Looking for a law textbook that defines legal terms Are there law textbooks that define legal terms? I would be very interested in such a book. I am a mathematician who likes terms to be defined precisely. I am sure in law classes, legal terms are defined. If it turns out that pretty much every law textbook defines terms precisely, then I will simply check Google.
Black's Law Dictionary is the leading publication of that type (the online version is based upon the out of copyright second edition, while the current version is the 11th edition from 2019), although not the only one. It is not really a textbook, however, so much as a resource used by both law students and practicing lawyers and judges. The editor of all editions of it since 1996 is Bryan A. Garner, who is also the leading authority on what constitutes good modern legal writing (which in some cases violate outdated elementary school usage rules like never starting a sentence with a conjunction). Law textbooks are subject-matter specific, and there is no one class in which legal terms are taught. In contacts class, law students learn contracts related terms. In property class, law students learn property related terms. In torts class, law students learn torts related terms. I am sure in law classes, legal terms are defined. Not really. Your assumption is more false than true. U.S. legal instruction is typically conducted using the Socratic method and with a review of the leading appellate court cases and the key statutory language in each subject. Rather than having the textbook define a term, it is far more common for students in a class to read four appellate court cases addressing a subject, none of which define a term, and for the professor to ask a student chosen at random what that term means, often probing the student with follow up questions for fifteen or twenty minutes. Usually, the final conclusion is not stated outright either by the professor or the textbook in textbook author provided text, although the cases referenced and statutes referenced will often provide one or more than one definition for a term, not necessarily consistent ones. Law professors in the U.S., collectively, take the attitude that there is no absolute meaning for anything and that it is a waste of time to teach specific legal rules or doctrines which may change over the course of a student's career. Instead, they focus on teaching how to argue over close call gray areas in the law and how to identify legal issues, with the idea that the clear black and white rules of law are easy to learn after you graduate from law school when and if you need to do so. There are books called &quot;legal outlines&quot; and &quot;treatises&quot; which are more direct than law professors and textbooks in providing answers in a particular subject, as are bar exam review materials. But, again, it is important to understand the nature of the beast before you use them. I am a mathematician who likes terms to be defined precisely. I am sure in law classes, legal terms are defined. If it turns out that pretty much every law textbook defines terms precisely, then I will simply check Google. This is a fool's errand (I was an undergraduate math major myself before becoming a lawyer). This is because legal terms don't have a single consistent meaning. The same word or phrase can and often does mean different things in different contexts. Many legal terms defined in Black's Law dictionary have multiple meanings stated and it is not at all uncommon for a statute or contract to define a word in a new and unconventional way. I probably draft contacts with novel definitions for words at least a few times every year. There are a million or so U.S. lawyers, and tens of thousands of federal, state and local legislators out there further complicating affairs each year, in addition to thousands of judges whose decisions may coin new legal terms or new meanings for existing legal terms. This is why these resources need to be updated regularly. For example, there is no one consistent definition of the word &quot;person&quot; which is widely used in a variety of statutes and regulations and contracts. As another example, the term &quot;security&quot; means something very different in the law of securities regulation, where it refers to investments made by passive investors and traded in secondary markets, than it does in the law of secured transactions, where it means collateral for an obligation. Likewise, in bankruptcy law, national defense law, criminal law or tort law, the term security means something entirely different in each separate context. As a third example, the term &quot;equity&quot; can have very different meanings depending upon context. It can mean the value of something net of debt to which it is subject. It can refer the the jurisprudence of courts of chancery before equity jurisprudence and law jurisprudence were merged in the 19th century which is relevant to the constitutional right to a jury trial in federal court and to the kinds of defenses that can be asserted in response to a claim. Or, it can refer to ownership interests in entities as distinct from debt interests in entities, as a third and not comprehensive list of meanings. Common law countries, in particular (i.e. those countries with legal systems derived from those of England) are notorious for their inconsistent use of terminology, which is rather more consistent in civil law countries due to the way that civil codes are drafted. Also keep in mind the famous quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.: The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience. In law, the fact that A implies B and that B implies C does not necessarily mean that A implies C. The law simply isn't that consistent and logical. You can't follow long chains of logical reasoning in the law with any confidence. Generally, only fact specific applications of the law that involve fact patterns similar to your own are reliable, and the law is also sometimes just plain inconsistent even when applied to the same set of facts.
