What is Civil law and Common Law?

Civil law is the dominant legal tradition today in most of Europe, all of Central and South America, parts of Asia and Africa, and even some discrete areas of the common-law world (e.g., Louisiana, Quebec, and Puerto Rico). Public international law and the law of the European Community are in large part the product of persons trained in the civil-law tradition. Civil law is older, more widely distributed, and in many ways more influential than the common law.

What is Common law?

Common law is generally uncodified. This means that there is no comprehensive compilation of legal rules and statutes. While common law does rely on some scattered statutes, which are legislative decisions, it is largely based on precedent, meaning the judicial decisions that have already been made in similar cases.

What is Civil Law?

Definition of Civil Law--Civil law seeks to resolve non-criminal disputes such as disagreements over the meaning of contracts, property ownership, divorce, child custody, and damages for personal and property damage. A civil court is a place where people can solve their problems with people peacefully. The function of civil law is to provide a legal remedy to solve problems. Sometimes civil law is based on a state or federal statute; at other times civil law is based on a ruling by the court.

Types of Civil Cases

Civil law covers a wide spectrum of topics. Some of these topics are:

• consumer law
• international law                      
• agricultural law
• employment law
• animal law
• entertainment law
• business law
• family law
• sports law
• tax law
• Intentional torts such as libel, slander, defamation of character, battery and assault.
• negligence

Parties in a Civil Law Case

Plaintiff--the person who feels he or she has not been treated fairly by another person and seeks a solution in a civil court. This party has the burden of proving that he or she was treated unfairly.
Defendant--the person who the plaintiff claims has treated him or her unfairly.