Also known as: existing law
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
The corpus of positive law currently in force. It encompasses statutes, precedents, and other binding rules that courts must apply to decide disputes.
Levi Lowe sued Legacy Motors for breach after the company refused to honor a written warranty. His lawyer certified that the claim rested on settled precedent interpreting identical warranty language. The court accepted the filing because the contentions tracked existing doctrine without needing any extension.
Lucas Lee faced a theft prosecution. His counsel contested every element at trial even though the facts were undisputed. The defense was proper because the attorney could require the state to prove each element under current doctrine.
Lola Langley responded to requests for production by stating that all responsive emails had been produced after a vendor search. She certified the response only after confirming the search covered active servers and archived files. The certification satisfied the rule because it rested on existing discovery standards.
Lunar Dynamics moved to dismiss a coverage suit by citing a controlling Supreme Court decision that interpreted identical policy language. The motion relied solely on that settled holding rather than any novel theory.
In the late 1970s, ISO, an association of approximately 1,400 domestic property and casualty insurers that serves as the almost exclusive source of support services for CGL insurance in the United States, began revising its 1973 standard CGL policy form. The 1973 form provided occurrence-based coverage for sudden and accidental pollution and did not cap defense costs. Primary insurers including Hartford Fire Insurance Company, Allstate Insurance Company, Aetna Casualty and Surety Company, and CIGNA Corporation sought four changes: a shift to claims-made coverage with a retroactive date, elimination of pollution coverage, and a legal defense cost cap. After ISO proposed 1984 forms that omitted some of these changes, Hartford persuaded General Reinsurance Corporation, the largest American reinsurer, to procure the modifications or derail the program. The Reinsurance Association of America agreed to boycott the 1984 forms unless the changes were added, and domestic and London reinsurers informed ISO they would withhold reinsurance until the forms were altered. ISO then withdrew the 1984 forms and adopted 1986 forms containing a retroactive date and pollution exclusion; it later withdrew support services for the 1973 form. Separate agreements among London reinsurers required primary insurers to switch to claims-made policies and excluded pollution coverage from reinsurance contracts covering North American risks. Nineteen states and many private plaintiffs filed 36 complaints alleging that these actions violated section 1 of the Sherman Act. The cases were consolidated in the Northern District of California. The District Court granted motions to dismiss in 1989, holding the conduct fell within McCarran-Ferguson immunity and applying international comity to the foreign defendants. The Ninth Circuit reversed in 1991. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in 1992.
View caseLogan Lane was charged under a city ordinance that had never been applied to his conduct. His lawyer argued that prior precedent already rendered the statute unconstitutionally vague on its face.
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View caseLucy Liu refused to answer questions in a state proceeding. Her attorney relied on a Supreme Court decision incorporating the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination to the states.
In November 1959, Harold Malloy was arrested during a gambling raid in Hartford, Connecticut, on charges related to pool selling. He pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor, receiving a sentence of one year in jail and a five-hundred-dollar fine, with the jail term suspended after ninety days followed by two years of probation. Approximately sixteen months later, Malloy was subpoenaed to appear before a referee appointed by the Superior Court of Hartford County to investigate alleged gambling and other criminal activities in the county. During the inquiry, he was questioned about the circumstances of his 1959 arrest and conviction, including the identity of his employer, who paid his fine and bondsman, the tenant of the apartment where he was arrested, and whether he knew a man named John Bergoti. Malloy refused to answer any of these questions, asserting that his responses might tend to incriminate him. The Superior Court adjudged Malloy in contempt and ordered him committed to prison until he answered the questions. The Connecticut Supreme Court of Errors affirmed the contempt adjudication, holding that the Fifth Amendment privilege was unavailable in state proceedings and that Malloy had not properly invoked the state constitutional privilege. Malloy then sought federal habeas corpus relief in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut, which was denied, and the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the dismissal. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider the constitutional questions presented.
View caseLex lata consists of the statutes, precedents, and rules already in force. A lawyer may rely on it directly. An argument to extend or reverse that body of law must be identified as nonfrivolous and presented separately under the certification rules.
A lawyer may rely solely on lex lata when the claims or contentions are warranted by existing statutes or binding precedent. No separate nonfrivolous extension argument is required in that situation.
Yes. The signer must certify that the response is consistent with the rules and warranted by existing law or a nonfrivolous argument for change. A bare assertion without reasonable inquiry into current standards violates the rule.
Yes. The lawyer may defend by requiring the prosecution to establish each element under current doctrine. This remains true even if the defense does not contest the underlying facts.
…statute before us falls within the commerce power would not expand the scope of that Clause. Rather, it simply would apply pre-existing law to changing economic circumstances. See Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States , 379 U. S. 241, 251 (1964). It would recognize that, in today's economic world, gun-related violence…