Module 6

Statutes and cases together: reading the text first, how courts interpret it, briefing a case about a statute and building a rule from both

In most countries, and in most fields of law, the starting point is no longer a case but a text written by a legislature: a statute, a code or a constitution. Courts still decide the disputes, and many of the cases you read are about what the words of that text mean. A student who reads the case without the text cannot tell what the court was interpreting, and a student who reads the text without the cases does not know what it has been held to mean. This module teaches how to do both together: how a statute is built, how to read it slowly, how courts argue about its meaning, how to brief a case about a statute and how to join the text and the decisions into one rule.

General education on reading and briefing court decisions, using invented people, cases, statutes and courts. It is not legal advice, it does not state the law of any country and it does not predict how any teacher or examiner will mark. Follow the instructions of your own school and teacher.