Common law

Legitimacy, in traditional Western common law, is the status of a child born to parents who are legally married to each other, and of a child conceived before the parents obtain a legal divorce.

Conversely, illegitimacy, also known as bastardy, has been the status of a child born outside marriage, such a child being known as a bastard, a love child, a natural child, or illegitimate. In Scots law, the terms natural son and natural daughter carry the same implications.

The contemporary national legal systems are generally based on one of four major legal traditions: civil law, common law, customary law, religious law or combinations of these. However, the legal system of each country is shaped by its unique history and so incorporates individual variations. The science that studies law at the level of legal systems is called comparative law.

Both civil (also known as Roman) and common law systems can be considered the most widespread in the world: civil law because it is the most widespread by landmass and by population overall, and common law because it is employed by the greatest number of people compared to any single civil law system.

Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse committed with the necessary intention as defined by the law in a specific jurisdiction. This state of mind may, depending upon the jurisdiction, distinguish murder from other forms of unlawful homicide, such as manslaughter. Manslaughter is killing committed in the absence of malice, such as in the case of voluntary manslaughter brought about by reasonable provocation, or diminished capacity. Involuntary manslaughter, where it is recognized, is a killing that lacks all but the most attenuated guilty intent, recklessness.

Most societies consider murder to be an extremely serious crime, and thus believe that a person convicted of murder should receive harsh punishments for the purposes of retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation, or incapacitation. In most countries, a person convicted of murder generally receives a long-term prison sentence, a life sentence, or capital punishment. Some countries, states, and territories, including the United Kingdom and other countries with English-derived common law, mandate life imprisonment for murder, whether it is subdivided into first-degree murder or otherwise.

Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplomats, its officials, or its secret services for a hostile foreign power, or attempting to kill its head of state. A person who commits treason is known in law as a traitor.

Historically, in common law countries, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife or that of a master by his servant. Treason (i.e., disloyalty) against one's monarch was known as high treason and treason against a lesser superior was petty treason. As jurisdictions around the world abolished petty treason, "treason" came to refer to what was historically known as high treason.

A tort is a civil wrong, other than breach of contract, that causes a claimant to suffer loss or harm, resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the tortious act. Tort law can be contrasted with criminal law, which deals with criminal wrongs that are punishable by the state. While criminal law aims to punish individuals who commit crimes, tort law aims to compensate individuals who suffer harm as a result of the actions of others. Some wrongful acts, such as assault and battery, can result in both a civil lawsuit and a criminal prosecution in countries where the civil and criminal legal systems are separate. Tort law may also be contrasted with contract law, which provides civil remedies after breach of a duty that arises from a contract. Obligations in both tort and criminal law are more fundamental and are imposed regardless of whether the parties have a contract.

While tort law in civil law jurisdictions largely derives from Roman law, common law jurisdictions derive their tort law from customary English tort law. In civil law jurisdictions based on civil codes, both contractual and tortious or delictual liability is typically outlined in a civil code based on Roman Law principles. Tort law is referred to as the law of delict in Scots and Roman Dutch law, and resembles tort law in common law jurisdictions in that rules regarding civil liability are established primarily by precedent and theory rather than an exhaustive code. However, like other civil law jurisdictions, the underlying principles are drawn from Roman law. A handful of jurisdictions have codified a mixture of common and civil law jurisprudence either due to their colonial past (e.g. Québec, St Lucia, Mauritius) or due to influence from multiple legal traditions when their civil codes were drafted (e.g. Mainland China, the Philippines, and Thailand). Furthermore, Israel essentially codifies common law provisions on tort.

The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, on March 4, 1789. Originally including seven articles, the Constitution defined the foundational structure of the federal government.

The drafting of the Constitution by many of the nation's Founding Fathers, often referred to as its framing, was completed at the Constitutional Convention, which assembled at Independence Hall in Philadelphia between May 25 and September 17, 1787. Influenced by English common law and the Enlightenment liberalism of philosophers like John Locke and Montesquieu, the Constitution's first three articles embody the doctrine of the separation of powers, in which the federal government is divided into the legislative, bicameral Congress; the executive, led by the president; and the judiciary, within which the Supreme Court has apex jurisdiction. Articles IV, V, and VI embody concepts of federalism, describing the rights and responsibilities of state governments, the states in relationship to the federal government, and the process of constitutional amendment. Article VII establishes the procedure used to ratify the constitution.

Vicarious liability is a form of a strict, secondary liability that arises under the common law doctrine of agency, respondeat superior, the responsibility of the superior for the acts of their subordinate or, in a broader sense, the responsibility of any third party that had the "right, ability, or duty to control" the activities of a violator. It can be distinguished from contributory liability, another form of secondary liability, which is rooted in the tort theory of enterprise liability because, unlike contributory infringement, knowledge is not an element of vicarious liability. The law has developed the view that some relationships by their nature require the person who engages others to accept responsibility for the wrongdoing of those others. The most important such relationship for practical purposes is that of employer and employee.

A deed is a legal document that is signed and delivered, especially concerning the ownership of property or legal rights. Specifically, in common law, a deed is any legal instrument in writing which passes, affirms or confirms an interest, right, or property and that is signed, attested, delivered, and in some jurisdictions, sealed. It is commonly associated with transferring (conveyancing) title to property. The deed has a greater presumption of validity and is less rebuttable than an instrument signed by the party to the deed. A deed can be unilateral or bilateral. Deeds include conveyances, commissions, licenses, patents, diplomas, and conditionally powers of attorney if executed as deeds. The deed is the modern descendant of the medieval charter, and delivery is thought to symbolically replace the ancient ceremony of livery of seisin.

The traditional phrase signed, sealed and delivered refers to the practice of using seals; however, attesting witnesses have replaced seals to some extent. An agreement under seal may also be called a contract by deed or a specialty; in the United States, a specialty is enforceable without consideration. In some jurisdictions, specialties have a liability limitation period of double that of a simple contract and allow for a third party beneficiary to enforce an undertaking in the deed.

An act is an instrument that records a fact or something that has been said, done, or agreed. Acts generally take the form of legal instruments of writing that have probative value and executory force. They are usually accepted as self-authenticating demonstrative evidence in court proceedings, though with the precarious status of notaries public and their acts under common law, this is not always so.

Common types of acts are legislative, judicial, and notarial acts.

In common law, a writ is a formal written order issued by a body with administrative or judicial jurisdiction; in modern usage, this body is generally a court. Warrants, prerogative writs, subpoenas, and certiorari are common types of writs, but many forms exist and have existed.

In its earliest form, a writ was simply a written order made by the English monarch to a specified person to undertake a specified action; for example, in the feudal era, a military summons by the king to one of his tenants-in-chief to appear dressed for battle with retinue at a specific place and time. An early usage survives in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and some other Commonwealth countries in a writ of election, which is a written order issued on behalf of the monarch (in Canada, by the Governor General and, in Australia, by the Governor-General for elections for the House of Representatives, or state governors for state elections) to local officials to hold a general election. Writs were used by the medieval English kings to summon people to Parliament (then consisting primarily of the House of Lords) whose advice was considered valuable or who were particularly influential, and who were thereby deemed to have been created "barons by writ".