Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2016
ISSN
2048-481X
Publisher
Institute on the School of Advanced Study
Language
en-US
Abstract
The common law remains an intellectual battle ground in Anglo-American legal systems, even in the current age of statutes. This is true in significant part because the common law provides legitimacy for arguments actually based on policy, ideology, and interest. It also is true because of the common law's malleability and related susceptibility to significantly varied interpretations.
Mere contention over the meaning of the common law to provide legitimacy for modern statutes is most often not productive of sensible policy, however. It generally produces no more than reified doctrine unsuited for problems the common law was not framed to solve. Yet, when viewed more flexibly, not to find doctrinal rules, but rather to find insight from the collective judgment of judges about the weighing of social values, examining the common law may have a different kind of use for modern policy makers.
Recommended Citation
Michael C. Harper,
A more fundamental distinction for the contemporary economy between employee and independent contractor status
,
107
Amicus Curiae
9
(2016).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/1583
