Chapter 1: Five Sources of Law: 1. Common law 2. Equity law 3. Statutory law 4. Constitutional law (federal and state) 5. Executive orders and administrative rules Sources of the Law - law: a set of rules that attempt to guide human conduct and set of formal, governmental sanctions that are applied when those rules are violated. - we trace American law to Great Britain. - The supreme law of the land is the constitution. - The earliest source of Anglo-American aw is the common law. Common Law: - Common Law: (discovered law) principles and rules of law that derive their authority not from legislation but form community usage and custom. - Mostly jurists and judges - Different from ecclesiastical (church) law - Disputes were resolved according to community custom, and governmental sanction was applied to enforce the resolution. - Most times judges would look at the past to see how courts decided, but sometimes they had to create the law themselves. Therefore, common law sometimes is known as judge-law - Common law adapts to change, because unlike, the deductive system in which the rules are expounded first and then the court decides the legal situation of the existing file, common law is part of the inductive system. - Stare decisis: let the decision stand The Role of Precedent: - precedent: an established rule of law set by a previous case. Courts should follow precedent when it is advisable and possible. - The court does not always have to follow the decision of previous cases - Four options: 1. accept the precedent 2. modify it 3. distinguish 4. overruleFinding Common-Law Cases - Common law is contained in hundreds of thousands of decisions handed down by courts over the centuries. - Case Reporter: a book containing a chronological collection of the opinions rendered by a particular court for cases that were decided by the court. - Citation: Case name + volume number of case reporter + name of case reporter + page number + year case decided Typical Remedies in Equity Law 1. Temporary restraining order (TRO) 2. Preliminary inunction 3. Permanent injunction Equity Law - courts are entitled to decide cases on fairness not precedent. - judicial decrees: judgment of a court of equity; a declaration of the court announcing the legal consequences of facts found to be true by the court. - damages: money - court can issue preventive or remedial orders. Example: temporary restraining orders (TRO) Statutory Law - created by legislative bodies at the local, state, and federal levels. - statues deal with problems affecting large groups of people. - statutory law can anticipate problems, and common law cannot. - Criminal laws in the US are all statutory laws. - Statutory law is collected in codes and law books. - Statutory construction: the process undertaken by courts to interpret or construe the meaning of statues. Constitutional Law - constitutions are considered the most important source of US law - People have a direct voice in the approval and change of a constitution - 27 amendments to the US constitution - the federal and state constitutions are very important when considering mass media law problems.- State constitutions can give a citizen more rights than the US constitution, but it can never reduce the rights given by it. - void for vagueness doctrine: a statue or regulation is unconstitutional if it is so vague that a person of reasonable and ordinary intelligence would not know, from looking at its terms, what speech is allowed and what speech is prohibited. - Overbreadth doctrine: a statue or regulation will be declared unconstitutional if it sweeps up and bans a substantial amount of protected speech in the process of targeting unprotected speech Executive Order and Administrative Rules - Executive orders: orders issued by elective officers of government to carry the force of the law - Administrative rules: rules generated by the administrative agencies of government at the federal, state, and local levels. - Administrative agency: an agency, created and funded by Congress, whose members are appointed by the president and whose function it is to administer specific legislation, such as law regulating broadcasting and advertising. - often deal with technical and complicated matters that require expertise. - Members are appointed by elective officers. - Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulates broadcasting and other telecommunication in the US. - Federal Communications Act of 1934 = basic regulatory guideline for FCC -First Amendment problems fall under the purview of constitutional law. -Libel and invasion of privacy are matters generally dealt with by common law and equity law. -Obscenity laws in this country are statutory provisions. -Regulation on broadcasting and advertising falls primarily under the jurisdiction of administrative agencies. The Judicial System - the field on which most of the battles involving communications law are fought. - 52 judicial systems (federal, every state, and district of columbia) - each system divided into two courts, trial and appellate.legislative branch makes the law, executive branch enforces it, and judicial branch interprets it. Facts Versus the Law- trial courts: fact-finding courts. the first court to hear a lawsuit. This court is the forum in which the facts are determined and the law is initially applied. - appellate courts: law-reviewing courts. a court to which cases are removed for an appeal. The Federal Court System - The supreme court is the oldest federal court. - it exercises both original and appellate jurisdictions. - original: the supreme court is the first court to hear the case (like the trial court). Mostly for the resolution of claims between and among the states. - The primary task of the supreme court is as an appellate tribunal, hearing cases already decided by lower federal and state courts of last resort. - The appellate jurisdiction is established by Congress. - direct appeal: the statutorily grants right of an aggravated party to carry the appeal of a case to the US Supreme Court. The high court can deny this right if the appeal lacks a substantial federal question. - Writ of Certiorati: A writ by which an appellant seeks the review of a case by the U.S. Supreme Court. When the writ is granted, the court will order the lower court to send up the record of the case for review. - Rule of four: if four justices think the petition
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