As
with every other area of life,
legislation comes with some jargon
that, once mastered, won’t
hamper your understanding of the
law. Here are some brief definitions
of some terms you may encounter
when researching federal or state
statutes:
Annotated Codes: Publications
that combine state or federal
statutes with summaries of cases
that have interpreted the statutes.
With a very few exceptions,
annotated codes are only available
in a law library.
Bill: What a statute
is called when it is introduced
in Congress or a state legislature.
When a bill is passed by both
houses and the President or
a state governor, it will usually
be published according to its
bill number in a publication
called "Session
Laws " or "Statutes at Large."
Bill Number: Bills are
referred to by their number.
The number really has two parts:
the abbreviation for the specific
wing of the legislature in which
the bill is introduced, as in
HB (house bill) or SB (senate
bill), and the number which
identifies the particular bill,
as in HB 1507.
Chapter: A term that
identifies a group of related
state or federal statutes that
have been gathered together
within a particular Title or Code.
Chaptered: A bill becomes
chaptered if it clears the legislature
and is signed by the governor.
Citation: Formal references
to statutes that describe where
they are published. For instance,
the citation 23 Vt. Stat. Ann.
Section 1185 tells us that this
cited statute is Section 1185
of Title 23 of the Vermont Statutes
Annotated. And the federal citation
42 USC 1395 tells us that this
cited federal statute can be
found in Title 42, Section 1395
of the United States Code.
Code:
In general the term "Code" refers
to the main body of statutes
of the jurisdiction (for example,
the United States Code or the
Arizona State Code). The statutes
that are published in a state’s
Code are grouped by subject
matter into Titles, as in Title 11 of the United States Code
(bankruptcy laws). In some states,
including California, Texas
and New York, the term "code"
may be used both to refer to
the overall collection of statutes
and the separate subject matter
groupings of statutes, as in
"Penal Code," "Family Code"
or "Probate Code."
Engrossed: A bill is
engrossed when a legislative
body (such as the House) votes
to approve it and sends it on
to the other legislative body
(such as the Senate).
Enrolled: A bill is
enrolled when both houses of
a legislative body have voted
to approve it and it has been
sent on to the executive branch
(the President or a state governor)
for signing.
Legislative history:
Assorted materials that are
generated in the course of creating
legislation, including committee
reports, analysis by legislative
counsel, floor debates and a
history of actions taken. Legislative
history for recently enacted
federal statutes can be found
at http://thomas.loc.gov.
Legislative history for state
statutes is sparse and not easily
found on the Web.
Session
Laws: When bills become
law, they are published in a
text according to the session
of the legislature that enacted
them into law. For instance,
laws passed by the California
legislature in 1999 were passed
in the 1999-2000 session. The
individual laws in the publication
for a particular session (such
as Session Laws 1999-2000) can
be found according to their
original bill number.
Statutes
at Large: See Session Laws.
Statutory Schemes: Groups
of statutes that relate to one
particular subject. For instance,
all of the federal statutes
that make up Title VII of the
Civil Rights Act (which forbids
employment discrimination and
sexual harassment) are known
as a statutory scheme because
they are all related to each
other.
Title:
In the federal system and in
some states, "title" is used
to denote a collection of state
or federal statutes by subject
matter, as in Title 11 of the
U.S. Code for bankruptcy statutes
or Title 42 of the U.S. Code
for civil rights statutes. Title
is also used to denote a group
of statutes within a larger
set of statutes, as in Title
IX of the Civil Rights Act (which
itself is located in Title 42
of the U.S. Code).
The
Role of Statutes in our Legal
System
When people talk about "what
the law says" or "what the law
is," they are generally referring
to statutes (sometimes called
codes). Statutes, which are
created by the U.S. Congress
and by our state legislators,
attempt to lay out the ground
rules of "the law." When disputes
arise over the meaning of statutes,
state and federal courts issue
court opinions that interpret
the statutes more clearly --
this is referred to as "case
law." In addition, numerous
federal and state agencies,
such as the Environmental Protection
Agency, the IRS and the various
Secretary of State's offices,
issue regulations that cover
the legal areas that the agencies
control (such as environmental
law, federal taxes and corporations
law).
Should
I Search Federal or State Statutes?
Most legal research involves
state statutes rather than federal
statutes because states have
the power to make the law in
many areas, such as child custody,
divorce, landlord-tenant, small
business, personal injury and
wills and trusts. A growing
number of legal areas now involve
both state and federal statutes,
including consumer protection,
employment, and food and drug
regulation. (State laws give
way to federal laws that address
the same issue.) Finally, the
federal government alone creates
the law for a few specific subject
areas, such as copyrights, patents,
bankruptcy, federal taxes and
Social Security.
How to Find a Statute
There are two main ways to
find a particular state or federal
statute on a state's website
-- by doing a search or by browsing
the table of contents. Not all
states allow you to do a search,
but for the ones that do, you
simply enter a few terms that
relate to the subject you're
looking for. For instance, in
you're looking for the minimum
number of directors that your
state requires a corporation
to have, you might enter the
terms "corporation" and "director."
| How
to do a Good
Search |
|
To
do a good
search you
need to anticipate
the words
used in the
statutes you
are searching.
For instance,
if you are
looking for
a statute
regarding
drunk driving
in a car,
you might
choose to
use the search
terms "vehicle"
and "under
the influence."
