PLA 1003 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Legal Positivism, Legal Realism, Precedent
6 May 2016
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Document Summary
It plays an essential role in everyone"s life. It"s a mechanism for resolving conflicts without resorting to personal violence. Every educated citizen should have a basic understanding. Learning about the law and how the legal system works is a lot of fun. It is a challenging and rewarding intellectual exercise. Reviewing the situation causing the problem and analyzing relevant facts. Applying the rules to the relevant facts. Relevant facts are those the court used in making its decision. Substantive facts: what happened to the parties before the lawsuit. Procedural facts: what happened in the lower courts or administrative agency (judicial history) Disposition of the case (affirm, reverse, remand, etc) Is there a valid cause of action? ie) a claim that is sufficient to support a lawsuit based on the law and the facts. 2 main sources of law: court made law (common law, enacted law (constitutions, statutes, ordinances, regulations)
