Primary Authorities
These are the laws themselves, including constitutions, statutes, cases, regulations.
What are primary authorities?
These sources comment on the law but are not law themselves.
What are secondary sources?
Binding authority. This authority type requires the court to comply with it.
What term is used to describe cases, statutes, or regulations that a court must follow?
This appellate court's decisions are binding within a specific geographic area of Florida, including where Amy's incident occurred.
What is the Florida 3d District Court of Appeal?
This connector is used to find documents that contain at least one of the specified terms. It's especially useful when searching for synonyms or alternative terms. If you're looking for cases involving dogs or canines, you'd use this connector between the two terms.
What is OR?
This type of law is at the top of the hierarchy in the U.S. judicial system.
What is the Constitution?
This type of secondary source includes legal encyclopedias and treatises. They provide context, discuss, analyze, or interpret the law but are not binding, just persuasive.
What are legal encyclopedias and treatises?
The U.S. Supreme Court is the highest court in the United States.
Which court's decisions are binding on all lower federal courts?
This area of law deals with the breach of duty that causes harm, involving a property owner and a resident.
What is tort law, specifically negligence in a landlord-tenant relationship?
This type of search is more precise than a natural language search and involves using specific operators to connect search terms. If you're looking for a "police dog attack," this type of search allows for more control over the results by specifying the relationship between terms.
What is a terms and connectors search?
These laws are enacted by Congress or state legislatures and are second in the hierarchy.
What are statutes?
When the authority comes from outside its jurisdiction. When the decision comes from courts of another state or federal circuit, or when it involves secondary sources.
When might a court consider using persuasive authority?
A decision by a state's highest court is binding only on courts within that state. Consider the jurisdictional boundaries of state law.
Are decisions from a state's highest court binding on courts in other states?
Amya was injured when a structural part of her living space failed during a social gathering. This incident involves property owner responsibility.
What is a potential negligence claim against a landlord for injuries sustained due to the collapse of an apartment balcony?
This proximity connector is used to find terms that appear within the same sentence in the database. If you want to find documents where "police" and "dog" appear closely related, but not necessarily next to each other.
What is /S?
This primary authority is created by government agencies to implement and enforce laws, found at the lowest level of the hierarchy of primary authorities.
What are regulations and rulings?
These scholarly articles are written by legal experts such as law professors, judges, or practicing lawyers, offering in-depth analysis and critique of legal issues, and are a rich source for understanding complex legal doctrines.
What are law review articles?
This principle means to stand by things decided. It requires courts to follow decisions of higher courts within the same jurisdiction, which is crucial for understanding why Amy's case falls under the Florida 3d DCA.
What is stare decisis?
The jurisdiction for Amya's case is determined by the location of the incident, the residence of the parties, and where the business is conducted, all pointing to a specific state's legal authority.
Why is the jurisdiction for Amy's potential claim against her landlord in Florida?
The root expander allows you to truncate a word to its root form to search for all variations of the word. If you're looking for documents that mention "attack," "attacks," "attacked," or "attacking," you'd use this at the end of the word "attack."
What is an exclamation point (!)?
This category of primary authority includes local laws that govern specific aspects of daily life, such as noise control, building standards, and environmental protection, representing the most directly applicable level of law for many specific legal issues.
What are ordinances and other local government rulings?
These are not primary law but are invaluable for directing researchers to relevant cases, statutes, and regulations, often providing the foundational understanding needed to tackle complex legal issues.
Why are secondary sources like legal encyclopedias, treatises, and law review articles crucial for beginning legal research?
Consider the jurisdiction and the level of the court. Identify whether the legal issues are governed by state or federal law and which court you are in.
How does one determine if a decision is mandatory for a court?
These courts' decisions are binding only within their specific circuit.
What are U.S. Courts of Appeals?
This rule helps ensure your search works on both Westlaw and Lexis by handling how you input phrases. It's a good practice to use these around phrases to make sure your search is effective on both platforms.
What is typing phrases in quotation marks?