The U.S. Legal System

Civil v. Criminal Law

Civil law specifies rights and duties of individuals among themselves while criminal law specifies duties and offenses against society as a whole. While the purpose of criminal law is to punish wrongdoers (by fines or imprisonment) and deter criminal conduct, the purpose of civil law is to compensate injured parties (by awarding them money to compensate for their injuries). Intellectual property law is predominantly civil although there are a few criminal provisions as well.

Statutory v. Case Law

The two primary sources of law are statutes and case law. Statutes are laws that are enacted by the federal and state legislatures. For example, the Copyright Act is a federal statute which was passed by Congress. Federal statutes are contained in the United States Code which is divided into titles (or chapters) covering different areas of law. For example, the Copyright Act is Title 17 of the United States Code.

In the United States, the federal government has exclusive jurisdiction over certain areas of law such as copyrights and patents while the states have exclusive jurisdiction over other areas of law such as trade secrets. However, there are some areas of law which are regulated at both the federal and state levels of government (concurrent jurisdiction) such as trademarks.

Common law (also referred to as case law) refers to law which results from court decisions. As courts resolve disputes, a body of judicial decisions develops. Court cases are decided either by a judge or a jury. When a particular court makes a ruling on a legal issue, all courts in the same jurisdiction must follow that ruling in the future. This concept is known as precedent and its rationale is that once an issue has been decided, the law should treat that issue consistently in the future. For example, suppose that a court ruling made it legal to shoot someone in order to defend your life. Suppose further that you were attacked and in order to prevent your attacker from killing you, you shot him. If your attacker lives and sues you for shooting him, you would rely on the precedent that it is legal to shoot someone in order to defend your life. It is important to note, however, that precedents may vary from one jurisdiction to another. Each state is considered a jurisdiction as well as the federal court system so it is possible that laws on the same subject will not be identical in different locations.

Although we have two different sources of law (statutes and cases), they do not operate totally independently of each other. Case law often supplements and interprets statutes. For example, the Copyright Act provides that it is illegal to publicly perform a copyrighted musical work without the copyright owner's permission. This seems simple enough, but there have been many cases involving this seemingly simple rule. Courts have dealt with questions such as what constitutes a "performance" and what makes a performance a "public" performance? When a statute is written, it is impossible to predict every conceivable situation to which that statute will apply. Through case law, the law is constantly evolving and being interpreted in order to resolve new problems that arise. This is especially important in an area such as copyright law since technological advances are constantly stretching the boundaries of copyright. A particular legal question may be determined solely by statute, solely by case law or by a combination of both.

The Court System

When studying cases, it is important to understand the hierarchy of the United States court system. In other words, there are various levels of courts in each jurisdiction. The lowest level courts are known as trial courts. This is the court where disputes are initially decided. At the trial level, the parties will present evidence and, based upon the evidence presented, the court (through either a judge or a jury) will render a decision. The mid-level courts are known as intermediate appellate courts. If you are unhappy with the decision of a trial court, you can usually appeal the decision to an intermediate appellate court which will decide whether the trial court decided correctly or not. Finally, the highest level of courts are known as courts of last resort, known as the Supreme Court in the federal court and most state court systems. If you are still unhappy with the decision of the intermediate appellate court, you have one more chance to appeal to the court of last resort. If the court of last resort hears your case and you are still unhappy with the result, you'll have to remain unhappy or learn to live with it.

It is also important to be aware that although it is possible to appeal decisions, the grounds upon which you can appeal are limited to legal issues rather than factual issues. In other words, you can usually appeal based on the grounds that the law was misapplied in some manner, but you generally cannot appeal based on the grounds that the evidence is not true. Once facts are established based on evidence presented at the trial court level, those facts are presumed to be correct on appeal.

Copyright law is predominantly federal law and copyright cases will therefore usually be decided by federal courts. The federal court system is made up of three levels of courts - U.S. District Courts, U.S. Courts of Appeal, and the U.S. Supreme Court. In order to appeal a decision of one of the federal Courts of Appeal to the Supreme Court, it is necessary to file a document called a writ of certiorari. A writ of certiorari is a request for the Supreme Court to hear the case. The Supreme Court does not have to grant such requests, and in fact, hears only a small percentage of the cases it is requested to hear. Generally, the Supreme Court will only hear cases that involve an important question of law or where there is a conflict among lower level courts.

One of the problems people have in understanding the law is that the law has a language of its own. For instance, courts use terms to identify the parties involved in the case and these terms vary depending on the court level (trial, intermediate, last resort). Under the federal court system, the person or party suing at the trial court level, the is called the plaintiff. The person or party being sued is called the defendant. At the intermediate appellate level, the person or party appealing is called the appellant and the other person or party is called the appellee. In Supreme Court cases, the person or party appealing is called the Petitioner and the other person or party is called the Respondent.

One final point to keep in mind is that most lawsuits do not result in a trial. Often, the parties reach an agreement or settlement between themselves before the case is tried or decided. For example, if you know that you infringed a copyrighted work and the copyright owner sues you, you might try to negotiate a settlement such as paying the copyright owner a sum of money and promising to stop infringing. However, just because a case is settled does not mean that either party is admitting that they did anything wrong. In reality, you might agree to settle a case even if you believe you are not guilty of anything in order to avoid the expense of defending yourself in a lawsuit. For example, if you are sued for $100 for copyright infringement and believe you are 110% not guilty, you might consider settling for $100 rather than spending thousands of dollars to prove yourself innocent. This may not seem right, but practical consideration sometimes outweigh right and wrong.

Civil v. Criminal Law

Statutory v. Case Law

The Court System

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