Business Law Exam #1 Questions with Complete Solutions, A+

What is law? - consists of enforceable rules governing relationships among individuals and between individuals and their society What feature do all laws have in common? - they establish rights, duties, and privileges that are consistent with the values and beliefs of a society or ruling group. Breach - failure to perform a legal obligation Primary Sources of Law - Sources that establish the law include the following... 1)The US constitution and the constitutions of various states 2) Statutes, or laws, passed by congress and by state legislatures 3) Regulations created by administrative agencies, such as the US Food and Drug administration 4) Case Law (Court decisions Secondary Sources of Law - Books and articles that clarify and summarize the primary sources of law • Legal encyclopedias • Compilations (such as restatements of the law, which summarize court decisions on a particular topic) • Official comments to statutes • Treatises • Articles in law reviews published by law schools • Articles in other legal journals (courts refer to secondary sources of law for guidance when interpreting and applying primary sources of law) Constitutional Law - Federal and States have separate constitutions that set forth general organizations, powers, and limits of their respective governments *constitutional law is the law expressed in these documents Statute - Laws, orders, rules Statutory Law - Laws enacted by legislative bodies at any level of government such as statutes passed by congress or by state legislatures (as opposed to constitutional law, administrative law, or case law) Local Ordinances - .Included in statutory law .Local Ordinances= statutes (laws, orders,rules) passed by municipal or county governing units to govern matters not not covered by federal or state law *often have to do with city land use Uniform Law - .Each state has the option to accept or reject uniform law .Only if the state adopts the uniform law will that law become a statutory law of the state Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) - Regulates commerce between states by providing a uniform yet flexible set of rules governing commercial transactions Administrative Law - .Consists of rules, orders, and decisions of administrative agencies . Administrative Agency - Federal, State, or local government agency created to perform a specific function Curiae Regis - .Latin for "Kings Court" .William the Conquerors way of unifying his country .What evolved in these countries was known as COMMON LAW Common Law - Body of general rules that applied throughout the English realm Precedent - court decisions that furnished an example or authority for decising subsequent cases involving identical or similar legal principles or facts Stare Decisis (to stand on decided cases) - .Common law doctrine under which judged are obligated to follow the precedents established in prior decisions .The importance of precedents in judicial decision making.... o Stare decisis has two aspects 1) divisions made by a higher court are binding on lower courts 2) a court should not overturn its own precedents unless there is a strong reason to do so Binding Authority - source of law that a court must follow when deciding a case. Binding authorities include constitutions, statutes, and regulations that govern the issue being devided as well as court decisions that are controlling precedents within the jurisdiction Persuasive Authority - any legal authority or source of law that a court may look to for guidance by on which it need not rely in making its decision. Persuasive authorities include cases from other jurisdictions and secondary sources of law. Remedy - .the means given to a party to enforce a right or to compensate for the violation of a right Equity - is a branch of law founded on what might be described as notions of justice and fair dealing, that seeks to supply a remedy when no adequate remedy at law is available Equitable Principles and Maxims - general propositions or principles of law that have to do with fairness (equity) Jurisprudence - involves learning about different schools of legal thought and discovering how each schools approach to law can affect judicial decision making The Natural Law School - • if a written law is unjust then it is not a true natural law and need not be obeyed