Law doesn't have a monopoly on bad writing. Steven Pinker, in "Sense of Style" and other articles, says that the kind of poor writing you mention is a symptom of the "curse of knowledge". Justice Kagan believes that good legal writing needs to at least be good writing, and law schools aren't doing enough to teach that. All the other Justices expressed similar opinions to that in interviews with Bryan Garner.
would it be interpreted in favor of the person who did not draft the terms? Yes, provided that the interpretation is reasonable. That is known as the doctrine of contra proferentem. Here, the term "deliverables and associated documents" might entail a contradiction if that term [allegedly or literally] encompasses "source code or content". That depends on what definition(s) of "deliverables and associated documents" can be adduced from the contract. The term could refer to items that are not "source code or content", such as the binary files (i.e., executables and DLLs), instructions &amp; documentation on how to operate and troubleshoot the application, and so forth. In that case, there would be no contradiction because there is no overlap between these items and the source code. if term A) is written on line 10 and term B) is written on line 11, is it resonable to assume term B) takes precedence or modifies term A? No. The sequence of clauses/terms itself does not determine which one outweighs or qualifies the other. Instead, the language used in the contract is indicative of the parties' intent and therefore how the terms of that contract relate to each other.
LegalZoom did not get it wrong. The case Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission was under Colorado law (hence it was against the Colorado Civil Rights Commission), not federal law. LZ stated that 20 states have enacted laws against discrimination based on sexual orientation, and Colorado is one of those states. The issue was heard by SCOTUS because the plaintiff raised claims under the Free Speech and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment, hence he could make a federal case of it. A prior case (Azucar Bakery) cited by LZ was about refusing to make a cake with anti-gay slogans, and was decided by the commission. Here is a brief filed by that plaintiff in that and two related cases, arguing a pattern of religious discrmination. LZ got it mildly wrong in saying "the court ruled that this was not discrimination because...", because the case did not go to court, it ended at the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. The second case appears to refer to Charge No. CP2018011310 a complaint filed against Masterpiece, where the same commission found probable cause for an anti-discrimination proceeding. In that proceeding, the Colorado Civil Rights Division finds that complainant Scardina "adequately shows that the Respondent's reason is pretext". This led to a complaint against the commission in US District Court (Civil Action No. 18-cv-02074-WYD-STV). There was a motion to dismiss which had partial success, but which was not about the substance of the case (it had to do with immunity, standing, abstention doctrines). The case was later dismissed, because the parties settled. So at no point did a court rule on the substance of the "pretext" issue – on this point, I think LZ overstated the significance of the commission's decision.
1. Are this and similar ordinances constitutionally valid? Yes. Some future court might decide the law is invalid at some future time. But that possibility is hypothetical and speculative. Therefore, as of now, the law is valid unless and until it is challenged and overturned. 2. What defenses could a government make if challenged? It depends on what grounds the law is challenged. Your question about possible defenses is highly dependent on the nature of any challenge — which you have not specified in your question. The U.S. Constitution, for example, prohibits laws respecting a number of things such as freedom of the press, speech, religion, peaceful assembly, bearing arms, etc. to list just a few of the most notable ones. But your question does not assert the law in question violates any specific or particular prohibition against it. Although the question mentions "restricting free movement as well as targeting only a specific demographic," it does not specify any part of any constitution that prohibits these things. Therefore, your question is unclear as to what might present a constitutional problem for the law. It is also unclear which constitution you think might contain prohibitive language. Is it a federal constitutional issue that concerns you? Or is it a state constitutional matter? In either case, which issue specifically concerns you? Your question needs to address these specifics in order to analyze it and respond in a meaningful way. Look at it like this... just as it is impossible to prove a negative, so is it impossible for anyone to conclude with absolute certainty that any law is not unconstitutional because no one can predict with certainty every possible future challenge a law might face. There are just too many possibilities to (pre-emptively) exhaust them all with certainty. Also, no one can predict with certainty how any future court might rule on the future challenges (which themselves are unpredictable as previously argued). Therefore, one can only say I think the law is unconstitutional and here are my reasons. Then others can analyze the law and the reasons; then offer an opinion. Further, based on precedent, would they likely be successful? See above answer to question numbered 2. Laws aren't required to be "justified" by the constitution. Constitutional justification for a law is a meaningless phrase. There is no requirement for a law to be "justified" by any constitution other than that the legislature is empowered by the constitution to make laws. That's all the justification any law needs. Beyond that, however, no law can violate the constitution as determined by a Supreme Court (or the last court to rule) if challenged.
