Legislatures expanded into fields courts once exclusively governed

Evidence

This is a complex society, and governing it calls for many detailed rules. New technology tends to bring new law. Consider, for example, how much law is on the books because of, or about, the automobile—​traffic rules, speed limits, driver’s licenses, and so on. It may be true that courts have sometimes fudged the borders between their work and that of legislatures; but it is undeniable that legislatures have stepped in to regulate matters that were historically the turf of common-​law courts. For example, there was a vast body of law (and litigation) on industrial accidents in the nineteenth century; the courts created and developed almost all of the rules. Around the time of the First World War, the states began to pass workers’ compensation laws, which covered most of this field and basically changed the rules of the game. — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law, 455

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: This transfer of industrial-accident law from courts to legislatures is scaffolding for any argument that law is historically made through institutional competition — parallel to how sacrifice/ritual regimes get displaced by formal state codes.
• XREF: connects to: Congress delegates because it lacks time and expertise for detail — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law: An Introduction, 478; State governments shifted power from legislatures to executives and courts over time — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 668; Formalizing law expands the judiciary into an omnipresent public service — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at…, 945 (+10 more)

Broader Connections

• State governments shifted power from legislatures to executives and courts over time #contradicts (0.80) — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 668
• Formalizing law expands the judiciary into an omnipresent public service #expands (0.75) — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, 945
• Court composition changes drove litigants to shift between courts and legislatures #contradicts (0.75) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 3143
• Implicit negotiation between courts and legislatures shapes common law even absent statute #complicates (0.75) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 3539
• Court structural reforms produce diverse and often unanticipated governance effects #expands (0.70) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 459
• Congress eliminated the circuit courts and created the courts of appeals #exemplifies (0.70) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 456
• Government expansion, not activist judges, explains the growth of judicial policymaking. #qualifies (0.70) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1499
• The Constitution left the federal courts’ structure to Congress by design #qualifies (0.70) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 277
• Colonial bureaucratization absorbed shari’a courts into the modernizing state apparatus #exemplifies (0.70) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 1003
• The legislative power’s location determines a government’s entire form #qualifies (0.70) — John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 159