A Common Law for the Age of Statutes

by Guido Calabresi

Overview

The dominance of legislatures and statutory law has put an impossible burden on the courts. Guido Calabresi thinks it is time for this country seriously to consider returning to a traditional American judicial–legislative balance in which courts would enlarge the common law and would also decide when a rule of law has seen its day and should be revised.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674029156
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	07/01/2009
Series:	Oliver Wendell Holmes Lectures
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	331
File size:	473 KB

Table of Contents

Contents

I
Choking on Statutes


II
The Flight to the Constitution and to Equal Protection Clauses


III
The Passive Virtues


IV
Interpretation


V
The New Deal Response: Administrative Agencies


VI
Legislative Responses


VII
Structural Responses


VIII
A New Approach: Antecedents and Roots


IX
The Doctrine: A Question of Legitimacy


X
The Doctrine: Limits and Guidelines


XI
The Doctrine: Techniques and Feasibility


XII
The Role of Courts in an Age of Statutes


XIII
The Dangers of the Doctrine


XIV
The Uses and Abuses of Subterfuge


XV
The Choice for Candor


Notes


Works Cited


Table of Cases


Index

Editorial Reviews

Calabresi has brought his ample juristic talents to bear on a foundational problem of the legal and democratic process…in its quality, timeliness and provocativeness [this book] is likely to stand alongside the seminal works of Ronald Dworkin and Grant Gilmore.

Columbia Law Review

This is a genuinely original and thoughtful book, one of the few in the jurisprudential genre that is both clearly written and devoid of cliché. It addresses current social and legal issues from an engagingly fresh, nonpolemical, and erudite perspective.

American Bar Association Journal