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"Common law is a type of legal system in which the law is created and/or refined by courts on a case-by-case basis. In resolving a legal dispute, an "ideal" common law court looks to precedent of other courts. If a similar dispute has been resolved in the past, the court is bound to follow the reasoning used in the prior decision (this principle is known as stare decisis). If, however, the court finds that the current dispute is fundamentally distinct from all previous cases, it will resolve the matter itself, with reference to general legal guidelines. Thereafter, the new decision becomes precedent, and will bind future courts under the principle of stare decisis. The body of decisions of adjudicatory tribunals are collectively known as "common law."
In practice, common law systems are considerably more complicated than the "ideal" system described above. The decisions of a court are binding only in a particular jurisdiction, and even within a given jurisdiction, some courts have more power than others. Decisions by appellate courts, for example, are given priority over the decisions of lower courts in the same jurisdiction.
Common law as opposed to statutory law and regulatory law: This connotation distinguishes the authority that promulgated a law. For example, in most areas of law in most jurisdictions in the United States, there are "statutes" enacted by a legislature, "regulations" promulgated by executive branch agencies pursuant to a delegation of rule-making authority from a legislature, and common law or "case law", i.e. decisions issued by courts (or quasi-judicial tribunals within agencies).
In 1938, the U.S. Supreme Court in Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins 304 U.S. 64, 78 (1938), overruled earlier precedent[9], and held "There is no federal general common law," thus confining the federal courts to act only as interpreters of law originating elsewhere, and requiring the federal courts to defer to state court interpretations of state statutes."
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