Black Letter Law is a well-established and non-controversial legal term used to refer to generally accepted case law. It is not related to Black’s Law Dictionary and likely refers to blackletter type. Other terms for well-established law include Hornbook and Corny law. The older and more frequently accepted a law is, the more likely it is to be considered incontrovertible. The black letter law underlies the law and is used to support various interpretations of it.
The Black Letter Law is a well-established law and generally considered to be non-controversial. In some regions of the world, lawyers may also use this term to refer to generally accepted case law. In legal discussions, when people use this term, they generally do so with the implication that the law in question is accepted and not up for debate, in contrast to other types of law which may be more open to interpretation.
This legal term is one of many often attributed to false origins. People commonly say that it is related to a famous American text, Black’s Law Dictionary, but in reality it is not. The term “black law” appeared in Supreme Court decisions nearly 50 years before this dictionary was published. The term is more likely a reference to blackletter type, a family of fonts that was commonly used to print legal text even after it had fallen out of favor elsewhere.
Other terms people may use for a well-established law include the book of horns law and the corny law. The “Hornbook law” is a reference to a simple, basic, and widely accepted law that people learn early in their legal education. In all cases, the terms are used when speaking of laws generally considered to be quite clear and not nebulous in nature. Many of these laws come from common law, with hundreds of years of history behind them, and people without legal training are often at least vaguely familiar with them.
Because lawyers often question, challenge, and reinterpret the law as part of their job, it’s important to distinguish literal law from other types of law. Not surprisingly, there is sometimes debate in the legal community about whether or not a law should be considered incontrovertible. Generally, the older a law and the more frequently it has been accepted in court and in legal treaties, the more likely it is to be rated as generally accepted.
Changing societies require changing laws and different interpretations of existing legal precedents. This is critical to making a legal system work, as it cannot remain stagnant. However, the black letter law often underlies the law and is used in arguments to support various interpretations of the law. An attorney might argue, for example, that a reading of the relevant black letter law supports his or her interpretation of a particular statute.
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