Perhaps a little oddly Geeklawyer was reading legal news feeds for something other than salacious gossip. He stumbled upon Law Pundit’s triffic post on the recent Exxon Valdez US Supreme Court judgment. Of course US blawgers are all over this judgment rightly & inevitably, and Geeklawyer has nothing to add to their analytical commentary other than a minor UK-centric observation about English Common Law.
It struck him yet again as interesting that US judgments (maybe only the big ones?) have a tendency to historical analysis in justifying decisions.
“The modern Anglo-American doctrine of punitive damages dates back at least to 1763, when a pair of decisions by the Court of Common Pleas recognized the availability of damages “for more than the injury received.” Wilkes v. Wood, Lofft 1, 18, 98 Eng. Rep. 489, 498 (1763) (Lord Chief Justice Pratt). In Wilkes v. Wood, one of the foundations of the Fourth Amendment, exemplary damages awarded against the Secretary of State, responsible for an unlawful search of John Wilkes’s papers, were a spectacular £4,000.”
Geeklawyer has a read a number of US Supreme Court & 9th Circuit decisions which are notable for their commentary on English 19th & 18th Century decisions. Well duh, it’s Common Law. He knows that but it is an odd feature seen much less obvious in comparable UK matters: the House of Lords is much less prone to quoting Coke and his peers.
Perhaps we have more statute law now making 19th century references less necessary?
It is an interesting observation though…
But would that not also be true of America? More so even.
I’m honestly not sure how much gets passed in the US each year — maybe I’m just biased from too much West Wing and get the impression that nothing ever gets done unless Bartlet takes a personal hand in the matter.
I was basing my argument (assertion) on the amount of legislation passed since, oh, 1997 say.
Possibly, and again, this is assertion, as the US states can have different laws, a ruling from ye olde England is one which can be uniformly applied. For obvious reasons, Texas may not create good precedent for, say, Louisiana but England can be used as a precedent for both as necessary…
Could that the American Legal System is still a spotty adolescent when set against the experiences of its common law relatives and looks to compartively elderly legal references in order to dispatch argument with both authority and weight?
Nope don’t think so at all. From a trial lawyers perspective the great thing about the US is that everyone sues everyone else for everything, this means nearly every conceivable angle on every possible argument is tried multiple times somewhere. I tend to think therefore that their system is the most battle hardened of all.
Of course that’s not much fun if you are the defendant but look on the bright side — lawyers have a great time.
i’m with the minx here — they just haven’t a clue so they quote some old shite and hope nobody dares contradict them.
’that’s england for you — bits of it have been there since the nineteenth century.’
The American Legal System is indeed battle hardened — but does it not still lack the weight of its own precedent when compared to that which may be slung around in the UK Courts? After all, how old is America-200 odd years? I would imagine that some judges — particularly those of the commonwealth states — would sit there grumbling about ” lightweights” when it came to citing comparitively recent authority.
This is, of course, a circular argument and loaded with animal fertiliser.….
and judges as elected representatives of the people (god help the people) have to play to the gallery.
old law = good law = clever judge
caviar to the general