Talk:Common law

The US Outlawed Common Law in 1812

The United States outlawed common law in 1812 in the Supreme Court case, 'United States v. Hudson and Goodwin, 11 U.S. (7 Cranch) 32 (1812)'. Why is it still called a common law country? Lord Milner (talk) 08:05, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

United States v. Hudson. United States v. Hudson and Goodwin, 11 U.S. (7 Cranch) 32 (1812), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court held that Congress must first enact a constitutional law criminalizing an activity, attach a penalty, and give the federal courts jurisdiction over the offense in order for the court to render a conviction.

That event is a feature of common law. A court redefined law by a ruling that sets precedent. As that reads, it is limited to when a court may render a conviction. There is a lot more to common law than the rendering of convictions. Eg. All native indigenous law remains the law of the land until superseded by new law, whether legislated, or established by new precedent.

In terms of overturning any common law, the United States v. Hudson and Goodwin is quite limited, as it deals with international matters, not indigenous law. Through its recognition as precedent, it strengthens the principle of common law, in that the “defining characteristic of common law is that it arises as precedent”. SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:40, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

common law courts

This article talks in several places about common law courts. But nowhere does it explain what a common law court is. 2602:306:BC65:4D59:C0F7:2E1C:E2F5:3D57 (talk) 04:42, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Hmm, a "common law court" is just a court that uses common law, or a court in a common law country. There's not much to add beyond that, but we could clarify that. Alyo (chat·edits) 15:07, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

That seems to be accurate for how this term is (confusingly) used in this confusingly scoped article, but just for the benefit of anyone stumbling across this conversation in the future: in ordinary usage, "common law court" would refer to a "law court", i.e. a court that was not a court of equity and thus did not have the authority to grant equitable remedies such as injunctions. The gradual elimination of the law/equity distinction has made this a bit obscure to modern readers but see e.g. this 1919 article. Or of course one can always look to Blackstone.

There are at least four distinct encyclopedic meanings of "common law" -- (1) an unhelpful synonym for "case law"; (2) a legal tradition originating in medieval England and encompassing some dozens of modern countries, which ironically rely for the most part on statutory law; (3) a particular body of mostly-English customary law, as systematized by Coke, Blackstone, et al.; and (4) (as in "common law court") the opposite of equity. I think this article is mostly about 1 and 3 presently, although it's not always entirely clear and it's difficult to shake the impression that we've simply thrown all the different meanings into a blender. Although thorough reform would be a major job, I'd suggest it would be a good idea to remove the current uses of the phrase "common law court," which are at the very least unnecessary and unhelpful. -- Visviva (talk) 21:44, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Article issues and classification

• Reassessed article to C-class. Article does not pass the B-class criteria #1: The article is suitably referenced, with inline citations. It has reliable sources, and any important or controversial material which is likely to be challenged is cited.

The clear and unmistakable evidence are found in the article and listed in the categories:

• Wikipedia articles needing factual verification from August 2015
• Articles with unsourced statements from December 2023
• Articles that may contain original research from February 2024
• Wikipedia articles needing factual verification from February 2024
• Articles needing additional references from July 2024

Appendices: These are important sections to aid in building the web. While this is a fundamental element of Wikipedia they are not required for aesthetics or article promotion. This means that size and relative importance should be observed per MOS:APPENDIX as noted in MOS:SEEALSO: Links in this section should be relevant and limited to a reasonable number. a reasonable number is the only size limitation so eleven links are probably not excessive. Further reading does not discuss size only that citations should be used and Any links to external websites included under "Further reading" are subject to the guidelines described at Wikipedia:External links. Sixteen links may or may not be too lengthy.

Ah! "External links": This section has repeated mention to include no citation templates.

• ELpoints #3) states: Links in the "External links" section should be kept to a minimum. A lack of external links or a small number of external links is not a reason to add external links.
• LINKFARM states: There is nothing wrong with adding one or more useful content-relevant links to the external links section of an article; however, excessive lists can dwarf articles and detract from the purpose of Wikipedia. On articles about topics with many fansites, for example, including a link to one major fansite may be appropriate.
• ELMIN: Minimize the number of links. --
• ELCITE: Do not use {{cite web}} or other citation templates in the External links section. Citation templates are permitted in the Further reading section.

External links This page in a nutshell: External links in an article can be helpful to the reader, but they should be kept minimal, meritable, and directly relevant to the article. With rare exceptions, external links should not be used in the body of an article.

