Riggs v Palmer

o Facts
Person who is beneficiary killed the buy under the will. The question is
whether he is still entitled to receive the inheritance.
Under new York law is he entitled to receive the inheritance?
o Held
Intention of the makers of the statute is as much within the letter as it is
within the statute.
What could be more unreasonable than to suppose that it was the
legislative intentionthat they should have operation in favor of one who
murdered his ancestor that he might speedily come into the possession of
his estate.
All laws as well as contracts may be controlled by fundamental maxis of the
common law
No one shall be permitted to profit by his own fraud or to take
advantage of his own wrong, or to found any claim upon his own
iniquity, or to acquire property by his own crime.
These maxis are dictated by public policy, have their foundation in universal
law administered in all civilized countries and have nowhere been
superseded by statutes.
Grey J (Dissenting)
Laws are silent, public policy does not demand it, practically the
court is asked to make another will for the testator.
o Significance
The view that Earl J was that the law comprised of universal values that
would transcend statutes

Think of Mcloughlin v OBrian
o Public Policy issues are justiciable
o IF POLICY ARGUMENTS are residual in nature, should not the court decide the case
on principles itself? This is something that people like Dworkin have been
advocating.
o Does this not mean that the concept of law changes according to the role that you
have?
o If the court cites floodgates dont refer to statistics then what is it rooted in?
o Draw line between principle and policy? Social, financial and economic goal rooted
in policy.

Ronald Dworkin
Theory of law as integrity judges interpret the law in terms of consistent and communal
moral principles especially justice and fairness.



Theoretical Disagreement
What are the grounds of a decision?
Theoretical disagreement is disagreement about the grounds of law.
o Whatever you see in a statute about the grounds of law
o You should not rewrite what the willmakers intention is.
Refer to things like fundamental maxims of common law if you contrast it with empirical
disagreement as the phrase suggests, disagreements about facts and history about what
the statutes say, what legal officials have done in the past. When lawyers and judges
disagree, they disagree about the grounds of law and what the law is.
Judges generally offer new statements of law it is not an updated repetition plain fact
view.
o Plain fact view is that law is a matter of plain fact in essence law is about history
what people have done in the past.
o The law is only a matter of what legal institutions like legislatures and city councils
have decided in the past it is always a matter of historical fact and never depends
on morality.
o The implication of the plain fact view is that when you disagree, you dont disagree
about the law, but what morality requires you to apply.
o What happens in hard cases , youre not apply law so to speak and the judge
exercises a discretion.
o So in the eyes of the plain person, what should judges do in absence of the law.
o See Riggs v Palmer were they disagreeing about what the law should be? The law
was actually was before them.
So judges need to construct the real statute from the text in the statue
book.
Two different theories of legislation in Riggs
Gray J literal
Earl J Intention
Dworkin says that legal positivist supports palin fact view because positivist theories support
the plain fact view
o Genuine disagreement about what the law is must be empirical, disagreement about
history of legal institutions
If so, then lawyers and judges merely pretend or purport to disagree about what the
law is.
If so in hard cases, lawyers and judges would have said, there is no law to discover,
lets decide what the law should be disagremeenet is thus about what law should
be.
But this is not what is seen in cases like Riggs v Palmer and Mcloughlin v OBrian they are
disagreement about what the grounds of law are. They are not reports about the past they have a
forward looking element. Under the plain fact view, they are just pretending.

External and Internal Perspective Nature of Legal Practice
External - Sociologist or historian asking why certain patterns of legal argument arise.
As a participant you make claims about why the law should be this or that.
How would ones conception of what the law is affect ones engagement with the law?
What is the role of a judge? Especially where policy is concerned



Two Major Schools of HTough

Legal Positivism Legal Positivism reference ot plain fact view of law. Law is a matter of historical
fact and never depends on morality.
No necessary connection between law and morality.
Legal validity is determined by reference to certain social facts.


Hart Theory of Law
Build upon Austins Theory
o Distinguish between internal and external aspect of rules
External person is someone who observes and describes regularities of
conduct.
If you add primary rules + secondary rules, you have a legal system. So what are primary
rules? Theyre obligations that are directed at citizens. Any common rule of law that you can
think of, even contract law.
o Primary rules must generally be obeyed by citizens for whatever reasons they hold.
o Rules of recognition must effectively be accepted as common public standards of
official behavior by its officials.
Secondary rules are rules about rules (meta rules). They identify primary rules and tell us
how primary rules may be changed and stipulate how legal disputes may be resolved. We
are concerned only with recognizing primary rules in this course.
o So too, the rules of recognition that tell us what are primary rules.


Natural Law Theory
Objectivity Existence of universal and immutable principles.
Epistemology discoverable by reasons or means accessible to all
Two prominent advocates
o Thomas Aquinas
Eternal Law god given rules governing all creation
Divine law
Natural law segment of eternal law that is discoverable through the special
process of reasoning intuitions of the natural and deeductions drawn
thereform.
Human law rules that are laid down by human authorities in accordance with
natural law.
o William Blackstone
Law of nature, being coeval with mankind, and dictated by God himself, is
superior in obligation to any other. No human laws are of any validity if contrary
to this and such of them as are valid derive all their force and all their authority,
mediately or immediately from this original
Contrast this to harts rule of recognition. Does no necessarily
incorporate a moral element.
A natural law which necessarily incorporates a moral element
determines what a legally valid human law is.
Two standards
There can be no validly legal standards that conflict with the natural law
All valid laws derive what force.

American Legal Realism
ALS as precursor to CLS in terms of chronology ALR came first. There is much variation
between each school.