common law

Those principles, usages and rules of action applicable to the government and security of persons and property which do not rest for their authority upon any express or positive statute or other written declaration, but upon statements of principles found in the decisions of the courts. 15 Am J2d Com L § 1. In a broader sense the common law is the system of rules and declarations of principles from which our judicial ideas and legal definitions are derived, and which are continually expanding; the system being capable of growth and development at the hands of judges. Linkins v Protestant Episcopal Cathedral, 87 App DC 351, 187 F2d 357, 28 ALR2d 521; Ney v Yellow Cab Co. 2 Ill 2d 74, 117 NE2d 74, 51 ALR2d 624. In its broadest aspect, the common law may be said to be the general Anglo-American system of legal concepts and the traditional technique which forms the basis of the law of the states which have adopted it. 15 Am J2d Com L § 1. The common law of England, in its broadest significance, is the basic component of the common law as adopted by American courts. 15 Am J2d Com L § 6. English statutes enacted before the emigration of the American colonists constituted a part of the common law on its adoption in this country, so far as they were not merely local in character or inapplicable to American institutions and conditions; if such statutes are so far removed in point of time that one must be hesitant in declaring that they are a part of the common law for the purposes of the present, they are nevertheless part of our judicial heritage and should be interpreted and applied accordingly. 15 Am J2d Com L § 7. As the words are used in the seventh amendment to the United States Constitution providing that "no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law," the common law referred to is not the common law of any individual state (for it probably differs in all), but it is the common law of England, the grand reservoir of all our jurisprudence. Under that law, the facts once tried by a jury are never re-examined, unless a new trial is granted; or unless the judgment of the trial court is reversed by a superior tribunal, on a writ of error, and a venire facias de novo is awarded. Capital Traction Co. v Hof, 174 US 1, 8, 43 L Ed 873, 876, 18 S Ct 580. See federal common law; proceeding according to the course of the common law; unwritten law.