Second paragraph, acceptable external links include those that contain further research that is accurate and on-topic, information that could not be added to the article for reasons such as copyright or amount of detail, or other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article for reasons unrelated to its accuracy.

• Please note: WP:ELBURDEN: Disputed links should be excluded by default unless and until there is a consensus to include them. This more than implies that trimming (contesting) as maintenance is not subject to BRD. While general practice is usually three or four links is almost never an issue the section has come to be a somewhat accepted

This surely more than hints to size. Normal practice seems to indicate that three or maybe four links are not an issue. The section is being nudged to change link addition criteria above by using the section as a dumping ground. This is not WP:IAR as this requires consensus. Sometimes there are excessive links in multiple subsections that creates obvious CLUTTER (all that apply). Better article classification is not immune. This is considered consensus by silence.

Eleven links certainly exceed the above criteria. This becomes more pronounced when the appendices total 38 links. A solution is to trim the "External links" and resume our proverbial rat euthanization. -- Otr500 (talk) 15:14, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Cyprus wrong on map

The map doesn't seem to acknowledge Cyprus as an independent country (has no letter over it) but either way it is the wrong colour. Cyprus operates a mixed common law/civil law system based on its history as a British colony. The source cited for the map says this itself. It should not be coloured civil law. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ~2026-33346-48 (talk) 14:39, 5 June 2026 (UTC)

Recent Ruination of Article

Hi,

I noticed that quite recently, a user by the name of “Dawkin Verbier” did severe damage to this article. Not only has much significant and necessary information been removed, and not only has the article been filled with previously absent spelling and grammar mistakes, but the user seems to have made a particular effort to erase the connection between Roman Law and Common Law, and to frame all similarities in the present as imports from Civil Law. No legal scholar would dispute that Civil Law has been far more heavily influenced by Roman Law than has Common Law, but all would nonetheless acknowledge that Common Law has had significant exchange with Roman Law, which can be verified by cross-checking with the “Roman Law” article. The precedential and non-unified nature of Common Law is in fact more similar to pre-Late Imperial Roman Law than is Civil Law, though I acknowledge that this similarity is not due to direct influence. (Personal attack removed) I would suggest that this article be reverted to the last revision prior to Dawkin Verbier’s harmful revisionism. I would also suggest that if the user is found to have been performing similar mutilation of other articles, that they be permanently blocked from editing and/or banned. And before anyone raises the objection, no, I’m not an AI just because I write very formally, properly, and admittedly quite stiffly and stiltedly. On the contrary, I rather despise the d**n things. Thank you for considering my proposal.

Cheers! ~2026-43565-09 (talk) 06:34, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

I agree, Dawkin Verbier's edits are entirely retrograde. The central point of a common law article should be about what common law is, how it works today. History is interesting, and helps explain how we got to today, but it's background. It should not be the lede. Likewise, a "history" without the upending by Holmes and Cardozo in the late 19th and early 20th century misses the point -- today, their view is universal, and the historical view is only a relic, not modern practice. Only an uneducated layperson thinks about "common law" the way Dawkin Verbier has rewritten.

White Whirlwind's edits in June 2025 also reflect a lack of understanding, and should be backed out as well.

I propose that the article be reverted to early June 2025.

DCLawwyer (talk) 03:07, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

I would caution all participants here to refrain from personal attacks. I have taken the liberty of replacing a particularly egregious one above with {{Personal attack removed}}. In general, I do not see any need here to comment on the identity of people who have made particular edits, rather than simply commenting on the edits themselves. Given that the article was in rather poor shape beforehand, perhaps the best thing would be to simply focus on how it might be improved, rather than on how others' efforts to improve it may have fallen short. -- Visviva (talk) 03:22, 11 September 2026 (UTC)

I reverted the undiscussed rewrite of the lede and unexplained blanking of sourced content. Where additions were properly referenced, I am putting some of that material back into the article. Mascius (talk) 00:03, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Edit summaries

While restoring some of the edits, I noticed that much of the material had simply been moved around, while a substantial amount of existing content had been removed. Some of the removed material was unsourced, so rather than restore material without references, I removed the unreferenced content from the article.

I am less certain about how to handle the material added in The additions appear to be genuinely new content and are supported by references, but the edit summary cites WP:DCV. I am not familiar with WP:DCV, but the guideline appears to contemplate discussion on the talk page, and I have not been able to find any such discussion here.

I’m feeling a little under the weather and may be less active over the next few days, so apologies if I miss anything in the discussion. Mascius (talk) 01:12, 20 September 2026 (UTC)