case law

noun

: law established by judicial decision in cases

Examples of case law in a Sentence

Case law says that a person has a right to privacy.

Recent Examples on the Web

Prosecutors also accused Robinson's attorneys of relying on case law that was later rejected by the Utah Supreme Court while failing to alert the judge to those later decisions. — Stepheny Price, FOXNews.com, 19 Aug. 2026

Attorneys for State Farm apologized to a court for submitting legal briefings rife with artificial intelligence hallucinations and nonexistent case law, the latest example of lawyers bolstering their arguments with precedents made up by a chatbot. — Rebecca Ellis, Los Angeles Times, 19 Aug. 2026

Some judges were also already using AI chatbots, Mehmood says, but commercial offerings performed poorly on Pakistani legal queries, frequently hallucinating case law. — Edd Gent, IEEE Spectrum, 12 Aug. 2026

Copenhaver's attorney Bill Bock cited a heavy dose of case law and statute to claim the commission has the authority to investigate voters and that these voters don't have a right to ballot secrecy. — Cate Charron, IndyStar, 29 July 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1731, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for case law

• allantois
• baccarat
• chickasaw
• mackinaw
• overawe
• oversaw
• quebecois
• yojana
• aa
• aha
• bashaw
• bradshaw

Legal Definition

case law

noun

: law established by judicial decisions in cases as distinguished from law created by legislation

called also decisional law

see also common law