

“ Our common law system consists in applying to new combinations of circumstances those rules of law which we derive from legal principles and judicial precedents, and for the sake of attaining uniformity, consistency and certainty, we must apply those rules when they are not plainly unreasonable and inconvenient to all cases which arise ”

“ When an agency uses a guidance document to state the legal applicability of a statute or regulation, that document can do no more, with respect to prohibition of conduct, than articulate the agency’s understanding of how a statute or regulation applies to particular circumstances. ”

“ Every person shall be entitled to equal protection of his rights in proceedings before a court of law, state agencies and other bodies and organizations which decide on his rights, obligations and interests. Everyone shall be guaranteed the right to appeal or another legal remedy against decisions of courts of law, state agencies and other bodies and organizations which decide on his rights or interests founded on statute. ”

“ Practical legal exposition acknowledges no call to rise to first principles, or to proceed to ultimate analysis. From the point of view of law as an art, the importance of conceptions and principles varies inversely with their abstractness or generality. Practical jurisprudence proceeds from below upward, and ascends no further than the requirements of use and practice demand. Theoretical jurisprudence, on the contrary, attributes value to the abstract and the general, rather than to the concrete and the particular. ”

“ The nontechnical nature of the statutory standard, the close relationship of it to the date of practical human experience, and the multiplicity of relevant factual elements, with their various combinations, creating the necessity of ascribing the proper force to each, confirm us in our conclusion that primary weight in this area must be given to the conclusions of the trier of fact. ”

“ The old theory, now gradually disappearing, but still true 137in most departments of the law, is that the common law is the basis and groundwork of the legal system, legislation being nothing more than a special instrument for its occasional modification or development. Unenacted law is the principal, and enacted law is merely accessory. The activity of the legislature is called for only on special occasions to do that which lies beyond the constructive or remedial efficacy of the common law. ”

“ VII. Normative and legal Acts, improving legal status of physical and juridical persons, removing or mitigating their legal responsibility can have the reverse force. This must be specified in the normative and legal Act itself. ”

“ The law includes the whole of the principles accepted and applied in the administration of justice, whether they are imperative principles or not. The only legal rules which conform to the imperative 53definition are those which create legal obligations, and no legal system consists exclusively of rules of this description. All well-developed bodies of law contain innumerable principles which have some other purpose and content than this, and so fall outside the scope of the imperative definition. ”

“ But usually the real significance and legal consequence of each term will depend upon its context and the nature of the interests it is invoked to distinguish.
Statutes may be called public because the rights conferred are of general application, while laws known as private affect few or selected individuals or localities. ”

“ Where the language of a statute is plain, unambiguous, and well understood according to its natural and ordinary sense and meaning, the statute itself furnishes a rule of construction beyond which the court cannot go. ”

“ For although courts sometimes have been slow to extend the effect of statutes modifying the common law beyond the direct operation of the words, it is obvious that a statute may indicate a change in the policy of the law, although it expresses that change only in the specific cases most likely to occur to the mind. ”

“ Justice Field, in The Moses Taylor, said: 'That clause only saves to suitors 'the right of a common-law remedy, where the common law is competent to give it.' It is not a remedy in the common-law courts which is saved, but a common-law remedy. ”

“ We repeat and reaffirm this rule, noting its special applicability to cases where, as here, a statutory standard such as 'good faith' can have meaning only in its application to the particular facts of a particular case. ”

“ There is no such difference except in the case of what is properly called “judicial legislation”—wherein an absolutely new rule is added for the first time to the law. The recognition of a custom or law is not necessarily the beginning of the custom or law. Where a custom possesses the marks by which its legality is determined according to well understood principles, the courts pronounce it to have been law at the time of the happening of the facts as to which their jurisdiction is invoked. ”

“ Decided cases of the highest authority, affirm that doctrine, and it must, doubtless, be deemed correct in most or all jurisdictions where the rules of the common law prevail, as understood in the parent country. ”

“ We are of the opinion, that the equity of the statute allowing a bill of exceptions in courts of common law of original jurisdiction, embraces all such judgments or opinions of the court that arise in the course of a cause, which are the subjects of revision by an appellate court, and which do not otherwise appear on the record. ”

“ If we have now ascertained the importance and practicability of a civil code, and have shown what is to be done in order to obtain the benefit of it, we shall conclude, with some confidence, that we have rendered a great service to mankind. ”

“ These two statutes then relate to the same subject, so far as they relate to the recording of deeds or mortgages; and 'it is to be inferred that a code of statutes relating to one subject was governed by one spirit and policy, and was intended to be consistent and harmonious in its seweral parts and provisions.' It is therefore an established rule of law, that all acts in pari materi a are to be taken together, as if they were one law; and they are directed to be compared, in the construction of statutes, because they are considered as framed upon one system, and having one object in view. ”

“ Where the expression is in general terms, statutes are to receive such a construction as may be agreeable to the rules of the common law in cases of that nature, for statutes are not presumed to make any alteration in the common law, beyond what is expressed in the statute. ”

“ The principle is strictly applicable to statutes which have the effect of creating an obligation An administrative regulation is subject to the rule equally with a statute; and accordingly, the regulation here involved must be taken to operate prospectively only. ”

“ All laws are to be given a sensible construction; and a literal application of a statute, which would lead to absurd consequences, should be avoided whenever a reasonable application can be given to it, consistent with the legislative purpose. ”

“ This is the legislation, by the light of which we are to make up our judgment in this case.
It is a rule in the construction of statutes, that all relating to the same subject-matter shall be considered together. ”

“ A law that limits a right in one case may limit a remedy in another. This statute well might be held to announce a general policy, governing both obligations that arise within the jurisdiction and suits that are brought in the courts of the United States. ”

“ It is a singular question, whether a system of jurisprudence exists in a state where it is not known or understood. Whether, in a community where the civil law prevails, a system of laws shall be introduced which are against their prejudices. ”

“ It is an established rule for the construction of statutes, that the terms employed by the legislature are not to receive an interpretation which conflicts with acknowledged principles of justice and equity, if another sense, consonant with those principles, can be given to them. ”

“ We think the rule is settled in this court that whenever a new right is granted by statute, or a new remedy for violation of an old right, or whenever such rights and remedies are dependent on State statutes or acts of Congress, the jurisdiction of such cases, as between the law side and the equity side of the Federal courts, must be determined by the essential character of the case, and unless it comes within some of the recognized heads of equitable jurisdiction it must be held to belong to the other. ”

“ Remedies of a statutory character, where the right to be enforced was unknown at the common law, are to be followed with strictness, both as to the methods to be pursued and the cases to which they are to be applied. ”

“ Each society has its own system of laws, and all the systems, so far as they are known, constitute the appropriate subject matter of jurisprudence. The jurist may deal with it in the following ways. He may first of all examine the leading conceptions common to all the systems, or in other words define the leading terms common to them all. Such are the terms law itself, right, duty, property, crime, and so forth, which, or their equivalents, may, notwithstanding delicate differences of connotation, be regarded as common terms in all systems. ”

“ The elements approach is grounded in the Rule's history, which demonstrates that that approach was settled doctrine at the time of the Rule's promulgation and thereafter, and that the Rule incorporated this established practice by restating the pre-existing law. ”