laws
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 311 U.S. 223 - West v. American Telephone & Telegraph Co. · 1940Most cited · 3,060 citing opinions
Rules of Decision Act
The rules of decision established by judicial decisions of state courts are 'laws' as well as those prescribed by statute.
How often courts cite the cases defining “laws”
Court decisions citing the 2 opinions that defined “laws” — 3,931 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.
All 2 definitions, chronological · 1940–1948
the Erie R. Co. case decided that 'laws,' in this context, include not only state statutes, but also the unwritten law of a state as pronounced by its courts.
Rules of Decision Act