It may &quot;seem[] normative&quot; that &quot;a law cannot enumerate any specific persons or companies to be included or excluded from its provisions.&quot; But in fact it is not generally the case. There are various kinds of laws that traditionally have named specific people or entities to define their scope. These include: In nineteenth-century England, a divorce could only be granted by a specific law passed by Parliament, naming the persons to be divorced. I am not sure when the practice stopped. In the US during the nineteenth century (and I think the early twentieth century also) a corporation was normally formed by a specific law granting a charter of incorporation to the named company. In the US during the period 1866-1870 there were a number of laws passed permitting former Confederate officers and officials who were presented by the 14th amendment from holding office under the US or any state to hold office again, as the amendment provides for. Eventually Congress passed a more general amnesty. It was once common for the English Parliament to pass bills of attainder. These were legislative declarations that a particular person was guilty of a particular crime, generally without any trial or other process. Sometimes the specific sentence was also imposed by such a bill. This was sufficiently resented that the US Constitution specifically forbids Congress or any state from passing such a bill. It was once common for actual laws to grant payments to specific people for specific purposes. This is no longer common, but there is no legal bar to it in either the UK or the US that I know of. The UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 contains a provision enabling Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children to continue to receive royalties for performances and adaptations, publications and broadcast of &quot;Peter Pan&quot; whose author, J. M. Barrie, had given his copyright to the hospital in 1929, later confirmed in his will. This right is to persist even after the expiration of ordinary copyright for the play, but is not a full grant of copyright. Laws or ordinances invoking eminent domain to take the property of particular individuals for particular purposes are common, mostly at the local level. In the US, the Equal Protection Clause generally forbids laws which treat people, or groups of people, differently unless there is some rational basis for the distinction. But in some cases a plausible basis is asserted and such laws are passed.
So my understanding is that the phrase "common law" can refer to either the concept of laws established by court precedent or it can refer to a specific body of laws that have been established that way. Yes. Should I just be inferring that from context? Yes. Is there a single body of "common law"? No. Are there distinct bodies of "U.K. common law" and "U.S. common law" for example? Yes, furthermore there is different common law in England/Wales, Northern Ireland &amp; Scotland and each state of the US. Further, Scotland and Louisiana are not straightforward common law jurisdictions but rather a blend of common and civil law. If so, how are they related? They are related in that they all: have a common source, middle English common law evolve in the same way - judges interpreting the current common law and the statutes of the legislature follow an appeals system through higher levels of courts. They do not all go in the same direction though. Do judges in common law countries cite court decisions in other common law countries? Sometimes; it depends on the "distance" of the other jurisdiction. A judge in New South Wales is quite likely to consider how judges in Queensland and Victoria have considered similar laws, less likely to look at the UK and Canada and extremely unlikely to look at the USA. This has a lot to do with how far back it is since the "last common ancestor" of the law; the longer the corpus of law has been separated the more likely that the principles have diverged, partly this is cultural drift but mostly this is differences in statutes that actively modify the common law. Usually, jurisdictions within the same country are quite close to each other; partly due to common culture but often because of a genuine effort to "harmonise" laws across borders. There are occasions, however, where legislatures "steal" laws from other jurisdictions, in which case they often look to each other for early development of common law on those laws. For example, the Alberta (Canada) Builder's Lien Act 2000 and the NSW (Australia) Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 both address the same "wrong" and both had a common and parallel genesis pre-enactment; early cases in each jurisdiction were watched by the other.
I will not speak to your specific situation. I am unfamiliar with the jurisdiction and real estate contracts are one of the most highly regulated contracts so local statutes may override common law. In general, the terms of a contract are what the parties agree; the written document is not the contract - it is evidence of the contract. In a case where the parties agree that the written version is wrong then the written version is wrong. Where the parties disagree that the written version is wrong (or agree that it is wrong but disagree as to how) then each will need to provide evidence to support their position. A signed written contract that supports one parties position is extremely strong evidence! The other party would need to provide some overwhelming evidence to trump this. The general position that the courts take is that the written contract accurately documents the agreement unless someone can prove that it doesn't.