Federal and state court systems interpret federal and state statutes and regulations and determine their constitutionality and the applicability of the law to the facts.
For example, the federal court in Miller v. AT&T Corporation, 250 F.3d 820 (4th Cir. 2001), interpreted (1) a federal statute enacted by Congress, known as the Family and Medical Leave Act, and (2)related federal regulations created bythe Department of Labor.
The South Carolina Supreme Court in Arnal v. Arnal, 371 S.C. 10, 636 S.E.2d 864 (2006), interpreted (1) a collection of state statutes known as the South Carolina Children's Code,and (2) related stateregulations issued by the South Carolina Department of Social Services.
Case Law
Federal and state courts create case law in their respective jurisdictions in three ways. First, court decisions can create law by interpreting ambiguous language in constitutions,statutes, and regulations.
Second, court decisions can announce new principles of law where no statute or regulation applies, creating a body of judge-made law called common law, a subset of case law. For example, the elements required to recover for claims such as negligence or fraud in South Carolina are determined by case law, not statutes. This means negligence and fraud are common-law claims.
Third, court decisions create case law by applying the law (whether common law, constitutional law, statutory law, or regulatory law) to new situations. Even when a court is not clarifying legal language or adding a new principle of common law, each new judicial opinion adds to the body of case law by providingan example of how the law applies to an individual case.
Precedent
The principle of stare decisis, which is Latin for “let the decision stand,” means that judges followprior court decisions when decidingcases that come before them with the same legal issue, meaning (1)governed by the same law and (2)having similar facts. A binding prior court decision is known asprecedent.
Stare decisisallows lawyers to advise their clients by predicting the likely outcome of a legal dispute or a proposed action. If the lawyer has researched prior court decisions on the same legal issue, meaning (1)governed by the same law and (2)having similar facts, the lawyer can predict that the outcome may be the same if a court addresses the client's legal dispute or proposed action.