If that search
pulled up
hundreds of
statutes,
you probably
want to narrow
the search
instead of
reading each
statute. You
might add
the words
"alcohol"
and "breath."
On the other
hand, if the
search doesn’t
pull up any
statutes,
you probably
want to broaden
the search
by using fewer
search terms. |
|
Browsing the table of contents
of statutes is often a better
way to find laws on your subject
because it lets you look first
at the general subjects (Titles,
or sometimes Divisions). From
there you can move to particular
topics (Chapters, or sometimes
Articles), and then to the precise
statutes you need (Sections).
By browsing, you also get a
general idea of all the statutes
there are on a specific subject.
| Make
Sure to Read Related
Statutes
|
| If
you are interested
in a particular
area of the law
(for example,
small claims court
procedures), you
need to read all
relevant statutes
on that subject.
If you don't,
you may miss an
important statute
that contradicts
the law you have
found. For instance,
one small claims
statute may tell
you that small
claims court can
be used for claims
involving $5,000
or less while
another statute
that appears later
in the chapter
may set a lower
dollar limit for
cases involving
evictions.
Fortunately,
most statutes
are organized
in clumps called
"statutory schemes,"
which are published
together in one
Title, Chapter,
Section or Act.
So, once you find
a statute on your
subject, it’s
simply a matter
of finding out
where the statutory
scheme starts
(usually by backing
up to earlier
statutes) and
then reading all
related statutes
until you reach
a new Title, Chapter,
Section or Act.
For example, if
you do a search
on small claims
procedure and
find a relevant
statute, you would
then need to browse
forwards and backwards
until you are
convinced that
you’ve found
every statute
that may bear
on that issue.
|
|
How to Read a Statute
Some statutes are clearly written,
meaning that you can easily
understand exactly what the
legislature intended and what
"the law" is on a particular
subject. Unfortunately, many
statutes are very difficult
to understand. Exceptions to
the statute, "whereases" and
cross-references to other statutes
can make it very hard to understand
what a statute means. Here are
some rules to use when interpreting
a statute:
- Make sure you understand
the statute.
- Pay close attention to all
the "ands" and "ors." The
use of "and" to end a series
means that all elements of
the series are included, or necessary,
but an "or" at the end of
a series means that only one
of the elements need be included.
- Assume all words and punctuation
in the statute have meaning.
It’s tempting to skip
words you don’t quite
understand and ignore awkward
punctuation. Try no to do
that.
- If the statute is but one
of a number you are studying,
interpret it to be consistent
with the other statutes if
at all possible.
- Interpret a statute so that
it makes sense rather than
lead to some absurd or improbable
result.
- Track down all cross-references
to other statutes and sections
and read those statutes
and sections.
How
to Make Sure a Statute Is Up to
Date
Once a statute becomes law, it
seldom remains unchanged for very
long. A future legislature may
change (amend) or revoke (repeal)
a statute for any number of reasons.
Unfortunately, many online collections
of statutes are not kept up to
date. For one, the online U.S.
Code is often a year behind-it
takes a lot of time to work new
federal legislation into the existing
organizational framework. In this
case, you can use Thomas, a Congressional website that provides both
pending and recently enacted legislation,
to find out if there have been
any recent changes to the statute
you're interested in.
In addition, many state collections
of statutes are not up to date,
but the state website will usually
tell you the year that the collection
was last updated. For example,
if you link to Texas's collection
of statutes, you'll see that
it is only up to date as far
as the end of 1997. Since more
than two years have passed,
you are alerted to the fact
that you may have to do some
updating. In Texas's case, the
legislature meets every two
years--it met during 1997 and
during 1999. That means that
the changes and additions to
the law that the Texas legislature
made in 1999 have not yet been
added to Texas's online collection,
so you'll need to find out if
any statutes you're interested
in were amended or repealed
by the legislature in 1999.
You can do this by doing a search
of all the bills passed in your
state in 1999. The text of these
bills is available on your state
legislature's website, which
is often linked from your state's
statutes.
The
Role of Court Cases in Understanding
Statutes
When most people talk about "the
law," they tend to think only
of statutes. But when disputes
arises over the meaning of statutes,
judges are sometimes called on
to interpret the statutes. Judges'
interpretations of those statutes
-- called "opinions," "decisions"
or "cases" -- are as important
to understanding what the law
is as the words of the statutes
itself. So once you find a statute
that seems to address your situation,
you might want to take the next
step and see what the courts have
had to say about it.
Finding a U.S.
Supreme Court Case
The Supreme Court is the highest
federal court in the country,
and the opinions of the majority
of its judges (called "justices")
are the final word on what the
law means. The Supreme Court can
decide what a legislature meant
when it wrote a law, or it can
even overturn (revoke) a federal
or state statutes if it finds
it unconstitutional. You can find
Supreme Court opinions from the
last 100 years by clicking here. There are several different ways to find
the case you're interested in.
You can:
- browse all the Supreme Court
cases from a certain year
- search by party name (for
example, if you're searching
for the Miranda v. Arizona
case, enter "Miranda and Arizona")
- search by key terms that
you think are relevant to
the case you're searching
for (for example, enter "free
speech").
- search by the number of
the case, called its citation
(for example, 488 US 319).
