Team Reflection Summery

Team Reflection Summery

Team Reflection Summery

In this week’s reflection paper we will discuss the differences between Substantive Law, Procedural law, Common law and Statutory law.  The basics behind each one of these are as follows.  Substantive laws provide individuals with rights and create duties, procedural laws are laws that provide a structure and set out rules for pursuing substantive rights, common laws are laws that have not been passed by the legislature but rather are made by the courts are based on the fundamentals of previous cases. Lastly statutory law is the body of law created by the legislature and is approved by the executive branch of state and federal governments (Melvin 2011)

Statutory laws are written statues in accordance with the United States Constitution, and state legislatures. At the executive level, a federal statue or bill is forged by the United States Congress, and submitted to the President for approval. If the president approves the federal statue, that statue is turned into a federal law. The president has the right to veto the statue (bill), and with two-thirds vote (the majority vote), congress has the right to overturn the veto passing the bill and turning it into a federal law.

The most recent, very controversy statutory law is Obama care, known as the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was signed into law on March 23, 2010.” The premise of the law is that every individual must have some form of health care insurance, and anyone who does not acquire some form of health care insurance will be fined. The second part of the law is no one can be turned away because of a pre-existing condition.  

        States level statues (bills), may differ from state and local state regulations. Many of the state and local regulations are similar in relations to vehicle laws, age appropriate curfews, and corporate operations. Every state is represented by the governor of that state who reviews the statue or bill presented in accordance with the states’ constitution, and makes the decision to sign or not sign the statue (bill) into a law.

        States ordinances are state laws at the local level that regulate dumping of trash, disposing of oils, school zoning, noise pollution, health and safety of consumers and their relationship with the culinary community.

        In closing, statutory laws created through federal and state legislative bodies as bills with the mindset that the executive entities will sign the bills into law.

Substantive Laws are in place to define people’s rights and responsibilities.   These laws are carried out and enforced by Procedural Laws. Substantive laws not only define rights, but also can dictate how outcomes of trials.   An example of a substantive law that defines a right would be the right to carry a firearm in certain states. The procedural laws that would support that would be a law that you would have to obtain a license to carry a concealed weapon, a law that you need a permit to own a gun, a law that your gun must be registered, etc.  An example where substantive laws are applied in the outcome of trials is that a Substantive law could dictate the degree of charges someone may face such as petty theft versus grand theft whereas procedural laws would dictate how the trial is conducted.

Common law as stated in the reading, is law that has been established by the courts, yet has not been passed by legislature. This is composed of past cases, the details and situations involved to yield the outcomes. Current cases may look back to future cases with similar details and situations to help gather current facts and support them with past cases along with their outcomes. The action of using Common Law is precedent, which is a tool to help guide decisions in regards to the current case when looking back to past cases. Common Law helps ensure fair judgments and outcomes to similar cases, similar outcomes should be similar when the past cases are also similar in details and situations. This may differ insignificantly, yet overall given the precedent, outcomes should be similar. For example, Common Law is used in cases with contracts between two individual parties, or organizations. A contract is created for services provided for compensation. The services may be provided, yet not completely executed as the contract had originally stated. Judgment against the services provided in accordance to the contract may be seen through Common Law and precedents. Also, vehicle cases, where two parties are in an accident. One party may have been intoxicated, and the other party may have ran through a red light. Both parties are at fault in their own certain details, yet using Common Law and precedence may help guide the verdict to a case like this. The use of Common Law and precedence is to help fairly decide cases in which past cases are similar in details and situations, yet Common Law has not been passed by legislature.